Immersive Design 5: Development

Immersive Design 5: Development

My VR 360 experience is intended to be watched while standing up as the player is standing up within the animation. However, the experience should still be watchable while sitting down but there will be a disconnect between the height of the player and the user. As with some other VR experiences, it is up to the discretion of the user whether they want to sit or stand up.

To create the animations for my immersive design piece, I used the level sequencer within Unreal to animate all the characters using the animations I sourced online. I didn’t implement any sound in Unreal because as stated already I am going to use Adobe Audition to simulate spatial audio. To make sure all elevator scenes lined up correctly I added a camera to my elevator blueprint so between sequences the camera stayed in the same place. This was especially necessary for the otherworld sequence as the scales were adjusted which caused an unconnected camera to be displaced from where it should be. However, the otherworld scene was a bit off center when I put all the scenes together in Adobe Premiere Pro so I adjusted the position of it in Adobe After Effects by duplicating the video of the otherworld sequence and moving it along to the left so it would match perfectly.

Office

The office sequence is very simple as it mainly consists of the player being able to look around before the elevator button is pressed and then the elevator opens before the screen fades to black. This sequence used to include the player being in the elevator but it worked better being part of the void sequence. This sequence was quite simple to animate as I just has to change a material and adjust the transforms of the elevator doors and the player hand.

Dark Void

As the majority of this area is dark, this sequence is going to rely on audio and used specific lighting to keep the player captivated. The intention was for the player to be on edge. This sequence starts with the player in the elevator as it is traversing to a different floor before it starts to strangely malfunction as the walls fade into transparency. The light then goes out as a spotlight turns on leading the player to see a glimpse of some mysterious entity. The entity also appears behind the player and then somehow sends the elevator to another strange place. This sequence will have audio of the void spirit talking to the player and audio of the spotlight to lead the player as to where they are supposed to look. To animate this sequence I used three animations that came with the Paragon: Sevarog asset pack to animate the spirit how I wanted as well as keyframing the transform of the spirit character. The rest of the animation involved toggling the visibilities of lights within the scene as well as changing materials. To change the materials of the elevator parts that become transparent I had to add a dither temporal antialiasing part to the material blueprint of the metal connected to opacity mask. This is because metallic materials can’t have their opacity manipulated normally. This is so the opacity of the metal goes down before it switches out with glass so the transition is smoother. This part will fade into the next scene to add to the magical teleportation as the two scenes will overlap momentarily.

Otherworld

This sequence starts with the player being accosted by inhabitants of the otherworld. One of them is cautious and taps the elevator, another is inquisitive and inspects the elevator and the final one is aggressive and attacks the elevator. The giant appears after a little while and scares them away. The giant then sees the player and roars before attempting to crush the player. The animations used in this section were all sourced from Mixamo. The positions of the characters were adjusted by manipulating the transforms as the animations intentionally didn’t move them.

Elevator

The elevator scene is a short scene in which the player seems to be back in the real world and is recovering from the events that just happened to them. The animation is simple as it is just manipulation of the transforms of both the player hands.

References

mixamo (N/A) Character Animations [Asset Resource]. Available online: https://www.mixamo.com/#/ [Accessed 5/1/2023].

Animations:
Banging Fist on Table
Climbing (Pulling Up To A Ledge)
Climbing Up A Wall
Goofy Running
Kicking (Male Thrust Kick With The Lead Foot)
Kneeling Inspecting (Kneeling and Inspecting Element With Hands)
Looking Around (Idle Stand Looking Around)
Looking Down (Looking Down And Away)
Look Over Shoulder (Quick Nervous Look Over Right Shoulder)
Mutant Roaring
Nervously Look Around (Nervously Looking Around Left To Right – Loop)
Petting (Petting A Large Animal)
Strut Walking (Male Strut Walk)
Reacting (Being Surprised And Looking Right)
Run Look Back (Running Looking Back)
Running (Running Forward Quickly)
Running (Silly Run)
Walking (Careful Walk)
Walking (Male Brutal Walk)