The Oldest Thing

Inching closer to a parameterized performance using a game engine and a tech embedded costume + positional tracking to activate a space. Next time I’ll render the projection and external lighting that accompanies, and then soon...maybe some motion!

I’m so thankful I’m coming up in a time when we have all the tools at our fingertips to previz so quickly and iterate on concepts end-to-end.

The photo above came in the form of an email, out of the blue from a man named, “Hoagy”, which as I would later find out, short for Hogarth De La Plante. An industry legend in game art direction, most notably for his work in BioShock and and BioShock 2 as the head of Art Direction.

**the photo’s below are our select stills, and not representative of exact final imagery**

Hoagy and I became friends, and he was a huge fan of the world that Meow Wolf had crafted. Enough so that we would later go on to create the environments for The Atrium together.  

 We sat for (i have no idea, countless weekends) crafting the environments and as I developed narrative content around a few Meow Wolf characters, and the installation which evolved before our eyes. 

I look back at it as one of the best creative collaborative relationships I’ve ever had. Learning so much about the aaa world and techniques in the process. Above all, working with Hoagy was the prime example of someone who was talented as all hell, yet very humble and respectful.  

The project had some of the most technically challenging feats to overcome. Mostly centered around the scale of the world we were in. We were a 6″ character in a normal world, which in VR means we had to scale the world between x12 and x16 times larger then us. Mostly creating hurdles around physics and lighting, but also transition moments that would allow us to seamlessly move into the new environments without teleportation.  

At the start of The Atrium, we knew we wanted to let people explore a world. Something that in virtual reality can be a serious challenge without using teleportation. Something I’ve never really been fond of as it tends to break the illusion.

I started work on a method for exploration that was much like a ride, only one that still allowed the user to walk around at room scale. And Much like all my ideas, They start as a shit drawing on a piece of paper. (See below)

It’s the bare minimum that lets me then loop in collaborators. In this case, the majestic Leo Brown. An artist/designer/friend who was the first one crazy enough to jump off a cliff with me, and start making digital interactive stories combined with installtion art at Meow Wolf. Leo was the person who took the idea of the haptic platform, and made it weigh thousands of pounds (and look beautiful).

The platform was the grounding point for the viewer. Allowing you to feel the sensation of flying up and down, hitting things, and transition moments. The feeling of flying on a giant speaker, with concentric rings of haptics that allowed vibration could circle you, and airbags off of a semi truck that let the platform flex and contort.

It all started with a Leo painstakingly cutting our mock up frame out of 2x4’s with a Japanese handsaw. Which was obviously the only way. This let us build up the electrical and digital components.

I’ll explain more about the digital/virtual side in part II.

Here’s a walk through on character visual development for a character from ‘The Atrium’.

From the start of the project, my goal was to assemble a team of artists that would normally not be found within the same realm, and put them into a blender together.

Initial design came from a napkin drawing I presented to Mike McCormmick, upon meeting him by chance at Meow Wolf. Mike is the ledgendary designer behind much of Jim Henson’s creatures (dark crystal, Star Wars, labyrinth) and it was my dream and good fortune to have his influence present in the story.

Mike designed the body separate from the arms, out of was. We did this so the arms, which are more in view being it was a first person character, could scan with higher detail.

From there we handed it over to Sam Rolfes, Known for his mind bending real-time performances and 3D art, with deep ties to the world of fashion and surrealism. A great combo with our verteran puppeteer/designer.

Sam made up a few character sketches in Z-Brush based off the the scans, and we handed those over to Isaiah Banks, a technical character artist and rigger out of LA for retopology.

The character evolved passing though the hands of all three artists. Each one adding their own tweaks and influence. Resulting in one of the creepiest hamsters I think many have, and will ever see.

Perfect.