The Observation Trail

The Observation Trail is a WebVR experience that takes you and a friend across Canada's six beautiful bioms. This blog will highlight the development of the project. Blog written by Kalia Hameiri

[observationtraildev]

Milestone Update #10

this week: Finally had time to do some work - the red tail hawk just needs some textures and it’s done! 

Time spent: 6 hours 

Challenges: once again, finding the time to put in some concentrated work on these models is very hard. Im hoping this sprint will be better as we begin to wrap things up. 

[observationtraildev]

Milestone update #9

- do to an overwhelming demand from other courses/assignments, no work was completed on my aside from peer reviews 

[observationtraildev]

milestone update #8

This sprint:

Beta presentation

We presented our first vertical slice of our webVR program. Aside from a few bugs, the deciduous forest is now complete! 

Modeling 

We are now starting to model the boreal forest items. The first animal I have to model for this biome is a red-tailed hawk (see image below)

I still have work to do on the model but It’s getting there. The past week has been very hectic, and other classes have had assignments with slightly higher priory. It’s been a big challenge to get enough time to work on everything. 

I’ve also had to help group members with their UV maps and textures so that has stopped me from dedicating my time to my models. 

Hours spent this sprint: 4 (outside of class)  

Next sprint: continuing the modeling process. Setting up some beta testing if possible

[observationtraildev]

Milestone Update #7 - Snowy Owl 

This was the last full sprint we had before our beta presentation. We will presenting our first biome, the deciduous forest, in working order to our professor and peers. As such this is the last animal model needed for the deciduous forest. 

Two models were made: one to perch in front of the hiker, and the other to be used when flying towards or away. Unfortunately, there is not enough time in our development cycle to rig and animate our models. So we will have to make due with dynamic and easy to read poses. 

If you notice in the video, it appears as though the owls pupils are following you. As I mentioned,the model isn’t rigged; there are no moving parts, so what’s going on here? If you are familiar with the Hollow-Face illusion, I’m sure you guessed what was going on right away. If not; the eyes are actually inverted. 

This is a simple visual trick that brings a whole lot of life into a static model.

Time spent on this sprint: 10 hours

Challenge: I’m finding it harder to use the poke mesh->poly reduce method we were shown in class. Animals have to adhere to certain shapes and sizes and the poly reduction seems to take away either too little or too much. In the end I had to reconfigure the topology of this model manually to have efficient polygon usage and maintain the triangle facet style of low-poly 

[observationtraildev]

Milestone update #6 - Raccoon 

This week was spent working on the Raccoon model that will be a featured animal in our deciduous environment (and our playable beta build)

Total hours spent: 8

Challenges: 

this time around I tried modeling only one half of the model then using the mirror tool to create a whole model. While this worked in the past for me, this time around I must have missed a step because I ended up with a lot of overlapping geometry that was had to be corrected before I could properly UV map. This resulted in an extra 2.5 hours of work that needed to be done on the model. 

Successes:

I’m very pleased with the pose. I think it has that “caught in mid-action” feeling which sells the whole sudden encounter aspect of the trail. 

[observationtraildev]

Milestone update #5 - Alpha and Modeling Time 2

Welcome back to the trail,

Let me fill you in on what’s been happening:

At the beginning of this sprint my dev team and I gave a short alpha presentation to our class. We demonstrated our current working build and discussed the our current intent and progress with our project. The presentation went well, and there were some questions asked by fellow students that help to point out possible issues that we hadn’t thought of yet. It’s situations like those that demonstrate how vital it is to have a diverse design team in any development setting.

The most significant outcome of that presentation day was the team discussion we had. We have one major issue in our group: the fact that I am the only one who could test our HMD VR version of the game. Every one else on the team has had head injuries recently and thus cannot. Due to this fact, we had to step back and really ask ourselves what the HMD brings to our design overall. 

Moving forward, there’s a high possibility that we will keep the VR portion of our project confined to desktop interaction.

The rest of the sprint was spent on reading week. We all took this time to model environmental items and animals.

Unfortunately, this wasn’t the only class I had work for. So while I tried my best to get everything done,in the 12 hours I spent working I could only get about two models fully textured and one model is 25% completed.

[observationtraildev]

Milestone#4 - It’s modeling time! 

As we begin preparations for our Alpha presentation, I have gotten to work on the environmental models for our VR world. As previously mentioned, we are going for a low-poly style as a way to optimize the data transfer between our WebVR server and the client.

The first vertical slice/ environment of The ObTrail is eastern deciduous forests of Canada. The two main trees that populate these forests are the striking white birch and the iconic sugar maple.

Above are the finished birch models that we will be implementing into our environment.

Total hours spent on sprint work: 6

Challenges: 

Due to midterms and various assignments due within this sprint week, I wasn’t able to get the sugar maples done. They will hopefully be completed for the Alpha presentation; however they will most likely not get implemented until our next deliverable. I also spent a portion of my work time modifying our reference objects as the height scale was completely off. 

Successes: 

The trees turned out nicely! I would have liked to add more branches but for a simple, low-poly tree I think they are fine and recognizable. 

[observationtraildev]

Milestone#3 - Graphic development

Our first deliverable, the design document, was completed! Much thanks to the team for their hard work and cooperation. 

As I mentioned in the last update, I was making the design comp for the VR side of the ObTrail. Here’s how it turned out:

Though the final product will most likely differ, this is still a good visual representation of what it will feel like to be on the trail. 

Moving on to the second half of this sprint, I took on three tasks that will aid the development of our web page and VR environment. 

First off:

I set up a spread sheet to outline our animal database. This included the attribute tags that will define the animals on the trail, and the action required to navigate around it. This will help the devs on our team program the necessary components for the guide book and the VR interaction. 

Secondly:

I re-created the button concepts for the guide book (developed by another team member) into SVGs for ease of use and visual consistency. 

*note that the 4th and 5th button are variations for the same button. 

The main web designer will determine the final colour pallet; however, I provided various swatches based off colour theory and the main background colour. 

Lastly:

 I created a height chart/reference for 3D models and created the temporary model objects to be placed in our Alpha test environment. 

All together I spent roughly 8 hours working on my tasks this sprint.

Overall, the tasks I handled weren’t really challenging; just time consuming. Researching the animals and determining how to best handle them in this experience took a lot of back and fourth between myself and another developer. That being said, I am happy with the quality of the work I put out for the sprint. I think the buttons look really nice and compliments the visual style we are building up in ObTrail. 

[observationtraildev]

Milestone #2 - Work In Progress

Design, design, design, then design some more 

This week was dedicated to our first project submission, the design document. Through the creation of the document, my team and I fleshed out the design and scope of The Observation Trail. Each group member had a section to work on independently; however all portions of the design document will be peer reviewed as a group. 

My focus was on the layout design of our interfaces, but I also helped general the user flow of our program...

In order to establish the list of screens that need to be planned and laid out via wire-frames, I first had to outline the general user flow. While another group member was in charge of the final user experience/program flow diagram, I created a rough draft that was to be expanded upon through discussions.

From this point, I was able to establish my list of screens and mocked up the wireframe templates in Photoshop for the mobile, desktop, and head mounted display:

Overall, this portion of the design process took me roughly 3 hours. I quite enjoy the wireframe process as it lets me focus purely on the functional requirements of a webpage/UI. It lets me get my ideas down quickly and respond to feedback easily without having to worry about the visual aesthetics too much. 

It is safe to say that these wireframes will change as we run user testing, so keeping the wireframes as light weight as possible was my goal.

Currently, I am tasked with creating concept art of the VR world we plan to create. I enjoy creating concept art, however I have never attempted a low-poly art style before. It’s more difficult to replicate in a 2D canvas than I thought it would be. I decided to work in adobe illustrator, but I think I should have stuck to a more traditional painting program... So far I have spent 2 hours on my piece and I’m about 50% done, but I don’t know how satisfied I will be will the final product. I will share the finished piece in the next milestone. 

That’s all for now! Happy trails

- Kalia

[observationtraildev]

Milestone #1 - Hello world

“If all that was between you and your destination was a really angry Canadian goose… you’d probably turn around”

That’s a sentiment most Canadians have thought as least once in their life; but what if you could only move forward? Would you walk around it, try to scare it away, or just walk right up to it? What is the best solution?

The Observation Trail will these questions.

Welcome readers, I’m Kalia, an artist and developer on The Observation Trail (I’ll be calling it ObTrail for short) A Canadian hiking experience like no other created with WebVR.

Canada is a beautiful country, rich with biodiversity. Exploring the great outdoors is widely encouraged, but it’s no walk in the park. The wilderness is home to many animals, some that may not be happy to see you in their path.

As a way to both teach potential adventures about the do’s and don’ts of animal encounters, and provide students with the knowledge of Canada’s many biomes and their inhabitants: 

ObTrail will walk through a virtual version of Canada, from the eastern deciduous forests all the way to the western tundra (condensed to be completed in ~10-15 minutes). Along the path, animals of your current biome will appear but you won’t know how to get past them. Thankfully you brought a friend along with a guide book, only they can’t see what you can. You have to quickly describe the animal in your way to them and they can tell you how to move forward. Do it correctly and you will get to see Canada from start to finish. 

ObTrail will use WebVR to allow for a multi-user experience, connecting any pair of Head Mounted Display, smartphone, or desktop. 

These blog posts will outline my work on ObTrail. I will primarily focusing on the design and visuals of the experience; but will help on the code side of thing when needed. 

We are still in the planning stages, so please enjoy these potential logos I have drafted up (final three)