Tag Archives: Construction

The Geranium Project (R&D) 19

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This week has been about rebuilding and thinking. I’ve decided not to attend the VR section of the Aesthetica Short Film Festival, even though its just up the road in York, because I don’t want to get over influenced by anything I might see. Equally I’m not at all interested in FPS or general RPGs. I think I need to solve the problems I have now rather than find new problems to further cloud the issues I encounter.

One of the key things I found during my open events was that the piece lacks coherence for an audience, there is no target so there is nothing that guides a user through the navigation. If you’re not going anywhere in particular it’s difficult to know which way to go, or what to be drawn towards.

The list of things I need to do begins with the rebuilding of the installation and the need to make textures for the VR environment. I began by taking the space apart this week.

Installation piled up in the studio

I then laid out the new arrangement and cut some wedges to position the panels on Monday.

New installation layout

It doesn’t seem a lot to have achieved in a week.

Alongside this I did some work on the VR space but won’t have video showing the changes until next week.

The Geranium Project (R&D) 15

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This is the screengrab from the end of last week. The new ones, below, incorporate the slide movement from VRTK.

On Monday Iain Nicholls showed me how to use VRTK to put slide movements into the space instead of teleport and how to change the speed to make it slower, the normal movements tend to operate at game speed. So now I’ve got to spend some time looking at the content and the narrative to make the space work as an experience.

The space functions quite well after orientating the passage through the sections, but needs something happening inside it to generate more interest. Sound needs to be introduced and some animations.

Ian and Luke working with VR

Tried out the new film in the installation.

The rest of the week spent adjusting the installation to create a light lock and to fine tune the Virtual space. In between I tried to work out the content of my presentation for next Friday.

The Geranium Project (R&D) 14

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Monday morning was busy with visits and conversations around the future direction of the project.

Conversation with Sally Lockey, Project Director for ‘Right Up Our Street’, Doncaster’s Creative People and Places project funded through the Arts Council. Wayne Sables provided the introduction. Amongst other things we talked about potential opportunities to show the piece, when completed, in Doncaster. We also talked about the potential of the medium. Wayne feels there are loads of opportunities to put it forward in a variety of locations. Pressure to finish mounts!

By the time I display the piece in October I will have the three ‘rooms’ that the viewer navigates and a system for movement that is smoother and easier than the teleport I’ve used on earlier films. This week is going to be modelling artefacts to place in the spaces and building the third space for import on Monday. Then it will be refining the spaces and movement, working out instructions and display requirements and so on.

Very little practical achieved on Monday.

Did discuss a few ideas with Wayne around what might happen with the space, one thing I am seriously considering is the prospect of being able to move the separate planes of the photographic garden while in VR.

Tuesday I began a model to bring into the space, potentially to be carried around.

Wednesday I imported the start space into Unity, played around with using video in the space, it gets a bit laggy when the video is running, and essentially made it work as a set of three using teleport.

Thursday I made textures for the start space and continued with the model from Tuesday.

Friday I met with Andrea Berry to prepare for the presentations on the 11th October and imported the new materials into the opening space.

Projection Space

Projection Space

I have film of the new opening space but I forgot to copy it! I’ll preface the next post with it.