Once I had experimented with a range of Immersive softwares I started to reflect on what I would use within the future and what I am likely not going to attempt again. This led me to come up with concept ideas that I could make for a major project. As I have not had too much time to actually create a finalised prototype, the main prototypes that will be demonstrated here are examples and projects that I have built within softwares that I could use within a major project.
Due to spending time experimenting with different softwares I know how I would go about creating an immersive piece so even though I did not do one big prototype I did accomplish some smaller example prototypes that I could then combine into one big project. By doing these smaller projects it not only allowed me to familiarise myself and experiment with the software’s it also allowed me start to develop the skills necessary for future projects as well as give me some ideas of what I could accomplish using each one for creating aspects of a larger project, such as Blender could be used for creating scenes, props or even characters.
Therefore I started storyboarding a range of story ideas as well as concepts that use the different aspects that I experimented with throughout this website. I started off by storyboarding an animation idea. This prototype idea was the concept of ‘time healing’ or ‘losing a loved one and going through the gentle subtle phases of grieving. This could then become interactive or projected to create an immersive story for an audience to really connect to. One of the story concepts that I previously wanted to portray was the idea of death or the afterlife, and this project allowed me to portray death in a different way.
Consequently, I drew out the idea and how I would end up using this portrayal, even though I so far have not created this project the way I would go about this by using Procreate dreams to create the full animated piece and then depending on if I wanted to turn this interactive or projected I would either import the animation into a software such as Madmapper to demonstrate the animation within a live space or use Blender to for 3D aspects of the animation or even into Unity to form interactive elements into the animated piece to allow the audience to feel as though they have power over what happens in the plot.
This led me to practising animation to make these ideas come to life. As I was doing hand drawn animations, the main downfall is that it does take a lot of time to accomplish the final outcome, especially when animating alone. However, as I practise creating these small animations my skills within the software should become more efficient and therefore I could create quicker drawn animations.
Then overall this led to me to consider how I would completely immerse an audience using an animated piece. Considering that animation is such a broad media there are a range of ways that I could orchestrate them into being an immersive piece. Therefore, I explored my main options of what I could accomplish if converting my animations into an engaging immersive piece.
So, one of the ways I could make an animation immersive would be to bring it into a real life setting such as through projection mapping or VR. This would be even more effective if the animated piece could interact with our reality in some form or another. By doing this it would immerse the audience within the location they are already in whilst demonstrating my art or animation within a specific space. This would also have to be done by finding a location and structuring the animation based on the props and placement of the walls within the animation, in order for it to be projected into the space or VR environment.
This gave me the idea that I could possibly make a miniature animation interactive episode, where I have characters within a fantasy setting and have the audience control where each character goes and how their story ends, similar to branching narrative episodes or point and click style games. So, in order to do this I planned out a mini storyboard of how I would involve and engage an audience within an environment.
Even though I planned out how this would work and be effective I currently had not formulated a proper plot to use this. So, when creating this I took a very broad idea to see what the outcome could look like, by doing this it allowed me to see when I fully plot out the storyline what each section could involve, such as when the character could be introduced, this gives me a broad structure to work with when creating a proper project and allows me to focus on other aspects, for example what the scenery is going to look like.
So, when it comes down to branching narratives I took this concept and attempted to formulate a way to demonstrate this. I did this by designing a mini interactive zooming piece. I created this prototype in order to test out branching narratives within still art. This allowed me to test out different ways art alone could create branching narratives and allowed me to experiment with the concept of fabricating a storyline for the audience to pick, in order to create the varying endings.
So, to create this below I used Endlesspaper, I used a range of one off sketches that I had previously done for people to zoom in. Even though I did not have a set story and I just used some previous art, it allowed me to experiment with the concept of branching narratives just within art. But by doing this it allowed me to heavily experiment with the software. The main improvement that I would do next time when creating within this would be to have a fully fledged story with different endings and directions with finished art. However, despite this just learning to use the software to create branching options opens up ideas for using this method in an immersive setting such as in VR.
After that I would start to consider how I am going to make this into an immersive experience. One of the ways that I could do this would be through VR and have the player be surrounded in an environment and have to pick which way they would want to go, therefore creating the start of the story, or have them zoom into the environment or have a portal out of the environment into a new art piece/area.
So, after that I would also use one of the softwares that I am most familiar with or those that I have found the most useful using such as Unity, Blender and Mapmapper to develop a finalised project. After I have experimented with each of these softwares, I would like to practise further within these immersive softwares to develop my skills more.
Using the skills I developed within Unity and in Blender I would be able to transfer the concept of using my art into an interactive environment and then possibly build upon them to create an immersive project that involves aspects from each of these softwares. Along with this the skills I learnt through 3D modelling would be beneficial for an overall project as it is a highly useful tool for creating props or other fantasy based items. This could lead to me mixing styles and having 2D and 3D elements within a project that could be fully formed through Unity’s engine. Through doing these mini prototypes I quickly learnt the benefits of creating within both of these softwares and that they could contribute towards adding different assets to the storyline.
Therefore as this concept prototype I would want to take these aspects further by demonstrating a mash of all three of these softwares and skills (animations, blender and unity) in a way that I have not done before, that would engage an audience. This will require further practise and time within each software, so that I can learn more skills but also understand how I could combine elements from the softwares to form a final project.
To conclude with these prototype projects, now that I have gained concepts for future projects it would be beneficial to go back into the softwares and learn more moving forwards. Along with this I would need to experiment with each idea and any further storied ideas to see what kind of project I want to create. Even though I have several concepts in mind, one of the major aspects that I do know that I would want to take into doing an immersive piece would be my artistic abilities as it could put a somewhat unique spin to some other immersive pieces.
References:
Blender Foundation (2019). blender.org - Home of the Blender project - Free and Open 3D Creation Software. [online] blender.org. Available at: https://www.blender.org/ [Accessed 5 Jan. 2024].
Endless Paper (2022). Endless Paper. [online] endlesspaper.app. Available at: https://endlesspaper.app/ [Accessed 5 Jan. 2024].
Glenton, R. (2023). Rey’s Projects [Social Media Links]. [online] bio.link. Available at: https://bio.link/talesfromtherain [Accessed 4 Jan. 2024].
MadMapper — The projection Mapping software (2014). MadMapper - the Projection Mapping software on MAC & WINDOWS. create 3d projection mapping and LED Light Mapping. [online] MadMapper — The projection Mapping software. Available at: https://madmapper.com/ [Accessed 7 Jan. 2024].
Procreate (2023). Procreate Dreams and Procreate® – Sketch, Paint, Create. [online] Procreate. Available at: https://procreate.com/ [Accessed 8 Jan. 2024].
Unity Technologies (2019). Unity - Unity. [online] Unity. Available at: https://unity.com [Accessed 8 Jan. 2024].
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