ITP

Inspiration: A running theme throughout my projects in this class has been accessibility to the average person and something that makes complex topics simple and engaging. There was one specific application that was shown in class (I can't remember the name of it because it was a while ago) but I remember it was about education and that really inspired me to start thinking about how I could make an educational experience out of the knowledge I've learned. Learning music and music theory is a daunting task if you have no familiarity with it.  Even though I've been involved with instrument learning and choir since I was a child, there are still things that I find fascinating that people can do. Like hearing notes and immediately knowing what they are and in what key. I'm pretty good at listening to something and figuring out how to play it on my own, and I annoy my friends by constantly recognizing the composer for movies by sound alone, but I never learned how to ...

  AR Environment Assignment This week, I created a spooky lens that turns an environment into a fog-filled eerie realm. The components of this lens is a mesh with a fog material, a layer with a grain material, and two post-processing filters (a VHS filter and a filter that only shows shades of red and everything else is in grayscale). Video Lens Link  

Video  I wasn't feeling particularly inspired by anything this week. I tried a bunch of different methods of body tracking and meshes and nothing really leapt out as something I wanted to pursue so I just made something silly for fun this week.

Summary: My 3D Unity game will be a frogger-inspired action game with modern 3D graphics and a cute style. I'm hoping to emulate the fun of a classic while enhancing it with a beautiful environment, dynamic lighting, and 3D models instead of 2D sprites.   Inspiration: One of my favorite games to play as a child was Frogger. I had it on the gameboy and it looked like the image below. Obviously, going back to this exact version of the game would feel exceptionally dated compared to the games I play now. It'd be nice to have a 3D game similar to frogger with more modern graphics. The closest thing I can think of to something like this is Crossy Road, which was a very popular mobile game (image below).  However, I find the graphics for Crossy Road quite unappealing and it'd be nice to have something playable on a computer. I also thought a Frogger-like game would be a relatively feasible project as a beginner in Unity. Research: For the most part, this project is a combination ...

Following along with the John Lemon tutorial was very informative this week. I feel like I obtained a greater understanding of a 3D workflow and all the essential components of an indie game experience. Below is a video of the game in action although I kept getting caught. Video  I am specifically interested in 3D game projects so this was the perfect tutorial for me. I'm not opposed to playing or creating 2D games, although I'd have to say I prefer 3D games and graphics given the option.

  Harmony Composition Sketch Video Process:     For this project, I wanted to focus on the naturally occurring harmonies and drones found within nature. I started by using an ocean wave loop audio as the drone for the project. I discovered that wav files loop better in p5.js than mp3 because mp3 leaves a gap between the end of a loop and the beginning of the next one. I was originally going to have different types of nature noises but I discovered a youtube video about the different kinds of singing birds and decided to use those audio clips as the different layers of harmonic options, so as to create a "choir" of birds. The biggest problem I ran into for this project was audio clip size. The most I could make each clip is about 3 seconds before it would cause an endless load in the sketch. I worked around this by just looping each audio clip in the code until it's turned off.

 AR Image Assignment For this week's assignment, I knew I wanted to animate a literary source material of some kind. I originally contemplated animating a book cover, but then random inspiration hit. I remembered side-by-side comparison videos I saw comparing how similar the anime is to the manga panels for this specific anime, Jujutsu Kaisen.  The anime pretty much matches the manga almost exactly so I thought this would be a perfect opportunity for overlaying the anime onto the manga panels with a smooth transition. The panel I decided to work with is below from the first volume of the manga. Originally I ran a test on a different image and was satisfied but wanted to animate a whole page so I chose this one. I started with just overlaying the anime clips flat over the manga which was nice but I realized it would be even nicer if I could preserve the text and effects on the panels so that it would be more immersive and also wouldn't disrupt a reading experience.  I did ...

For the second week of Unity work, I decided to build upon the roll-a-ball by playing around with texture mapping, lighting, and shadows. I decided upon a galaxy/constellation theme for the game, making the player sphere the moon (as seen below). I parented a point light to the moon so that it gave off the illusion that the moon was casting shadows and also provided a stronger sense of place for the player in the game. With a light on their moveable object they will feel more immersed. I set the pickup-able objects texture to a high metallic and smoothness so they light seems to constantly shift around them. The yellow pickups are my "stars". Video Link

  I only really had the one idea and it was about creating a harmony using natural sounds. You could use sounds such as ocean waves, wind through trees, or bees to create a natural drone and then have switches for activating other sounds that would create the harmony.

Adjective: Disturbing  For this week's assignment, I created a filter that duplicates the face a couple times, each time either slightly offset from the original or flipped vertically. This created a neat effect that reminds me of something lovecraftian. I originally played around with face images and head wrappings to try to create a grotesque effect like zombifying the user but I was unsatisfied with the end result and scrapped it to play around with the face inset tool. Video #1 Video #2  

  For the lofi AR assignment, I utilized a transparent sheet, a sticker, and a pencil case that I had to create this gif of a bee moving through a flower field. The most difficult part about this is obviously the reflective qualities of the sheet and the difficulty in keeping it flat while filming with the other hand. Overall, I'm still happy with the result and finding two items that work together instead of just having the bee move through the room or something.