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.
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.