My piece will be an interactive experience made with 3D Character Models displayed in the Unity engine. There will be multiple characters to interact with within the experience that will have unique animations and interactable text-based dialogue.Viewers will interact with the piece on a monitor using a game controller to move their character and initiate interactions. When viewers move their avatar to an area of close proximity to another character they can initiate a dialogue with them by focusing a reticle on them and pushing a button to initiate the interaction.
The setting of the world within the piece is many years in the future. While there was no singular cataclysmic event that brought the world into a “post-apocalypse” the world has gradually become less and less of a sustainable living space for life due to the depletion of resources. The player, viewed in first person, is a journalist attempting to interview citizens in the main plaza of their hometown. Each character that can be interacted with is representative of a different socio-economic class. In this world, citizens are required to wear gas masks to filter out the polluted air. The type of gas mask a character is wearing is a give-away of their class in society as certain mask parts are more expensive than others, particularly those that are more compact. Character responses to questions will differ depending on their class. This interactive experience is meant to serve as commentary on how people of different economic and social standing view particular issues differently. While the questions asked won’t directly reflect issues faced today, they will relate to various topics that are relevant of the citizens within the fictional town.
Proportions of the characters will be elongated and exaggerated. Depending on the character they may be exaggerated to appear to be anything from whimsical and comedic to eerie and mysterious.I enjoy using exaggerations within character designs as they can give the viewer an expectation of the essence of the character. One of the goals of my projects is to set expectations for the character’s personality based on their design, then surprise the viewer with a perspective on character archetypes that they may not have considered.
The experience will be interacted with on a monitor connected to a computer that is running the application. For the monitor I will use a TV that is roughly 30 inches in width. I plan for viewers of the piece to interact with it standing at a distance of roughly 5 feet away from the screen using a game controller connected to the computer.
List of Equipment needed:
TV (Roughly 30’’)
Computer
Table
Table cloth
HDMI Cord
Extension Cord
Game Controller (Dualshock 4 or XBox 1)
Schedule:
Sept 17 – 30: Unity Engine Setup
- Environment Block-out
- Character Placement
- Initiate Dialogue
- Basic Dialogue Trees
- Basic Menu/UI Setup
- Player Traversal
Oct 1 – 7: Character 1
- Model/Sculpt Character
- Retopologize/ Reproject
- Texture PBR or Cel Shade
- Import Character In Environment
- Write Dialogue
- Basic Animation(s)
Oct 8 – 14: Character 2
- Model/Sculpt Character
- Retopologize/ Reproject
- Texture PBR or Cel Shade
- Import Character In Environment
- Write Dialogue
- Basic Animation(s)
Oct 15 – 21: Character 2
- Model/Sculpt Character
- Retopologize/ Reproject
- Texture PBR or Cel Shade
- Import Character In Environment
- Write Dialogue
- Basic Animation(s)
Oct 22 – 28: Character 3
- Model/Sculpt Character
- Retopologize/ Reproject
- Texture PBR or Cel Shade
- Import Character In Environment
- Write Dialogue
- Basic Animation(s)
Oct 29 – Nov 4: Character 4
- Model/Sculpt Character
- Retopologize/ Reproject
- Texture PBR or Cel Shade
- Import Character In Environment
- Write Dialogue
- Basic Animation(s)
Nov 5 – Onward: Finishing Touches
- Troubleshoot difficulties
- Finish menu AI
- Sound Design
