3D building study

Here Is a 3D study I did of a venetian building to further improve my modelling skills in maya, its obvious that there are parts I have missed and the model isn't textured but at the minute I'm not sure what kind of environment I will be modelling and don't want to commit to an idea.

the piece wasnt as difficult to model as I initially expected due to most of the pieces being quite modular, unfortuneately I got some of the proportions wrong which caused alot of problems around the balcony, if I end up going down the root of creating a venetian style enivironment I will fully texture the model and fix the problems with proportion.


image reference:
. 2013. . [ONLINE] Available at: https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/_yyuzF7eie5k/TcRHgNHcahI/AAAAAAAAIrA/xmAwQj9WJE4/s640/P1130427.JPG. [Accessed 30 October 2013].

research proposal rough outline

•   What is the proposed research about?

level design in virtual reality environments with a focus on enhancing the player experience.

•   What is it trying to find out or achieve?

new player experiences in virtual reality. 

•   What is the body of relevant literature?

books and journals on Level Design, virtual reality, player experience, game design.

•   How does the literature support your arguments?

based on what is already known about level design and player experience I will be able to analyse and form level tests.

•   How will you undertake your research?

I will do level test, research into the relevant literature, and perhaps testing on my peers and seeing how they interact with the level tests.

•   What methods, materials and tools will you use?

maya, UDK, Photoshop, Mudbox will all be used to design levels from concept through to a game level.

•   What are the expected outcomes and benefits?

a final game level that can be iterated on until a polished product is achieved, this will create a strong portfolio piece and will enhance my skills as a 3d artist and level designer.

While searching for books on player experience I found one in particular that seems perfect for me to read. "Extending Experiences: Structure, Analysis and Design of Computer Game player experience"

http://granum.uta.fi/english/kirjanTiedot.php?tuote_id=17743

the book seems to go over and analyse alot of different design structures aswell as player immersion, what's fun, cues in 3d games, and the overall player experience.


also an update on 3d visualising software, it does exist but not for free, it is available at a price from Nvidia. I will search further there maybe something else I can use.

Pitch Review

After my pitch I feel my honors project has a more fixed direction, Lynn (Parker) pointed out that what I was more interested in wasn't immersion as much as the player experience, although immersion is a factor to consider it shouldn't be the focus. Ryan (Locke) suggested I look into 3d monitors and fortuneately I have a 3d television which may help in visualising levels for virtual worlds, Brian (Robinson) would have liked to have seen more of the possible themes of the outcome so I will continue to work on the ones I have developed so far and think about some more.

Plan of action for Monday 21st:
-search for (and download if possible) some kind of software on my computer for 3d visualisation
-find literature on the player experience
-develop my rigging skills

More Virtual Reality to come in the future?

I found a website describing "the slightly terrifying alternative to Oculus Rift" a new piece of equipment being developed by a company called "Avegant" The piece of equipment instead of using monitors, beams light straight into the user's eyes allowing them to percieve the images in a more natural way, it boasts that the framerate and image quality are better than the Oculus although the field of view, comfort, and price may not be, however the market that "Avegant" is trying to appeal to is more media based than games.

this piece of equipment will not be released until 2014 it's interesting to see how fast virtual reality is growing hopefully history will not repeat itself an the companies developing this amazing software will not make the same mistakes as those before them.

Website link:
http://kotaku.com/the-slightly-terrifying-alternative-to-oculus-rift-1444669803

Rigging First Attempt

I have always wanted to be able to rig but have put it off because it seemed too difficult, but at this stage of university I should be trying to challenge myself and learning new things that will be useful in future. Rigging will be especially useful for creating realistic levels.

I followed a tutorial in 3D world magazine #172 in which it goes through the process of rigging a character for posing in maya, to begin I exported a human mesh from mudbox as an fbx and brought it into maya, I then created the skeleton with the root joint just below the stomach and the joints going to the head, feet and wrist, I didn't bother rigging the hands just yet so that I can understand the basics before overcomplicating things. below is a screenshot of the skeleton after I corrected the joint axis.

I then bound the skeleton to the rig and began to fix the skin weightings using the paint skin weight tool, to do this I went through the joints an made sure that only the polygons I wanted to be affected were white and painted in the black (0 value) for the parts that should not be affected.

Unfortunately at this point the rig seemed to ignore the new skin weightings, my guess is that it may be to do with the mesh I was using, so I decided that I would rig an inorganic model of my own making to try and get the hang of making controllers and constraints.

I got some feedback at a mock pitch session with some of my classmates and they wrote down some strengths and weaknesses of my project:

Strengths
-very current technology
-can connect to alot of audiences
-lots of new avenues for realistic immersion, what can we do in real life but not yet in games?

Weaknesses
-has immersion been done to death?
-does it have a story? will it be restricting?
-will need to be well planned
-try not to settle on level design ideas too early

I will now take this feedback into consideration when preparing my pitch presentation.

Plan of action for monday the 14th:
-prepare for pitch presentation
-begin learning how to do basic rigging

The History of Virtual Reality

The origins of virtual reality according to Edge Magazine #254 (2013) "To enter an artificial world so convincing it fools your eyes and mind was the dream of virtual reality long before the idea had been given a name. As early as the 1500s, itialian artists were painting frescoed rooms designed to evoke more expansive spaces" optical illusions are a distortion of the reality in the same way as VR, both are attempts to trick the human mind. The floor of the duomo in Florence Italy is tiled in a way that distorts the proportions of the room and when viewed from above makes the flat floor look like a giant pit.

"The first experiments with head tracking were successfully completed in 1968 at MIT's Lincoln Labratory, where The Sword Of Damocles - a terrifying contraption suspended from the ceiling of a lab - offered mechanical tracking and a headset displaying simple wireframe rooms and cubes." (Edge #254. 2013) The contraption itself is shown to the left, this is the first example of VR as we know it and after this the concept seemed to lay dormant until 1991 when "W industries" later renamed "Virtuality" marketed the "Amiga 3000" which retailed for $60,000 and couldn't offer anything revolutionary for gamers.


1991 began the string of failed VR Hardware, Sega VR for megadrive was an ambitious project planned to be sold for an acceptable price of under $200, unfortuneately this price was unrealistic and the project ended up being cancelled although the reason for this is aparently "Sega's supposed concerns that players might hurt themselves in such a believable world" which is pretty laughable considering the graphical capabilities of games at that time.

 1994 saw the partnership of Atari and Virtuality and the creation of the Jaguar VR headset, which was abondoned and some of the technology meant for Atari was taken during Virtuality's downfall and used by both Philip's Scuba HMD (head mounted display) and Takara's Dynovisor, but none of the headsets did very well and recieved very poor reviews. The Dynovisor is shown below.

"Perhaps the most successful attempt at home VR in the early '90s was Forte's VFX-1 HMD for PC" this hardware retailed for around $400 and had a fairly effective motion tracker, it was expected to run on almost 500 system but unfortuneately in 1994 viedo cards where not an essential PC component, in 1997 the company was liquidated and Vuzix bought the assets. the VFX-1 HMD is shown below.

Many years later in 2005 eMagin who were business-focused display specialists thought they'd have a go at creating a home VR called Z800 3DVisor, the headset started at $800 but now sells for $1800 because the company is making fewer and fewer, the headset featured two OLED screens and a 40-degree field of view, eMagin seem to the the only company that haven't had terrible losses after creating a home VR headset. The Z800 is shown below.

The Oculus Rift created by 20 year old Palmer Luckey started as a hobby he then developed and refined his HMD to get a result that he wanted, "Our visual system is by far the most powerful sense we have, and it overrides pretty much everything else, so I wanted something that actually covers as much of your visual field as possible. I was looking for something that made it actually feel like you were inside of the game, not just looking as a screen that happened to be strapped to your head." (P. Luckey, 2013) Luckey work was of great interest to id Software's John Carmack who showed off Luckey's 6th homemade prototype at E3 2012.

In the weeks following E3 Luckeys hobby became a business the project was placed on Kickstarter and "By the time the clock ran out, Rift had made ten times its $250,000 goal.In comparison to the Oculus Rift none of the previous VR systems can compete, featuring a 90-degree field of vision, excellent motion sensing, stunning graphics and low latency all at a low price of $300 there really has never been a better time for Virtual Reality.


References

 Maxwell, B (June 2013). Edge #254. Bath: Future Publishing. p76-79.

. 2013. . [ONLINE] Available at: http://i.images.cdn.fotopedia.com/flickr-6212572540-original/World_Heritage_Sites/Europe/Southern_Europe/Italy/Historic_Centre_of_Florence/Florence_Cathedral/Floor_of_the_Florence_Duomo_Santa_Maria_del_Fiore.jpg. [Accessed 09 October 2013].

. 2013. . [ONLINE] Available at: http://images3.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20111218153947/augmentedreality/de/images/4/43/Sword_of_damocles.jpg. [Accessed 09 October 2013].

. 2013. . [ONLINE] Available at: http://www.mtbs3d.com/gallery/albums/userpics/10002/220936stereo10slide.jpg. [Accessed 09 October 2013].

. 2013. . [ONLINE] Available at: http://media.playright.dk/cover/029/214/8867-dynovisor-@640x640min.jpg. [Accessed 09 October 2013].

. 2013. . [ONLINE] Available at: http://www.digibarn.com/collections/devices/vfx1-headgear-vr-system/CIMG3112.JPG. [Accessed 09 October 2013].

. 2013. . [ONLINE] Available at: http://www.3dvisor.com/wp-content/themes/3DVisor/images/Z800.jpg. [Accessed 09 October 2013].

Oculus Rift: Existing games

 I have been looking at some existing games / games in development for the Oculus Rift the first one that really caught my eye was "Lost Loot" the video is shown below.

 

The game showed me that quite a high level of detail can be obtained on the Oculus Rift, although the models aren't particularly high poly the textures are excellent and create a unified and realistic visual style.
 

The game play itself is fairly simple but it I believe it is still in development, the game seemed to have a good standard of immersion, although in my opinion the audio isn't convincing enough for the most part, the sounds of coins being picked up and the sunken ship being discovered remind the player they are playing a game.

  "Dirt 3" seems very well suited to the Oculus because the player isn't walking around, they are instead driving a car and therefore no realism is lost through player movement because the player is sitting just the same as the character in the game. Again I was surprised at the level of detail that is obtainable on the rift it seems to be on par with the graphics of the xbox 360, though it is hard to judge without playing it on the Oculus myself.

One thing I noticed that may be an issue is the UI in the game, could it be disorientating to have it so close to the players face? would it be better to give a little distance between the players eyes and the UI? Again it is hard to say for certain.

My personal favourite is this mod for "half life 2" were the gun and headset work seperately, to create an entirely new level of immersion that I myself have not seen before, it could be quite disorientating but even still it really opens up a lot of possibilities with games.

I also picked this video in particular because it highlights how effective the horror genre could be on the Oculus, another thing i thought was very interesting was the way the ammo count showed on the side of the gun allowing for a clean HUD increasing player immersion.


In conclusion I have found out that two very important considerations that may be overlooked in Oculus game development are sound and UI, I have also discovered that the graphical capabilities of the Oculus Rift exceeded my expectations. Although I am fascinated by the seperate gun and head control in the half life 2 mod I think it maybe counter productive to focus on that aspect considering my current skillset but I may look into it again in future.

My Question

(will likely change)

How can developments in virtual reality and improving 3D software impact the future of interactive environments and how can the new level of immersion be designed and improved?

Plan of action for Monday 7th:
-read up on the occulus rift
-read half of 'Game Development Essentials: Game Level Design' 

Rough Reading List (so far)

Books

-Game Development Essentials: Game Level Design
-Virtual Reality: and the built environment
-Creative Pencil Drawing
-UDK: Game Development
-Level Up
-3D game environments

Magazines

-3D World
-3D Artist
-Edge

wall experiment

I haven't created all that much using Mudbox and I feel that my skills in texturing and normal mapping need improving so I created this small piece of broken wall as an experiment. It ended up looking much better than I expected but there are plenty of mistakes I made that I will know to avoid next time (for example I used pinch too much and distorted some of the polygons).

I also feel my confidence in texturing has already improved somewhat just because its something I usually put off for as long as I can, but I actually had a lot of fun on this experiment.

Virtual Reality Research

I got out a book today by Jennifer Whyte called "Virtual Reality: and the built environment" the book addresses a lot of interesting issues with virtual reality, how it has developed, why it is useful to businesses, what sort of future there could be in businesses using virtual reality (considering the book was written 11 years ago that future maybe soon).

I am very interested in the idea of using virtual reality to help display buildings before they are built, 3D art or even to show off a new product, and with new technology like the 'Oculus Rift' the ideas put across in this book are more relevant than ever. There are many possibilities with using the rift to show off all sorts of products before they are made, I believe people can have a much better idea if something is good or not if they can physically see it infront of them and perhaps even interact with it. hopefully after reading the book further I will be able to judge how I should proceed with my research.

Another possible environment is Amsterdam, I was led on to the Netherlands again by the theme of sea levels rising and flooding the city. the city itself is visually stunning and also has beautiful architecture as well as a history of excellent art that could prove inspirational.

The city was established in the 13th century making it around 900 years younger than Venice and therefore lacking the same history but with further research I will decide which environment is best suited.

At the minute I feel Amsterdam is too kind a city, it would be easier for me to create a utopia rather than a dystopia and considering my themes are usually highlighting the brutality of mankind a dystopian environment would inspire me more.

. 2013. . [ONLINE] Available at: http://www.greendigitalcharter.eu/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/Amsterdam_photo-city1.jpg. [Accessed 02 October 2013].

. 2013. . [ONLINE] Available at: http://blog.utrip.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/Amsterdam-Canal.jpg. [Accessed 02 October 2013].

. 2013. . [ONLINE] Available at:http://static.hothdwallpaper.net/517f1cd92845a66175.jpg. [Accessed 02 October 2013].

Initial sketches of assets and perspective drawings, set in a dystopian Venice

I really like Venice as a setting for the piece, it seems ideal for at least 3 reasons:

1. There isn't really anywhere else like Venice in the world
2. The classical architecture is both extremely interesting and quite duplicatable
3. There are some really interesting themes that I could play with (e.g. sea levels rising and Venice being submerged)

I recently visited Venice and it was then that I was really interested by the idea of the new upon the old, because of all the new additions, sculptures bridges that almost look out of place in such an iconic city.

I will be watching some films based in Venice such as "don't look now", and "the merchant of Venice".

. 2013. . [ONLINE] Available at: http://nexttriptourism.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/12/Venice-Bridge.jpg. [Accessed 01 October 2013].

. 2013. . [ONLINE] Available at:http://images.betterphoto.com/0721/0705210137261-0269.jpg. [Accessed 01 October 2013].

. 2013. . [ONLINE] Available at:http://i.telegraph.co.uk/multimedia/archive/02385/rialto-woman_2385888k.jpg. [Accessed 01 October 2013].

Plan of Action for Thursday 3rd:
-Find lots of useful journals and books and construct a rough reading list
-refine my idea through mind maps
-keep sketching and researching possible visual styles

Aims and Objectives

Research Domain:

-games

-3D art and design

-storytelling (maybe)

Topic:

-The design and production of an immersive game level

Aim:

-To create a highly polished 3d level that is a linear immersive player experience focusing on exploring the use of light, sound, composition and staging, to convey an appropriate mood and the meaning behind the piece.

Objectives:

1. Examine existing literature, journals, magazines, websites, and games that are relevant to the subject matter and will help me improve my knowledge about the level design process.

2. Review books on social trends, architecture and art, to better inform the context of my piece.

3. Explore new 3D and level design techniques, to both improve my skills and increase my knowledge in the subject.

4. Design and create a highly polished 3D level that conveys a feeling and tells a story.