Student Area

Don’t scare the bug

manflybug

Authors: Cindy Hsu, Vanessa Kim, Omar Cheikh-Ali

This is a game about the anxiety of having an unwanted bug in your personal space. Don’t move, or the bug will get angry at you. (There is physical feedback in this game)

Originally we wanted this game to be played in a VR headset, and things were looking good for that up until this past weekend when we ran into some strange problems with cameras flipping out, and scenes rapidly switching back and forth unprompted.

Controls: Mouse to look.

Builds: https://drive.google.com/open?id=0BzQVO0EXIPVna2VRYkdQN3NqUk0

Eyecandy : The Fall

I’m continuing my research into character motion with this piece.  This is a study of Unity’s Ragdoll physics applied to a 3D model of Mickey Mouse.  Mickey begin 500 meters above the surface and falls onto the low-poly landscape.  He initially strikes a glass Pyramid and slides down the face.

I attempted to have Micky wake up after the fall and move with the animations used in Not So Still Life, however that has proved problematic in Unity.

 

Rainy Afternoon: Interactive Sound Scape

I want to place the viewer inside a crowded cafe. From conversation murmur, to roadwork, stormy weather, and the clinking of silverware, I want to create an overwhelmingly noise polluted environment. The user will control the noise pollution using mic input. The louder the user, the quieter the scene will become. Once the user is screaming, the rain will have cleared, cars will have stopped, and the patrons of the cafe will have all stopped talking and turn to stare towards the user with perturbed expressions.

I would ideally like to use Youtube-Cardboard but this project can be relatively simple mainly relying on earphones with built in mics.

cafe-moodboard

Initial State – Final State Sketches:

new-doc-2_1

User’s POV

new-doc-2_2

Weathered

I want to create an environment that adjusts based on light sensitivity, with the intent of simulating the feelings associated with seasonal affective disorder. The analog input would be a light sensor of some sort, a simple example that comes to mind is a photocell.

The scene would start out with a very bright, sunny day, in a peaceful outdoor scene with a calming atmosphere. As less light is detected, the scene will slowly become more tumultuous and stormy and transition indoors to an empty room, fading to black when the sensor reads no light.

flower-field peaceful-meadow cloudy-day lonely-bedroom

Midsemester project

Inspired by my fear of sailing, I want to create a virtual reality experience that mirrors my experiences while also giving others an insight into those fears.

My general concept is for the player to be piloting a sailboat, whose speed is controlled by a sensor held in front of the player that detects air blown from the player’s mouth. (blowing harder => sailboat goes faster)

Additionally, as the boat goes faster, the environment grows more dismal and stormy and the boat starts to tip, hopefully causing the player to want to stop blowing on the sensor.

Challenges:

  • compelling water effects in unity
  • allowing for sensor to interface with unity (probably just microphone??)
  • communicating fear vs. communicating exhilaration

Floating/Falling Islands

Ideally, I’d like my interaction to be an update when the user blinks. Since the hardware for that doesn’t exist yet, I’d simulate it with a button press. It would start off as a beautiful fantasy landscape with floating islands and bridges, and on each blink/button press, it would degrade a little bit more, until the whole thing has fallen to ruin.

 

floating-cities-fantasy-9926

530731-artwork-bridges-fantasy-art-floating-islands-skies-trees

floating-islands

Proposal: Audio Aurora

My idea is a scene that takes in audio as input. The default state is black, but it can parse volume/pitch and creates an aurora-like visual sound wave on different inputs.

Another potential play mode: the scenes outputs a specific sequence that the player needs to mirror, and plays a specific animation upon successful completion.

Ideal interaction mode: Possibly VR but doesn’t really have to be (could just be a fixed screen, since the start state is pure black). Definitely needs a microphone of some sort, but ideally it would be a headset/portable so as to not be too obtrusive. Below is a mood board, and some potential gameplay.

startend mood-board

Proposal: water volcanos and fire oceans

For my project, I want to transition from a volcano environment to an underwater environment with the twist that the former is made of water and the latter is made of lava/fire. I would like for both environments to feel very calming in terms of mood.

For example, below is a sketch of an initial state.

initial

My transition will probably be started by holding a key (like previous exercises), and I would like to try simulating the ground shaking, and having the camera ‘fall’ down through the terrain. The following is just an idea of how the colors will change (a gradient).

transition

The ending state will be a lava ocean with animated fish and fire bubble particles. final

The following is a mood board:

mood_board

I don’t have a chosen sound clip yet, but I’m currently thinking of using some kind of spa/relaxing background music in addition to sound effects.

Mid Semester Project Proposal

I’d like to create a claustrophobic environment which becomes more claustrophobic when participants attempt to relax.

As the main input source, I will attempt to measure the “tightness” of a user’s fist and when the grip loosens, the room will begin to shrink around them.

I feel that this would work well in as a VR environment since it does induce feelings and emotions of horror. The changes are primarily spatial in addition to visual which makes the full immersion of the VR space even more believable.

Here’s a mood boardclaustrophobia_moodboard

I’m shit at drawing, but I attempt to make the transition from a long room with a large field of view to a constrained room, filled with smokey fog.

conceptinprogress

ldamascoClose

For sounds, I couldn’t stop thinking about these.

 

 

 

Project Proposal

A dark room that is mostly pitch black with thin white lines textured on the objects. The game measures your heartbeat, so that as it beats, the room is transformed and becomes briefly full of light and color and the objects morph using blendshapes, then returns to the dark state. The faster your heart beats, the more often you can see the environment. The changing environment is meant to make the player experience a state of unease or anxiety, connected to the beating of their heart.

gg13

gg14

gg15

gg16

Proposal

Kristin Yin & Jason Ma

Our idea is to create an “inside a cpu” vr environment where the viewer can experience a desktop computer booting up.  Our inspiration came from wanting to explore the potential boundaries of vr by creating an experience that isn’t so fantastical like flying through a magical forest yet isn’t super boring like simply recreating a scale model of a room. We want the user to crank a lever as if she or he is generating electricity which can simulate booting up the pc. We will try our best to reenact as accurately as possible the startup sequence of a standard pc, with an occasional twist just to make things more interactive and interesting. We also want to implement a feature that can “hard shut down” the pc if the user decides to stop cranking the lever then the machine will shut down.

screen-shot-2016-10-03-at-2-25-50-pmscreen-shot-2016-10-03-at-2-25-23-pmscreen-shot-2016-10-03-at-2-26-04-pmscreen-shot-2016-10-03-at-2-26-27-pm

Image result for water cooling cpu

In terms of mood and color, we want the overall color scheme and feeling to change from a cold and action-less environment to an interesting and active surrounding. (Such as a computer when it is fully running).

For sound references, we plan on taking audio clips of standard pc noises such as the subtle humming of a fan. Depending on how that sound plays out, we might consider adding more, however we don’t want to overwhelm the user with too “cliché” of computer sounds.

In terms of technical additions, we want to learn more about water particle systems and eventually implement some sort of interesting water cooling animation series during the start up. Also, we plan on adding more light node animations to simulate certain processors on the cpu turning on / warming up.