Taylor's Blog

This is a blog tracking the progress of my Creative Technologies course.

[tsuecreativetech]

Creative Workflows - Trello

Link to Trello used to  track updates.

[tsuecreativetech]

Studio V - Setup

[tsuecreativetech]

Creative Workflows - Reflection

When I look back at this semester two things come to mind in regards to workflow. Firstly there is the relationship I have with my team and secondly there is the work output. I’ve realised that throughout this semester it is extremely challenging to balance both of these areas even though they’re implicitly tied.

I think the difficulty of being a team leader is that it is up to me to make the hard decisions when it comes to the workflow and sometimes it must be me that becomes the driving force behind the project. Over this semester I have tried various different methods to change the dynamic of the team to increase the workflow. Honestly I’ve found that sometimes its necessary to be cruel to be kind and that I can’t always please everyone.

The relationship that I would’ve loved to have with my team is that we work as partners, but the expectations that I’ve placed on each member of my team has definitely put pressure on the members to perform. Some rose to the challenge while other gave up. I think it is here where my study into the variety of personalities became extremely relevant and important. Even though personality tests don’t 100% reflect how a person really is, it can give an indicator of how to communicate and encourage proper workflow.

Unfortunately I as an individual have a difficult workflow to sync with and my expectations of output from other individuals sometimes leaves members behind. An example of where this went well though was Ryan and I recreating an entire level in the space of 2-3 days. This is a rare case where we were so synchronised that workflow was effortless and suffered very few bottlenecks.

Beyond just communications with one another I believe that there will always be different competencies with everyone. It is really up to building a strong team with a good dynamic when it comes to short term projects if given the option.

[tsuecreativetech]

Creative Worksflow’s Re:live workflow

[tsuecreativetech]

Creative Workflows - Endgame

During this semester I feel like the overall flow of work has been very fair in regards to the position I have been placed in the team leader. I was responsible for looking over the project and designating primary tasks. These were initially sorted based off the attributes of each team member, Steven being sound and 2d art, Sujay with mechanics, Ryan with 3d modelling and myself focusing primarily on level design but also working with mechanics. Overseeing the project was certainly a challenging role and was extremely insightful in terms of finding the dynamics for the team, At times the workflow would plateau due to roadblocks. As leader it was my role to assist in overcoming the bottlenecks being faced and I found that managing a group of four was exponentially more difficult than working than with a partner due to highly increased micro managing requirements and a change in communication.

With an “unexpected” push required near the end of the project I do feel like Pete’s words of wisdom become evermore relevant in terms of what it takes just to get the job done. 

Despite very fair organisation through Trello >CLICK HERE< and various timetables there will always be roadblocks which come in all shapes and forms which just come by and knock you down. The best way that I’ve found is just to get back up and keep trying, there are sacrifices that need to be made in order to get the output desired and sometimes these decisions are the hardest.

[tsuecreativetech]

Studio V - Submission Week

During the last week there was a hectic rush to refine the game and as expected there were some very annoying bugs to fix. In general the current progress we had made had put us in the clear temporarily however we hit a huge roadblock with a completely unexpected bug. One of the maps that Steven had made had 500+ materials and 2.5million polygons which lagged the computer out.

To counter this we made the decision to completely redo the entire map which took Ryan and I 30+ hours within a two day period. This project has definitely been more about re working areas within it over and over, this is both insightful as it helps for us to grasp the extent of work put into professional products but also increasingly frustrating.

[tsuecreativetech]

Studio V - Conceptual Statement

Re:live is a virtual reality experience that embodies the four primary emotions humans experience: Fear, Anger, Sadness and Happiness. Emotions were chosen as a basis for the project as these represent the core connections people have in interaction, both generally and towards media, this is no exception with content developed for virtual reality. The project is experimental in nature from both an artistic perspective as well as being investigative and observational. This comes in the form of evoking emotions expressively through research informed design and then seeing whether this affects the emotional state of users.

What makes Re:live a unique experience is the driving factor behind the project. This is looking more towards the development rather than the final outcome, the project aims to be experimental in the very nature of the project. Re:live is aiming for psychological engagement beyond the conscious level and aims to also promote and evoke the user’s imagination through influence. We’re exploring whether a mental state is able to be changed through our final outcome; we want to observe this outcome and seek this answer through the varying engagement.

Each emotion is developed with a specific set of techniques, Sadness with a heavy focus on storytelling, Anger with game mechanics, Fear with using the uncanny valley and Happiness using strong level design techniques such as colour palettes. Each level represents the emotions visually and aurally but the idea behind the project is for users to feel the atmosphere being created with a sense of freedom; through their own imagination and perception based off what is being presented to them. Re:live uses a variety of designs inspired through emotionally provocative colour palettes and shapes. This is used to create an immersive world. A significant element going into the creation of the experience was developing all the models and art from the ground level, Re:live uses a Low Poly art style as it effectively communicates the designs that needed to be portrayed as well as being efficient in a development stage.

Two core levels representing Happiness and Fear were chosen to represent the underlying idea of the project. These both contrast but blend in shape, form, colour, sound and mechanics with consistency in a low poly art form but a completely different form of engagement from the user through mechanics and level design. The stark contrast in design includes the use of an analogous colours which creates harmonisation within the Happiness Level whereas colour palette was dictated through function in the Fear level. This was to achieve a strong mental shift as well as working coherently with progression throughout the time of play. Both levels consist of a small story experience where the user advances through each map with a clear indication of where to advance, the idea behind this was to create a level that evolves so the user has an opportunity to process a range of sub emotions within the primary emotion of either Happiness or Fear.

From early development until the final output Re:live has been a step by step process in which the team created custom content from scratch with an informed research and a purpose as a building block towards a greater outcome. A significant portion of the project was enumeration and re iteration to slowly work towards reaching the goals set by the team, areas such as design were especially scrutinized through the application onto Oculus Rift which presents its own criteria and requirements as a media output. This has been a highly reflective project with analysis on both the development process as a team but also the ideas being portrayed behind design decisions.

A future goal behind Re:live is to broaden the spectrum for development in virtual reality environments and increase their immersiveness by making the user more emotionally involved. This is aimed more towards developers in setting an example of how different stimulus can potentially change the user’s mental state, therefore allowing future experiences to be crafted to be more emotionally immersive. Virtual reality opens a new field of potential research and development. Despite emotions being a powerful attachment to an experience, there is a detachment between the end product and the target audience and an impact we want to have on virtual reality development is assisting with building the confidence by taking those first steps into creating a more emotionally immersive environment through examples and guidelines. The perspective of it is better to show than tell is being taken here.

[tsuecreativetech]

Studio V - Contextual Statement

The process for creating the concept behind the project was rather extensive taking three weeks of discussion between the previously five man team. Conceptually the group started with the idea of creating a virtual reality space based off pre existing locations, these included Venice in Italy, Kyoto in Japan, Coliseum in Rome and these then developed into having a time travel element being able to switch between present and past in locations such as Machu Picchu in Peru and the Hanging Gardens of Babylon.

Having gone through a process of discussing our ideas with the lecturer and a rather informative critique session we realised that we were taking our ideas a step too far and being too specific with what we wanted as a final outcome. The idea to create a more open ended project came to light with the concept of creating a space which represented and evoked emotions, this was inspired by Stanley Parable’s relaxation, Silent Hill P.T’s horror inducing elements and Journey’s storytelling, art style and approach to development. Journey was the strongest inspiration and influence on the project with design decisions.

Development throughout the project was extremely experimental partly due to the resources but also due to the open ended aspect of the project. Areas such as mechanics went through an entire process of development, this started with selection based off research and inspiration in conjunction with one another, then these were narrowed down and picked, developed by the two engine specialists and finally play tested prior to a decision being made on whether these would become part of the final build. Design was heavily informed by research on association between specific form and colour. Plutchik’s Colour Wheel assisted with the creation of colour pallets specialised for each emotion(Plutchik, R. 1980), The form of the 3d models and environments was equally as important with shapes, being associated with different emotions(Bradley, S. 2013).

There were two major influences and inspirations when it came to the development of the environments within the project, firstly there were informed decisions made from research on psychological techniques rooted in design. The second inspiration was through pre existing games as these are strongly associated to the project these had more influence over mechanics. Both were deeply intertwined as part of the project. With a twist of variation from strictly a research based decision or strictly a decision made from inspiration, this pushed the idea of experimentation behind the project.

Interestingly enough during the testing phase, half of the experience needed to be remade due to pushing the hardware beyond its limits. Looking for a more practical design inspiration was drawn from the very first conceptual ideas of Ancient Rome and the Hanging Gardens of Babylon, essentially these created a fusion of old conceptual ideas but applying them in a contextually valid sense. This formed a new basis for the Happiness level, with a colour pallet developed from research of Plutchik’s Colour Wheel(Plutchik, R. 1980) and harmonization through analogous colours(Bleicher, Steven. 2011) which are common in nature as well as representing a warm temperature. The mechanics behind Happiness were developed around inspiration from two separate games Aion and Journey, the ability to glide and wind streams to push the player were implemented to create a sense of freedom and control.

Contrasting to the Happiness level, Fears output was completely different. Influenced more from psychological manipulation through cognitive experiences(Gray, J. A. 1985) fear was created through a strong implementation of the uncanny valley(Tinwell, Angela. 2014). This resulted in a feeling of uneasiness within the player, a sub emotion of fear(Tomkins, S. S. 1984). These were combined and applied to both the 3d models created by Ryan and the overall level design. The idea behind this was to take multiple approaches so building the atmosphere of the environment was more well rounded.

References:

Gray, J. A. (1985). The whole and its parts: Behaviour, the brain, cognition and emotion. Bulletin of the British Psychological Society. 38, 99-112.

Plutchik, R. (1980). A general psychoevolutionary theory of emotion. In R. Plutchik & H. Kellerman (Eds.), Emotion: Theory, research, and experience: Vol. 1. Theories of emotion (pp. 3-33). New York: Academic.

Tomkins, S. S. (1984). Affect theory. In K. R. Scherer & P. Ekman (Eds.), Approaches to emotion (pp. 163-195). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum

Bradley, S. (2013). Elements, Attributes, & Principles. In Design Fundamentals, (pp. 41-43). Vanseo Design.

Bleicher, Steven (2011). "Color Harmonies". Contemporary Color: Theory & Use. Clifton Park. NY: Delmar Cengage Learning. p. 70.

Tinwell, Angela (2014-12-04). The Uncanny Valley in Games and Animation. CRC Press. pp. 165–.ISBN 9781466586956. Retrieved 13 January 2015.

[tsuecreativetech]

Studio V - Week 12 - Happiness Level UE4 Model Test

Experimented with the models Steven created. Had Ryan update these models, as they were glitching once imported to UE4. Normals were added alongside UV maps as well and splitting the reference map into three groups of models, trees, bushes and the map itself. This was then scaled up for extra grandeur and a larger space for the user to move around in.

The result of this is aesthetically pleasing, further experimentations with colour palette are viable, and development of wind tunnels are required.

[tsuecreativetech]

Studio V - Week 11 - Fear Level Progression and Happiness Model Experimentation

This week was spent with significant updates on the fear level. Models were remade with UV mapping by Ryan and I went through all 3 existing levels replaces the outdated and broken static meshes. 

Adding more character to the map through adjustments of the atmospheric fog and re adjustments of the flow of the map, also implementation of a spline tools/road mesh hybrid to create an unnatural road to add to the uneasiness of the user.

Experimentation of adjusting the fog to move in front of the players camera to reduce the load of larger fog sheets encompassing the entire map and being glitchy failed as the flat plane blueprint of the standard fog will glitch when rotating in front of the camera.

Testing the concept art of tree’s on rock pillars to give Steven a fair idea of what they would look like (colour is terrible but ohwell).

[tsuecreativetech]

Studio V - Week 10 - Fear Level Design

Starting design of the level in conjunction with Ryan and Sujay. Needed some experimentation with the fog, trees using the foliage tool and the lamps which needed to be created using the blueprinting due to the nature of their flickering.

So far so good, using the theme of a dark woods with a very dark pallet, future idea is to implement purple as this has an association with fear. At the moment we are using nyctophobia to induce fear, but will look into using other techniques in making the user feel uneasy and scared.

[tsuecreativetech]

Studio V - Week 9 - Matinee Problems

This week has been increasingly frustrating as I've failed to make the matinee function on UE4 work consistently. Thus I am letting Sujay attempt at getting this to work. This week I am using to plan for future weeks, and take a breather from the actual developmental side of the project.

[tsuecreativetech]

Studio V - Week 8 - Anger Level Design

This week was spent developing an aesthetically pleasing environment which was suitable to represent anger. My research in previous weeks lead me to make design decisions such as using tones of red to aid in evoking anger, sharp shapes also put users on edge as they represent aggression. The map was developed with the intent of creating a difficult jumping style mechanic as well as putting the user under pressure by having negative feedback by failing in their progression of the map.

https://trello.com/c/lWPQZPiP/32-anger-research

http://vanseodesign.com/web-design/visual-grammar-shapes/

http://www.empower-yourself-with-color-psychology.com/color-red.html

[tsuecreativetech]

Creative Workflows - Week 12 - Post Feedback Workflow Adjustment

After a formative assessment from Andy, our team was required to review our workflow due to change in final output and thus a change in the production and workflow required for it. Switching from a final output of four levels to a suggested one, our team chose to settle with two refined levels. This change meant that our resourcing needed to be updated and our workflow adjusted by spending less time on the levels that won’t be playable and switching to the two playable levels those being Happiness Level and Fear Level.

A huge push this week towards the production of assets which can be created individually was made with an intent to assemble these assets for the remainder of the time spent together as a group. As bugs were fixed prior weeks this cuts our bug testing by half and we should theoretically have spare time for any unforeseeable issues.

Link to Trello: https://trello.com/b/yGMK4hnB/emotion-vr

[tsuecreativetech]

Creative Workflows - Week 11 - Early Testing

To ensure that our project will be up to scratch by the due date, Ryan and I begun checking our project for bugs and fixing these. From previous projects I’ve found that its the small differences in development which can have huge impact in the final output of the project.

Using members in both a mechanic and design role we were able to establish areas that could be fixed or improved for the final production, these included previously developed assets for levels produced several weeks ago as we had a fresh look on factors which created and negative output. These existed in the form of incorrect variables in material production, incorrect scaling which caused culling with the use of the foliage tool being enforced and independent lighting for sub levels needing to be implemented. These had a huge impact on the overall visuals despite seeming like relatively small areas.

Link to Trello: https://trello.com/b/yGMK4hnB/emotion-vr

[tsuecreativetech]

Creative Workflows - Week 10 - Faux Final Flight

Week 10 was a huge week with the workflow of the project opening up substantially. Each member of the team put their running shoes on to work extremely hard with the development of the project.

Three members were directed towards the Fear Level design as this is a hugely heavy role in terms of resourcing. Steven was assigned to the Happiness Level as spending precious resources in an area occupied by Ryan already was pointless. This was we could kill two birds with one stone through careful human resourcing management.

Communication was essential between the three members working in conjunction with one another so we met up at my place so that we could increase the efficiency in our communication.

Link to Trello: https://trello.com/b/yGMK4hnB/emotion-vr

[tsuecreativetech]

Creative Workflows - Week 9 - Balance

Week 9 was a week where the team members worked on their other papers. It was important for us to choose a time which was suitable for the entire team as to avoid bottlenecking the development of the project one by one.

Getting a clear head for future development was also extremely important as sometimes too much time spent on one area changes the perception of those working in that area.

Balancing between 2 other papers and the main studio paper changed the pressure being felt by the team members so that in future weeks their focus could be directed towards studio.

Link to Trello: https://trello.com/b/yGMK4hnB/emotion-vr