Everyday Immersions

[everydayimmersionssina]

Spectator Gaming

https://blog.globalwebindex.com/chart-of-the-week/the-rise-of-twitch/

[everydayimmersionssina]

Initially we thought that the game objects that would later be affected by the rain would be photogrammified plants that would be submitted by other people. We tried with a few friends and this is one of the outcomes, which means that we would have to have some type of ‘only well photogrammified’ plants can enter the contest policy. Moreover we wonder how photogrammetry ties in to our fascination with the dichotomous experience of VR single player vs twitch observation.

[everydayimmersionssina]

Amanda and I ‘playing’ against each other, both moving two game objects via twitch. Further exploring the controlling experience and possibilities for game objects to interact.

[everydayimmersionssina]

Video of Amanda passing the cube between her controllers which we managed to install with the OVR grab. In this way we have enabled to move game objects both for a single player in VR, as well as for people in twitch. The question really boils down to the different roles people have in VR vs twitch.

[everydayimmersionsamanda]

“Fighting” against each other, trying to throw the other one´s box of the plane was surprisingly fun and engaging. It was interesting to try out the different medias, VR that became very physical while participating through Twitch one only sat down in front of the computer. The fun part was that the exact same result was achieved!

#everydayimmersions #withsina #week7

[everydayimmersionsamanda]

For week 7 we made a prototype with cubes where the thought was to see how two people, using different medias would interact with each other. One was in VR and one participated through live-streaming the screen through Twitch. 

We attached one of the Oculus controllers to a water bottle to represent the cube in the VR-space and added box colliders to the objects (making it possible for them to hit and bounce off from each other). Finally we got to the point where the person in VR and the person watching through the live stream could “fight” against each other. The person in VR would use the water bottle with the attached sensor and the person in twitch would control his/her box through different commands, typing “left”,”right” or “forward” in the twitch comment field! The goal was to see who could first push the other persons box out of the plane.

#everydayimmersions #withsina #week7

[everydayimmersionsamanda]

For the following week, after midterm presentation, we wanted to develop our prototype further and actually try and make a screen with our cactus that we could livestream and give input.

At first we faced some problems since the script was meant to effect a cube. But when we figured out how to change the box collider to fit our cactus we managed to make it fall. In the video one can see Sina types “forward” multiple times, which we had set to mean “roll to the front”, to finally get the cactus to fall of the ground plane… 

[everydayimmersionsamanda]

The work name for our project is “DIGITAL DNA”. We want to use the method photogrammetry to make content for an online eco-system that will be live-streamed. We want to see how people will behave in a VR environment that is not a classic game and how the creation and manipulation of the photogrammatrifyed objects, content created by the users, will effect the way we view “digital dna”.

[everydayimmersionsamanda]

During the time we were building our test scene we, by accident, used the material generated from our photorammatrifyed cactus on our ground plane. We saw that the material now almost looked like islands. We started to think that it would be fun if the cactus size was matched to the size of the “island” it was standing on.

Doing this we found out that it was quite meditative and we could draw references to coloring books and games enabling city building, like farm ville.

Suddenly we were talking about our project as an ecosystem where people would be able to participate in this giant green house!

#everydayimmersions #week6 #withsina

[everydayimmersionsamanda]

We had both fallen in love with our cactuses from week 2. We felt strongly about photogrammetry and what both the action ant the actual outcome in the computer becomes using it. We were inspired by the preservation of memories, that photogrammetry is, and how it in a way becomes a digital DNA that one can manipulate to infinity!

We decided to build up this new scene for our midterm presentation for people to sort of get the mood of what aesthetics we were striving for.

#everydayimmersions #week6 #withsina

[everydayimmersionsamanda]

From all the insights that Sina and I had during this 4 workshop weeks we felt intrigued by the fact that VR often is such a lonely experience. We therefore talked about how people could interact with each other in VR and was told that we could connect Unity to Twitch. In twitch the viewers would be able to effect the environment by typing in specific words. For example left, to move the object.

At first we decided to follow a tutorial and livestream a cube moving. After many tries and failures we at least managed to stream!

#everydayimmersions #withsina #week6

[everydayimmersionsamanda]

We got a person to try our scene out (not posting the whole video here since she might want to be private). At first she seemed to feel a bit uncomfortable and did not really get what she was supposed to do. We explained our concept och having a chart that measures the audio level of your voice and then she started to try out the scene more. 

It seemed that our scene made her a little uncomfortable since she had to speak very loudly to reach the different audio leves. This is understandable since we were in a room with other people, and when one does not see who is around (=who can hear you) it can be very uncomfortable and scary to speak.

#everydayimmersions #withsina #week4

[everydayimmersionssina]

Our final experiment with audio! Called the ‘Personal Voice Trainer’. With voice assistants ubiquitous why not have them teach us how to communicate with them? It rates your vocal input anywhere from ‘Are you alive?’ to ‘I like the sound of this’. In the context of social expectations of what it means to be a good conversationist, pressure increases to appease the machine- is it my pitch  that it judges me by? My volume?  Furthermore,  it brings vocal interpretation and possible consequences to the foreground- do I put on my happy voice when I speak towards my voice assistant so it does not mismatch me as being depressed and starts treating me differently?

[everydayimmersionssina]

We tried to play with the input of the Audio Visualizer, and this is the outcome of high frequency. We found it fascinating that it picked up on many of the background noises and was very busy when Amanda shrieked in a high pitch, is when it stabilised (which to us would be the most uncomfortable sound),

[everydayimmersionssina]

Our final experiment with audio! Called the ‘Personal Voice Trainer’. With voice assistants ubiquitous why not have them teach us how to communicate with them? It rates your vocal input anywhere from ‘Are you alive?’ to ‘I like the sound of this’. In the context of social expectations of what it means to be a good conversationist, pressure increases to appease the machine- is it my pitch  that it judges me by? My volume?  Furthermore,  it brings vocal interpretation and possible consequences to the foreground- do I put on my happy voice when I speak towards my voice assistant so it does not mismatch me as being depressed and starts treating me differently?

[everydayimmersionssina]

We tried to play with the input of the Audio Visualizer, and this is the outcome of high frequency. We found it fascinating that it picked up on many of the background noises and was very busy when Amanda shrieked in a high pitch, is when it stabilised (which to us would be the most uncomfortable sound),

[everydayimmersionssina]

We decided to go with the neighing horse sound and apply a fur texture to the woman. Given her large size and blackened eyes, both Amanda and I screamed in horror when we first encountered her in VR. We tried to add a horse, but found that made it less scary. There can be something deeply unsettling about outcomes when playing / dismissing expectations.