Practical Response Creation

Narrative

In the distant future. Reality has become a mundane regime of survival. The planet is overcrowded, the destroyed climate means humans are only allowed certain dosages outside with a rota and tagged implants, as a means to curb crowded streets and violence. Resources are scarce from lack of trading from wars, meaning you have to work hard to get enough for your family to live wholly for a week.

This societal evolution all happened within 2 decades recovery after the wars. Meaning that there are generations of people who remember what society used to be like and greatly miss it.

Replay corp set out to change that, with their Replay programme. Using the tagged implants everyone is injected with in the cerebral region at 4 years of age, Replay is a software that has the ability to hack into the implant and read memory data when placed on your head. Then, it can play back this data as videos in VR. The Replay device resembles a VR headset, not too dissimilar from headsets in 2017. Replay isn't just a software though, its a lifestyle. To be eligible for the Replay programme you need a lot of money and to have no other family members. They will give you a shared home with other replayers, clothes, (hospital gowns) food and a promise of a happier, stress free life. A life of using VR to replay the better life you had, the life that suits you.

In submitting and paying for the programme, you agree for your memories to be uploaded and edited. Many people conspire that this is the reason 100% of people who partake in the Replay programme never leave it. Their brains are possibly being distorted and changed, or educated with alternative intentions. Once hooked in the headset, you never leave, you excrete and eat through pipes and live your future in the past.

Planning

To get that immersion into the CG environment, which will take on a realistic design, I need to pay close attention to how I model and texture. Including great detail and quality of execution so the user can instantly relate and familiarise with their environment, initiating that immersion.

I designed the environment using the VR painting tool Tilt Brush. Through this medium I tested what to include and where to include it, organising the placement and getting a feel for the room and its disorganized disheveled state. This also gave me a good indication of texture.

Then using the 3d VR references I began modelling using Maya, keeping in mind about performance and poly count and also the transferring into Unity afterwards.

I then started to texture. Using high quality 2K textures.

Here are some of my UV Maps, exported from Maya and edited with decals and details in photoshop to add that grime, distressed element.

BEFORE

AFTER

BEFORE

AFTER

BEFORE

AFTER 

BEFORE

AFTER 

BEFORE

AFTER

The contrasting before and after shots of my UVs really show the great amount of depth I am going into with texturing. Also trying hard to get that high quality look, avoiding that unrealistic repeating texture look. These are just a handful of my UV's, but each element of every models have been textured from ever angle with all things considered because of the aspect of Virtual Reality.

I then started to test photogrammetry, using Agisoft Photoscan for the creation of my humans to get that realistic look.

I went through many many tests with everything failing. My meshes often didn't register.

This was my best scan result:

When I tried to fix the mesh and add to it, this is the result in Mudbox:

Lots of non-manifold geometry.

So I wanted to test another method of creating my characters realistically with probably much better effects.
Through sculpting the body mesh in Mudbox:

Using my photographs taken for photogrammetry but instead as stencils in mudbox I got a realistic and effective finish.

Render shots:

I tested a few texture variations for my environments too in photoshop, with a live update into Maya to see what looked best:

I decided the green look best gave that murky aesthetic and drug den feel.

I also designed a logo for the company supplying the memory data, branded 'Replay'.

For the logo design I played with the actual logos for play on remote controls, giving it this futuristic appeal at the same time.

Here is my final face textured;

Tested in Unity;

Making of next model:

I took some photos of people who were willing to be included in my experience in CG form, front and side:

I used these as reference in Mudbox and as projection for texturing.

Afterwards I imported the Mudbox meshes into Maya where I modeled the hospital-like gown, and edited the UV map to include dirty socks, made in PS.

I made a quick skeleton to pose the character:

Bed VR users:

When posing my users in bed I imported the bed as reference.

Really happy with their positioning and the general floppy, dead appearance to really pronounce how these users really have surrendered to the machine. Their immediate appearance is disturbing, the Uncanny Valley element really aiding with the disassociation, getting across the feeling that their organic matter is degrading in the hands of the machine infiltration.

Render shots:

Here are my render stills in comparison to my initial sketches:

5 presentation boards:

All together:

CUSTOM BASE LOGOS TO 360 VIDEOS

I experimented with creating custom base logos for the 360 videos in my VR experience;

equirectangular format to be stitched onto the bottom of the videos:

Evaluation of practical response

VR EXPERIENCE TRAILER

 twitter reaction:

I am really happy with what I have created in such a short space of time. It has been brilliant getting people involved in its creation too. In the VR lab in November, my team really liked the concepts behind my CoP3 and we decided to elaborate on it by creating an experience where people use Replay to replay memories. It was great to see other people liking the concept and narrative behind my Cop3 and being able to work on my idea with others has been a valuable experience. What we created in the lab was only a taster of what I have developed the experience to be now...

I created 3 characters, using Mudbox and Maya. It has been a great learning curve sculpting and texturing in Mudbox with stylized realism, something I haven't yet attempted. I created 2 rooms and a corridor. Learning a lot about effective UV mapping and texturing using PS to get that realism and HQ texture up close which is needed for VR. I went into great detail with the environment to make it as realistic and immersive as possible, as well as abandoned, messy and drug-den-esque.

As you can see from the trailer, my experience takes on a very solemn approach, through colour (dark tones and vignette) and atmosphere (particle effects of dead skin to show unclean and rotting organic matter), to reflect the lifeless position of the characters. I really wanted to expose the contrasting organic matter and technological matter as highlighted in my essay. As a result of the succumbing technology the characters are lifeless and static to show the loss of humanity and being as a result for their organic surrender. This organic and technology juxtaposition is further highlighted with the tree structures in my experience, where the wires for the Replay headset originate from. This is a metaphorical juxtaposition used to highlight the organic technology split and its contrasting coexistence in my experience. The tree and its natural organic grandeur, giving the characters a technological existence is an artistic juxtaposition reflecting parts of my essay on how technology has the potential to split us from our organic being;

'Becoming one with the machine does mean a disconnection from our organic form as we immerse, or as McLuhan would say; ‘extend’ through the interface creating our shadow-self. Ryan (2001, p.31) defines that; ‘immersion into the virtual world leads to a virtualisation of the experiencer. One must assume that this virtualisation involves a loss in humanity, as we offer ourselves as data and as servants to the machine’ Here not only does Ryan reinforce the submissive human; ‘servants to the machine’ in contrast to the dominant machine, but also exposes that virtualisation of the experiencer would mean a disposal of organic matter, and therefore our own human essence. Technology infiltrating our human existence is emphasised by Heidegger (1977) who coined the term ‘essence of technology’ to describe the phenomenological threat of machine mastering the essence of human being.'

Creating environments has been a weak point for me in Maya, but through creating this CG VR environment, I have really brushed up on those skills and improved as an all round practitioner. I was worried about being able to capture realism effectively after the failure of photogrammetry, but I feel I have managed to do that well, even if it crosses into the uncanny valley a little, helps with the disturbing element.

To get the look of the disheveled textures I was after I edited my textures in PS, using extensive moodboards to get the best aesthetic considerations.

Working with the game engine Unity has also brushed up on those skills, I feel confident in the pipeline of exporting from Maya into Unity now.

For my pre vis work I used Tilt Brush, the VR painting app. A fantastic tool which allowed me to visualize and design in VR my VR environment. This meant I could check and get right scaling, organise and plan furniture and certain textures in the room and export to Maya for reference. This really made my pipeline much faster and efficient and I will continue to use this tool in future VR work for speedy prototyping.

The effects of immersion through the medium of VR for these people is a penetrating one. For the replay software to harness the brain and potentially adjust it, poses a dangerous risk in distorting our being. Changing who we are as a person and therefore our very essence. If the software never effected our brain, the ontological effects from someone rotting and surrendering to the machine are profound. In the experience, the people have given up on primary life. You can tell this by their surrendered poses to the machine. To give up on ones organic life, you have given up your humanity, what makes you human, making you ontologically split and distorted.

The surrendered positions of the people coupled with the wires that harness them, connotes of sadism and masochism. The dominating machine penetrating you. As highlighted within my essay:

'we reach a masochistic standpoint; through wearing technological apparatus, we surrender to the machine, physically and mentally we allow its penetration, to be bound by wires and nourished by its information that we so crave.'

The dominant grace of the machine and its ability to control us and trick us into thinking we control it. 

It can be argued that in my VR experience the spectator themselves undergoes an ontological split as a result of the immersion and entering into intractable, relatable and immersive VR, one may forget their original tethered condition as a result of the immersive CG environment as highlighted in my essay, thus concluding In an answer for my essay.

'Our ontological status sustains many effects in the process of immersion, Heidegger (1977) highlighted it can become so distorted from technological infiltration that we can completely change as a person, physically and mentally. A loss of our humanity, widely perceived as a negative aspect from both McLuhan and Heidegger (1977). But arguably through detaching from our being, we have the chance to discover more things about who we are, that vital separation to discover the binary code of what makes us human, helping us appreciate life and how we can adapt to make the most out of it. As a species we crave the more, addicted to draining all we can to achieve the way of life we desire. Now we are starting to realize that it’s not the best way of life we crave, but the life of ways. We want to be the author of our own lives, going to lengths to achieve this, for example; cosmetic surgery and healthcare. We have never been happy with life’s natural, organic course and have strived to adjust it to our desire. This is the most profound effect of VR immersion into CG environments, the effect to govern your own information existence.'

FULL UNCUT VR EXPERIENCE