Studio Exercise

Group Members: Cameron Coker, Laura Murphy


On Tuesday night, Cameron, Laura, and I constructed two triangles of white foam board (one triangle half the size of the other) to project onto.  We decided our mood should be Mystic.  After we constructed the triangles, we placed them on white roll paper as a background and base.  Laura and Cameron made additional animations to test on the triangles.  Since Cameron ran VPT, I helped spot the points on the physical triangles.

Laura's idea was to have the triangle shadows transfer between each other.  Cameron found ink footage that could be used.  Since the videos generally have white backgrounds, Laura and I had to edit them in AfterEffects to properly adjust the opacity.  Unfortunately, we were unable to saturate the ink footage to the same value of the triangle shadows.  We thought it would be interesting to have similar triangle shadows on the curved part of the white paper behind the triangles.  Laura created a desaturated image of a triangle that Cameron placed adjacent to the actual triangle's shadows.  As for music, we thought it would be appropriate to find ambience since our mood is Mystic.  I found our current piece of music for the exercise titled, "Midnight Lights":


http://www.newgrounds.com/audio/listen/369919


Final Video

Circuitree Presentation

Demo

Presentation Slides

Research


Limbo


Wii mote/Unity Demo


Though limbo is a platformer, it generally displays the mysterious look and feel we were going for.  


As for the wii mote demo, this is eventually what we would like to achieve.  It was our original plan to navigate the environment in this manner.  


User Experience


First Person Experience: As for navigation, the interface could definitely be improved.  Even though we were unable to use a wiimote, we believe the kinect would fit our project more appropriately.  As for the physical size of the projection, we feel it was rather successful.  If you stand in front of the screen, it feels as if you are in the environment.  


Second Person Experience: Logan  "I thought it was pretty cool, I liked it a lot.  I guess if you had to do more, you could have added in a kinect to get a more subversive experience.  But overall, great job!"


Third Person Experience: Chris  "It's even better because you don't have to worry about controlling it"


Was it immersive?


"Yes, it would have been even more on that curved screen"

New Updates

My team decided it would be less immersive for the user to navigate through a maze.  Instead, we have a dense forest with some infected red trees.  We have a separate area (which is gated) for the source of the virus, which is a hill with infected columns and ruins.  The gate has 9 lights on it (representing the 9 infected trees).  When the user disinfects a tree, a light on the gate will turn green.  After the user heals the trees, the gate will open to the hill.  The user then has to heal the red, infected columns, then go to the center of the ruins to heal the rotating orb.  An idle animation for the worm in the environment when the user confronts the source of the virus.  The worm will die when the user heals the rotating orb in the center of the ruins.  Besides the idle animation, I did a "death" animation where the worm dramatically falls to the ground.  

Worm Rig

My team decided we would like a couple of animations for the worm in our environment, so naturally, a rig for the worm was required.  I could not find any straight-forward tutorials for a worm rig, but I was able to refer to a snake references and rigs.  Oscar suggested to use a spline IK chain for the body.  Additional bones were added for the legs, mouth, tusks, and head. Oscar created the controls for the rig.  The worm's textures mirror the infected trees.

Worm Model

The worm took longer than expected.  I thought the worm's segments would be easy to duplicate since they are generally the same length throughout its body.  The duplication was simple, but the joining of vertices tended to be meticulous and time consuming. Here is the final model for the worm:

Worm

After thorough discussion, we decided to change the Trojan virus to a Worm.  The Trojan, though easily recognizable, is stereotypical and cliche.  It is often used as a symbol of computer viruses.  The Worm is more suitable for our forest-like environment. I did a concept sketch of worm and am currently working on the model.  Here are some references I used to create the Worm design, along with the sketch. 

My design for our Worm

Concept Designs

Here are preliminary concept designs for the trees and trojan virus.  For reference, I looked at the trees from the game Okami.  I liked the dead look of the trees in Okami.  Since the trees are infected in our project, I figured a dead, sharp look was appropriate.  Our user is going to be able to disinfect the trees.  When they are healed, the red lights on the tree will turn green.  Oscar, Rheeny, and I tested out the red to green animation on the trees.

Okami

Studio Exercise

This environment is based on the inner-workings of a computer.  The user would log into a computer, the computer becomes "infected", and then they would be plunged into the environment/computer.  It beings with the character "Spybot" in the middle of a jungle maze, a symbol of the complexity of the outer rim of the computer hardware, where they would explore the space, all infected, searching for the source of the infection.  They would eventually come out to the motherboard - a giant castle in the middle of the jungle.  The character would make his way through the great hall - a clean, structured environment, symbolizing the core structure of the computer, based in the motherboard.  The source - the Trojan - would be found in the very center of the building, where it had established itself as a virus.  

Preliminary ideas

Front View

Side View

Plan View

User Navigation

Storyboard of concept