#ctec700

Above is a short video of what we created this morning in class.

Michael Bambury, Matthew Bland and I wanted a way to interact with audio as it is playing. I really liked the idea of controlling filters ontop of an audio track such as pitch, distortion, tempo or echo filters.

I created a quick low pass filter in processing last weekend that we could use today as a testing environment. I knew beforehand that Michael was going to be buying a MakeyMakey and so I mapped the keys in my program to the arrow keys.

I also created a random color generator that placed circles of different colors and sizes all around the screen. The user can control the color output by pressing different arrow keys.

Everyone loves needles, right? No? That’s what I thought and that’s why I want to utilize them in my project for Space, Image and Sound. In the previous lecture, we discussed the utility of contradictory sound and image, showing different perspectives or emotions across multiple platforms. This can be showed by having an erratic and chaotic image, however the sound associated with it is a calm melodic tone for example. This can cause discomfort in the viewer, which is something that was also discussed in class and how disturbing pieces can be more memorable in some cases. 

I personally do prefer pieces that are not aesthetically pleasing, pieces that you really have to struggle to appreciate because of just how uncomfortable they are to look at. I am also a huge fan of antiques and old ‘crap’ so possibly I could utilize that in this project?

I want to make a piece that incorporates objects that people are not usually comfortable with, one of the most obvious cases of this are needles. I also want to incorporate the use of disassociation between image and sound. So far my ideas trend towards magnets and needles on strings.

This YouTube video is of someone playing with the same idea and to see what he can do with needles. The results are expected but there is some sort of chaotic and unexpected nature of the needles reacting with the magnets. Towards the end of the video he shows them suspended in the air, flying upwards towards the magnet. The way the magnets shoot upwards after being introduced to the magnet is somewhat terrifying and un-nerving.

I think it would be interesting to put a magnet inside an object that people would not want to be exposed to a needle, a balloon perhaps or possibly a voodoo doll. Either way, both of these objects have negative connotations towards the idea of needles being in them.

Assessment 2 - Final Artefact

Liminal Hotel

Liminal Rooms

Liminal Wooden House

Liminal Asylum

Liminal Subway

Somewhere, Nowhere - Playthrough

Somewhere, Nowhere Download Page

Creating a Tile-able Carpet Texture

After creating the First-Person assets, the next step was to start producing the modular assets to texture them and create different liminal spaces.

Prototyping the Modular Floor Inside Unity

Modular Map Pieces Textured

Developing the Modular Assets with Textures

Creating Pillars for Large/Medium Rooms

All Modular Pillars, Pipes, and Skirting Complete

Creating White Wooden Doors

Different Styled Liminal Space Rooms and Textures

A concept we came up with, was the idea of a lost soul wondering throughout the liminal spaces that the player is currently trapped in. The idea is that this lost soul was once in the same situation as the player but was never able to escape and leave the state of transition, thus becoming a lost soul who would hunt the player down.

Sculpting a Base Mesh for the Lost Soul

I began creating the Lost Soul in Blender by taking basic shapes of a human base mesh, and then manipulating them and forming them to have longer limbs in all areas, and have a much skinnier physic. I used reference images to help guide my design decisions.

Finishing the Lost Soul high res model

I sculpted the Lost Soul to have an extremely bony and skinny body, to appear as if he's been trapper for hundreds, maybe even thousands of years having nothing to feast on, with his body deteriorating.

Retopologised low res model

To texture and animate the Lost Soul in order to import him into the Unity project successfully, I was required to retopologise him, and get his poly count as low as I could, while still maintaining his most important details for a clean bake within Substance Painter.

Texturing in Substance Painter

Adding a Rig

After texturing him, I was onto rigging him, so I could animate the different movements he would perform within Somewhere, Nowhere. I started off with matching bones to his body as perfectly as I could.

Generating a Character Controller out of the Rig

Once I had matched the bones to his body, I generated the rig to access all the character controllers to help the animating process.

Animations

I made a bunch of different animations for the Lost Soul, lots of transitions from one animation to another, but the most important animations are the ones shown below, idle (when he's staring at the player), walking (when he's slowly approaching the player) and running (when he's either running towards the player to consume them or running away from the light of the lantern).

Idle:

Walking:

Running:

Lost Soul Render

With the lantern complete, it was time for the second part of the FPS. Which was preparing the arms, texturing them to look like real human skin.

Modifying the Arm Base Mesh

Rather than modelling these arms from scratch, I took a slight shortcut and grabbed these arms from a MakeHuman character model, but then imported and modified them within Blender to get them perfect for our character controller.

Texturing the Arm

I took the arm into Substance Painter, and followed the usual workflow to try and create realistic looking skin.

Rigging the Arm and Lantern for Animations

After texturing, came rigging the arm and lantern, so that I could import them together into Unity, and begin adding animations that would play while walking, running or standing still. Without these animations, Somewhere, Nowhere would feel bland and lifeless.

Testing the Arm and Lantern Within Unity

Creating the Player Animations

Idle Animation:

Walking Animation:

Running Animation:

Adding the Animations

With all the animations done (still with some future improvements needed) I imported them all into Unity, and with Nates character controller he got the animations working seamlessly together with the player.

Final Lantern In-game Screenshot

This screenshot is from the future where I have completed my map design for one of the liminal spaces in Somewhere, Nowhere.

Lockdown Complications

Originally for Somewhere, Nowhere we were going to have users experience it with a VR headset, but because of lockdown, we wouldn't have been able to test as much as we would've liked, if not at all. So, we decided to scrap the VR headset and instead create a first-person shooter-style instead, except without the guns.

Modelling the Lantern within Blender

The first step for me was to model a lantern that the player would use as a light to guide themselves around the different liminal spaces. I used Blender, as I do with all of my 3D models. Looking at reference photos, I created the shape and aesthetic I felt best suited Somewhere, Nowheres vibe.

Low and high res model for baking

Luckily, I now know the official game asset creation workflow and have been able to use this workflow to create much more official game assets. After creating the lantern as a high poly model, I retopologised it to prepare the high res models to detail to be baked onto the low res model.

UV Unwrapping the model

The texturing process within Substance Painter requires the models UVs to be efficiently unwrapped, to get the most detail possible out of the textures.

Prototyping Blender to Substance Painter

Baking the high res maps to the low res model is never successful the first time round, or for me, twentieth time round. So I did plenty of prototyping doing the lantern piece by piece until I could get the maps baking perfectly.

Creating different materials in Substance Painter

Final Lantern Render