Month: November 2021

Phase 1 – Textures

As I mentioned on the previous page, I exported my entire model as an obj. file and imported it in Unity, in order to assign the materials to each element. It was then that I found out I couldn’t export all the layers of textures and light that I had assigned to planet earth. As a result, I had to create a more simplified version in Unity, which proved to be beneficial since it didn’t require as much PC power to render.

Phase 2 – Mixamo Animation

Easily one of the most stressful phases of this project. I thought that importing all the animation with my model from Mixamo would be one of the easiest steps. I was very wrong. As soon as I imported the first animation, there were a ton of errors that ranged from the character moving to a totally different spot as I hit play, to the animation looking shaky. The thing is, I couldn’t really figure out what was happening and decided to import the same animations to a new project in unity. They all looked fine there. So, after searching for solutions in Google, I tried to export everything to a new project in an older version of Unity (which I would have to do later on anyway when I found out about the VR toolkit, but at this point, I didn’t know). Finally, I had to reassign all the textures again and position all separate objects. And it worked! The errors were all fixed, but I couldn’t set the model to humanoid for some reason… What matters is it was done.

Phase 3 – Mirrors

The mirrors were another interesting challenge. I had to resort to YouTube once again to find a way to do it, and after watching a few videos, the solution was very easy to follow. Just create a few cameras, connected to the Panels that are meant to be the mirrors and it’s done. It is necessary to do a bit of retouching and reflecting the coordinates, but after that, I got myself a few working mirrors.

Phase 4 – Lights

The lighting process was a lot of fun to do. An essential part that set the mood throughout the video. I chose to use solely white lights, to invoke feelings of loneliness and discomfort, giving off that hospital-like atmosphere. At the same time, the contrast between the dim lighting and the pitch-dark space creates a more heavily accentuated feeling of isolation and smallness.

Phase 5 – Viewer’s Camera

Apparently, an easy process that I found quite hard at first. In my mind, I thought I would have to create a first-person controller. I watched tutorials and became frightened at the thought of having to write code and was about to save this for my teachers to solve. And I did get a tutorial from Annie, but at that point, I had already found the same video on YouTube and was able to solve this with a simple camera rig that I then animated to follow the movement of the platform. At this point, the project is almost finished.

Phase 6 – Problem with Unity App and Oculus Compatibility

This phase was mentally destroying. I had never been more clueless throughout this project.

First of all, I could not connect my VR headset to Unity when I hit play. And it was all set up, the XR management, developer mode, USB debug, etc. Still would not connect. The solution: I had to export it as a project to my VR headset. Seemed easy enough, until I realised that my Unity version wasn’t recognising the SDK & NDK & JDK and Gradle from the android plugin, so I could not export my build. I tried exporting a different project in the most recent version but, since I could not download the XR toolkit there, I would have no camera rig. At this point, I was struggling a lot and since I thought the teachers would not be able to find a solution, I figured I would have to do it then and there by myself. I tried everything, downloading other versions, making sure the XR toolkit was not available in the 2021 version, looking up personal blogs, unity forums, etc. And finally, after literally hours of trying to solve this, in the confines of YouTube, I found a video that I religiously followed step-by-step, that solved all my problems as if I had been presented with a miracle (I will link it below). I cannot express the sheer amount of relief I felt at that moment. It had finally worked, and my project was saved in the VR headset. Even writing about this, I still feel the anxiety I felt then. But it worked, so I used this opportunity to make any remaining changes and exported my project’s final version to the Oculus 2 headset.

https://youtu.be/rxdI3yr9cm8

Phase 7 – Project completion and Final Thoughts

This project was very challenging due to the amount of time we had to process/create it. However, it certainly taught me a lot about Maya and Unity, in all aspects. From 3D sculpting to animation and even how to fix faulty software. As for the end result, I am very happy with the video. I would say it really captures the message and desperation of the song through a minimalist sequence of repetitive actions. I feel like the viewer is able to experience the solitude and sadness in the first person while reflecting upon their own life.

However, there is a lot of room for improvement in character animation and 3D sculpting especially. I think that the character in this project could look a bit more polished and his animations could be a little less stiff and more realistic. But these things will come naturally as we cover them in class, and hopefully, I will be able to get even better results in the near future.

Phase 1 – MakeHuman Character

The first thing to do was to think about the character design since it is the main mean used to convey the sadness expressed by the song. Therefore, I used the app MakeHuman to create the man that I had mentioned on my idea page. I decided that a suit would fit him best since he is supposed to resemble an office worker. He is also more on the old side which shows how long he has been living his depressing, repetitive life.

Phase 2 – Maya Model

This was probably the most important step since I had to model the whole set while keeping the timing with the song synchronized with the animation passing by each room. I also want to mention the fact that I did not model everything. The armchair, the office chair and the tap were all from Sketchfab. And as I mentioned on the idea page, the earth model that I created, helped me learn some things, such as sticking images to skydomes. This was how I created the sky, which I later found I would have to redo in unity with a skybox.

The process was fairly smooth with only a few challenges, such as the bathtub. But after a few YouTube tutorials, I was able to achieve the results I needed.

Phase 3 – Maya Animation

This phase was crucial to get smooth transitions between each room while following the lyrics and sticking to a linear animation. I only had to animate the platform moving up, and the door opening at the right time. The platform proved to be a challenge at first since it was going very slow and then gaining speed even though I had set the correct time it had to move until the end of the song. But I soon realised that I had to set it to a linear animation so that the speed would remain constant. After this, the first animation phase is complete and ready to move to the next step.

Phase 4 – Textures Problem

At first, I thought I would add the textures in Maya, so I started downloading them from textures.com (and a few other websites), only to realise that it would be much harder to export and that the work I was doing to get each texture as detailed as possible would become obsolete. The solution to this problem was actually much easier than trying to do it using Maya. I simply exported everything to Unity and created all the materials there. The interface for each material’s traits was much more intuitive than Maya. It only required me to drag and drop images in the required spaces, and voilà, new material. And this marks the end of my using Maya for this project, at least for now I think. Under this text, I will post an image of the model that was exported to Unity.

Idea

For this project, I initially wanted to interpret a classical piece by Chopin, but quickly realised that I had a better idea for another song. It is called “No surprises” by Radiohead. It briefly tells us about a monotonous life that reflects most of society nowadays. A life of compliancy, where we wake up every day to do the same things and despite our unhappiness, we don’t want to disturb the “the peace”.

I want to interpret this through a music video that takes place in space. There will be an enormous moving sidewalk that is meant to take the viewer through a journey of reflection of their own or someone else’s life. Therefore, we are able to experience this project in the 1^st person and/or in the 3^rd person. This moving sidewalk will take the viewer upwards, from the earth to a “final door”. During this trip, the viewer will come upon various rooms that all contain the same character doing repetitive actions of everyday life, only in a much darker and depressing way, to emphasize the song’s message. These actions could include eating, working, taking a shower, just seating while staring into space, trying to sleep, watching tv alone, etc.

At the end of this sad path, the viewer will encounter a “final door” that could be seen as a metaphor for the end of life (either their own, society’s or the character). It could also be the door for a second chance or even a door that lets us go back to the actual reality (outside VR) that puts things in perspective and appeals for a change. But it could also just be the end of the song… I think this interpretation should be left to the viewer to decide according to their own feelings and experience.

The Scenery

This video will take place in space since it evokes a more peaceful and quiet scenario, perfect for introspection. It also represents the path to death (earth to the sky).

In it, the viewer will be placed on the moving sidewalk, where they can look around them and witness the beauty, and at the same time, emptiness of space. Again, the moving sidewalk will take us through the aforementioned path of reflection, finally leading us to the door where the video/song ends.

I wanted to explore the process for creating planet earth on Maya as well as incorporating the sky with it, so I followed a Youtube tutorial and was able to get very interesting results.

The Character

I want the character to embody these societal problems, therefore I want to make him look like an old male office worker that looks tired and apathetic. For this, I will use MakeHuman to create a plausible character that I can later animate without spending too much time modelling him.

Storyboard

I have been working on the storyboard and how the viewer will perceive the Video. The idea is to have the viewer static at all times, while still being able to look around and experience the various rooms.

Padlet

I created a padlet page for my project presentation. I think it was quite useful to get a visual summary of everything I had been doing up until now. Also, I added new elements such as my character’s design and the song’s sections divided by each room in the scene. I will post the link below.

https://padlet.com/mliragomesdealmeidabelo04202011/by3ywmcvna2402nu