Tiny Projects
CDB Test This scene was a test for an adaptation of a fulldome project. It's a surreal landscape with floating moving objects (all inspired in products made by Bauhaus women) that change between the colors of the scenes of the Triadisches Ballet. A poem is read by 4 different voices and the sound sources are spread over the scene, by getting closer to one source it becomes louder and the other become fainter.
360 Video Experiment This was an experiment with a 360 camera. A tiny physical scene was built and the camera was inserted in the model so it could record a fantasy kaleidoscope-like landscape where lights and shadows move around playing with plants and mirrors.
Main Project
Not There (Summaery project)
"Not There" is the search for a new form/media for an old piece, initially called "Não Está Lá". It was an essay that became a digital-zine divided into three acts: "Eu - Você" (Me - You), "Eu - Eu " (Me - Me), "Eu - Outros" (Me - Others), and later on an insert was added. It shares the process of having someone dear to you go missing through the selection and collection of posts and messages exchanged on different social media through-out a certain period of time. The segmentation in different acts is non-linear and exhibits different postures in the process: 1) trying to contact the missing person directly, 2) talking to yourself and introspective thinking, 3) talking and interacting with others about the subject. The insert was added a few years later when the essay became a digital-zine, as a way to update the situation and feelings related to it. For the VR experience, I wanted to represent the situation in a metaphorical transition between scenes and change the approach from words to a visual representation of spaces. The insert was merged with the "cover" of the zine and became the first scene, as a form of introduction to the 3 acts. Meaning there are 4 unity scenes, 3 of them being acts and a scene of its own in. The original order of the acts was inverted for this and the experience follows as an intro (1st scene) -> me - others / Cityscape (2nd scene, 1st act) -> me - me / Florest (3rd scene, 2nd act) -> me - you / Grass (4th scene, 3rd act).
Visually it is inspired by the photography used on the digital-zine, which was sold as printed analog photos that were too dark to see whatever was supposed to be there, with a QR-code sticker over it, redirecting to the digital content. Each photo has a relationship with some sort of personal feeling of emptiness/missing and the presence of the sky is a big part of it, most of them are landscapes. The use of messages over empty scenes is a reference to the dutch movie "After the Tone", where voice messages left on a missing person voice-mail are played over a series of landscapes.
For the photographic references, I decided to work with building scenes using photogrammetry, 360 photos as the sky and as little as possible 3D modeled objects. The positive aspect of this is the aesthetic result, but on the negative side, all scenes are quite heavy and take some time to load from one scene to the other. There were a few rules for the progression between acts (not the scenes, therefore not applying to the interlude). The concept for the VR is "stripping" an urban scene towards a more empty and natural scene as if reaching the core of a feeling or memory. From one scene to the other it had to feel like there's more space surrounding the user and the landscape is showing fewer urban aspects or human intervention. The setting of the acts has a sort of discreet direction. One side has aspects of the previous scene while if the user looks the other way the scene has elements from the next scene, and it is where the user will find the trigger for the next scene. The sky starts pitch black with the intro but has to end on a very sunny and bright summer day. The sky from the scenes transitions as the dawn. The "me-me" scene has a pinkish sky, originally seen on the zine photo representing the "me-other" act. This decision was made because the "me-me" act talks about a personal view and mentions dreaming. These colors from the sky (and also on the lights from the scene) provides the whole ambient a more dreamy and sweet feeling. A good midterm between the darker dawn and the shiny optimistic day. One goal was to make the person position its body lower and closer to the ground in order to transition between scenes, eventually laying or sitting on the floor. In the end, the person should be laying on a digital grass field with a blue sky. Interaction wise, the process of lowering the body was guided by interacting with 2 different physical objects (pared with digital representations). Initially, the user simply walks to trigger the next scene, then he has to sit on a chair and finally he has to lay on a grass carpet to enter the final scene. These physical objects are digitally represented in 2 scenes, but only work to trigger the next scene, the user can only go forward and never backward in the storyline.
INSERT: video from the gameplay
A physical object was attached to the SteamVR camera on Unity and invisible rectangles marked as triggers were positioned in different heights, depending on the scene. When the object from the Steam VR camera collapses with a trigger object, a script (presented bellow) loads the next scene.
INSERT: Script from scene change
1st Scene: "Intro/Road" Around the third sign, the user reaches an invisible wall that triggers the next scene.
2nd Scene to 3rd Scene: "Eu - Outro / Cityscape" -> Eu - Eu / Forest When the user sits on the chair, the height of the camera lowers enough to reach a trigger set just above the chair. The sitting action has a conceptual connection with sitting and waiting, besides the function of lowering the user. In the following scene, the user finds himself sitting on a different chair somewhere else.
3rd Scene to 4th Scene: "Eu - Eu / Forest" -> Eu - Você / Grass The user feels the physical grass carpet when he, in the VR, he reaches a patch of tiny green plants. Once the user sits on the floor, it's height triggers the next scene, setting the user on a vast empty green field.
File:video_2019-09-30_20-39-41.mp4
The goal is to get the user to be in this situation because it was something I used to do at least weekly with my friend which went missing. This whole idea came from the simple fact that I wanted to make a VR experience of people sitting in the grass. Once questioned "why", I started wondering and searching for a reason why this might be something I enjoy so much, and quickly this link with "Não Está Lá" was made and became "Not There".
