MonthDecember 2019

Unit 2, Week 10: Dizziness

View of the “live stream” theatre. It is possible to go behind the screen and explore the mountain (model I sourced from TiltBrush Poly)

There is something they warn you about in VR literature: beware of getting used to your own experience and then assuming others will have a similar experience, especially when it concerns dizziness.

I had been working in my environment for about two-three weeks without worrying about how motion-sickness inducing it could be. The color pencil shader I have on the camera reduces the frame rate considerably. It wasn’t until I had my fellow student try it that I realized, like a eureka moment right before she even mentioned it, that it made users light-headed.

Satirical poster I made for the inside of the theatre commenting on popular entertainment.

This presents me with an opportunity but also with a problem. I could remove the shader, but I believe the design will suffer significantly. The other option is to see if there is any way of optimizing it, taking the opportunity to learn more about increasing frame rates and modifying shaders.

It is worth mentioning there might be another factor contributing to dizziness: touchpad locomotion. Since I have been having issues with using the Steam VR teleport prefab in my projects, I decided to teach myself how to script touchpad navigation. I’m glad I learned how to do this, but I think it is also a reason the user gets dizzy. The movement is smooth and slow, but unnatural.

In terms of critique, beyond the obvious danger of dizziness, I was glad some students thought the experience was beautiful. Going forward, I will see if/how I can optimize the shader and whether the navigation needs to be scrapped, as well. One month to go for this second unit of much exploration.

Below, I have included some snippets from my working script, created in Celtx.

Unit 1, Week 10: How relative is relaxation?

This week I began to establish the Unity-Arduino connection and I thought about how much what is considered “relaxing” can vary.

We had our final crit this week, and I got mixed reviews about how calm-inducing the environment was. Generally, I leave more satisfied from a critique when there are differing opinions. Some thought the palette and skybox was confusing; others thought it was calming to the eye. Another classmate commented they thought the motion of the water was rather nerve-wrecking. There were what I considered two unequivocal useful suggestions:
(1) Adding icons to the radial menu so the user knows what material they are opting for
(2) Tying in an inhale and exhale sound to the movement of the waves, since the user won’t be able to hear themselves breathe

I must admit I am rather happy with the color palette, since I don’t want it to have a more realistic skybox. I enjoy the feeling of feeling underwater, even when you are hypothetically on the island. Further, I agree the motion of the waves needs to be adjusted. I will focus first on establishing the connection with the values of the belt, and then I will polish the environment. The radial menu could become extended and the user will have more control over what they think is calming.

All in all, the development of this experience has been useful to consider two things (1) how organic an environment needs to be in order for it to be calming (I found a common thread in the feedback was concerning the struggle between a virtual representation of water and an organic environment) and (2) how varied what people consider “relaxing” can be. Another student in my course is developing a meditative experience with an almost opposite approach: she is creating a white environment with almost no stimulus. We were both forced to reckon with how there may be a thin line between relaxation and anxiety, almost akin to a suspension of disbelief. Perhaps I will elaborate more on this later, if there is any interest.

I am grateful to be able to present my development to my classmates and lecturers since it gives me an opportunity to reflect on the challenges I have faced, both technical and conceptual. It has been a first unit of much growth. We have around a month for the hand-in date.

Unit 2, Week 9 Dream of a Theatre: Rigging TiltBrush models

My prototype is almost ready to be delivered. This coming week I will jump back into the storyboard and flesh it out. The scene in Unity is full of place-holders, but I ran into some obstacles this week.

(1) I made a model of my main character in TiltBrush in order to rig it. Unfortunately, I couldn’t export it as a 3D file outside of Poly without it losing its materials. This is a big problem. The auto-rigging in Mixamo otherwise worked pretty well.

TiltBrush model auto-rigged with a Capoeira animation.

Since it is not a requirement for the unit, and it is beyond my current skill sets, I don’t think I will be able to prepare an animatic. Nevertheless, in my December break I will have it as one of my “reach” goals, since I understand its importance in the workflow.

(2) The project will need to be optimized. The shader is extremely taxing on the system.

Another development: finally finished Narrating Space/Spatializing Narrative. I’m taking one of their ideas on museum narratives now that I’m jumping back into my storyboard/exhibition space: that of spatializing intent. My focus will be on “the designer’s intents and how these are spatialized in the museum” (184).

I still believe in the potential power of this experience, as a purging of our current entertainment consumer trends. Hopefully I can develop it even further in my career.

WIP: My Theatre’s Screens

Unit 1, Week 9 Dotted Beach: Near Finishing Touches

Two things were completed this week:
(1) I managed to fix the teleportation script with our lecturer Zhan Gurskis. There was a problem where, not only would the distance increments grow smaller and smaller, but the player prefab would become shorter and shorter. This is working a bit better now because we added some offsets, but I still need to polish the functionality.
(2) Connected the breath belt to the Arduino board with the help of the wonderful Elle Castle. This coming week we will be adding a plug-in to Unity that will connect these values to the program. At the moment, we are getting some values between 240 and 1023. We will map these to other numbers that will control the offset of the waves. The belt is working as an added resistor. The more stretched it is, the higher the resistance, thus the lower the value.

(3) I added some music I think is really calming, giving it a Wahwah effect on Audacity for an illusion of three-dimensionality. Here is the music I chose.

There’s other good news. My main tutor, Ana Tudor, tested the experience out and mentioned she thought it was peaceful. This means the program is successful, although there is still much that can be done. She suggested I make the world smaller and start the experience in an in-between state, where the user can see the water slightly below eye-level.

The more I work on this project, the more I see the potential for developing the full meditation experience for SteamVR.