Creative Media Futures Project - Introduction (9th June)
- Ryan Harlee Jones
- Jun 9, 2018
- 5 min read
What is this and upcoming posts about?
The Futures Project is another module I am currently undertaking on my Masters course at university. This module specifically focuses on students approaching creating content to be used with VR technology in mind. Future posts labelled with the "Futures Project" tag line will be updating my website blog with progress on the project relating to this module.
What is your project about?
As mentioned before hand, this project focuses on the student making use of their personal discipline with the restraint of VR in mind. Considering that I am focused on environment creation and asset design, I made sure to choose a project that focuses in this area.
This module had the option of working in a group or by yourself, for this module I eventually decided to work in a team with three other artists.
The project our team decided to work on, was a continuation of a project from a prior module. Two members of the team were individuals who had worked on the project before hand, while myself and one of the other artists were new to the project.
The project they had created was decided by a brief given to them by a tutor who had some interest from clients outside of the university. The tutor put forward the prospect to the class to see who was interested in undertaking the task. The task was to create a VR experience that focused on William Brewster, an individual who was a passenger on the ship the "Mayflower".
William was one of the first people to leave the UK to voyage to North America to become colonists. The Mayflower, was the ship that this group of people voyaged on across the ocean.
The clients wanted an educational VR experience about this event, that could be made use of at the 400th year anniversary event in 2020. This would be used to help engage the public during the event, and also to allow people to take a moment to experience the aesthetic and atmosphere of William Brewster's manor, which would have intractable objects that could be examined alongside relevant historical information.
Fig 01 - 05. Pilgrim VR (SHU Students, 2018)
Pilgrim VR Trailer:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4g1vj3yrU5c
What do you plan to accomplish in your project?
The team before us managed to create the VR framework that allowed the user to interact with objects, move around the room, rotate without feeling ill and some other smaller pieces. The team had also managed to create two separate rooms, the study and the chapel. Both of these rooms had around 2 - 3 separate items that could be viewed and interacted with, alongside other assets that helped fill out the feel and aesthetic of the environments.
Our team plan to expand on the visual side of the project further. Considering we do not have access to programmers, which the team beforehand did, means that we would have great difficulty adding extra functionality to the game unless it was reasonable to accomplish in blueprints considering this is being created in the Unreal Engine.
Our whole team being artists, and also considering that we will be being marked for what we add to the experience, we decided to focus on creating a whole new room, and decided upon creating the kitchen. The reason for this was because William Brewster as an individual wasn't very materialistic, and this meant the other two rooms were very bare apart from the essentials that he needed. The kitchen on the other hand had a lot of different objects that would be needed to be able to cook reasonably healthy and varied meals. This allowed us to create a room that wouldn't end up being finished after a handful of assets, giving us all plenty to work on. The goal is to create the kitchen environment in such a way, that it feels immersive to the player when in VR. If possible, reusing the code available to us for interacting with specific objects would be nice to continue the theme of historical information being taught to the user.
Why have you chosen to work in a group, and on this specific project?
There are one or two different reasons I chose to work on this project, and alongside other members of the course. One of the reasons for choosing the project was that I had not attempted to create realistically rendered assets since about 3 - 4 years back at the start of my undergraduate degree. I feel as though, even if I want to focus on stylised work that I should challenge myself in this area to make sure that I'm not missing valuable fundamentals that I need to know. I'm aware that a lot of the approaches between different styles are shared, so by working on my realism, I may well learn approaches and techniques that will help my overall approach to any of my work. Another reason for working on the project was that it had a client. Regardless of what position our team leave the project at, if it ever gets finished to completion by later years at university, I'll have my name on the end of the product. This will allow me to say I technically have a released product, letting me add that extra piece of experience to my CV.
Working with a team was hard choice, as I had just finished leading a team for the prior module. Although enjoyable, I was debating whether I wanted to add the pressure of finishing tasks to allow other people to start other tasks etc, and making it so that I had to follow a different routine to what I would be following if I worked alone. In the end, the two artists which offered us the position to work with them on the project, was the deciding factor. Both of these individuals had a very high standard of work that they accomplished, and worked hard on their coursework. The team makeup between members seemed to be sturdy and reliable, making it a comfortable choice. Although, what sold me personally, was the feedback that I would be able to get from these team members, and what I could learn from them. One of these artists took the position of lead artist, and considering I hadn't had much experience with realism, I thought that the feedback I would get from both of them would teach me a lot, and help me along in my approach to bettering myself in this area.
What can we expect from future posts?
Future posts on this project will be done weekly unless I have focused on another module and haven't done much that couldn't be mentioned alongside a busier week. More than likely with the way the module works, the future posts will consist of assets that I have created, research in approaching these assets if necessary, progress on the scene as a whole in conjunction with the deadline and how everything functions alongside VR.
-RyanHarleeJones
References:
Dave Wilson (2018) Trailer for PilgrimVR [Video Stills]. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4g1vj3yrU5c (Accessed: 11/06/2018) Fig.1 - 5
Comentarios