DESIGNING WITH MIXED REALITIES
Weekly blog
I'm Mia Allan and this blog post will be focusing on weekly updates throughout the semester for one of my papers DES 241 - Designing with mixed realities.
ABOUT ME
I am a second-year design student at the University of Auckland. Design allows me to express my passions and problem solve in many different art forms - whether that is through traditional art, innovative thinking or emerging technologies.
Other than design, I am greatly interested in travelling, cooking and being in the outdoors.
PLANS FOR THIS PAPER
From never using VR to designing and trialling a VR room last semester, I found a new passion for different realities that I thought would be fun exploring. When hearing about this paper I was very interested in how traditional art and design of Art galleries could collide with augmented and virtual realities. I liked the idea of challenging very different forms of art and forming them into one.
For this paper, I really hope to learn and develop skills around mixed realities that will broaden my knowledge that will hopefully help me in the future.
I think this paper allows for a great opportunity to think outside the box and create innovative designs. I aim to bring people who aren’t traditionally interested in art together by bringing new aspects to the work through Virtual Reality or Augmented Reality. This will spark more engagement in artworks and even further interest in mixed realities.
WEEK 2
This past week I have been working on Assignment One. The outcome of this assignment was to develop an augmented reality prototype. For this assignment, I learnt how to use Lens Studio and how to create a new, working Snapchat filter.
The Design process
The design process started with an introduction lecture teaching us how to use Lens Studio. Here we made a simple ‘Taco Head’ that is compatible with Snapchat lenses. Coding is a brand new area of design for me, so I was very interested, but I also had no prior knowledge. Due to the quick turnaround for the assignment, I knew that I had to design an achievable but still challenging, relevant and creative filter.
From here, I decided to create an Olympics Snapchat filter that is specifically aimed towards New Zealand fans. I thought that creating this filter would allow me to play around with graphics on Illustrator and learn various aspects of coding.
This design process is a little different to the ones I have done before. In the past, we tend to be in groups where we split off, usually working to our strengths, but I enjoyed how in this assignment, there wasn’t a chance to work specifically to our strengths instead, just completing it all ourselves. This meant that I was constantly learning, whether that was furthering my ability with digital illustration to coding and learning new programs.
Challenges and compromises
Whilst creating my filter, I came across many challenges. Although I found Lens Studio an easy programme to navigate, my lack of knowledge in coding and small space of time to learn put me at a disadvantage as I wasn’t able to execute the result quite the way I would like. This meant I had to compromise quality against my ability. As I lacked the knowledge, I wasn’t able to achieve specific movements, or lack of, for my animations. Although I compromised my desired outcome, I would constantly search for ways to avoid these problems. One specific compromise I made was the confetti fall from the top. I struggled to find resources and figure out how to create a gravitational pull on the confetti and compromised with confetti that formed fountain shapes. Although it doesn’t give the same effect, I think it still looks OK. Another compromise I made was creating a 2D headband rather than a 3D headband. With the time and my lack of knowledge, I thought it would be OK to make a 2D headband to give off a similar effect and not waste as much as my time. Another reason why I chose to compromise 3D to 2D was because I wanted to make the other illustrations by hand. As I am confident in creating digital illustrations, I thought it would polish it up rather than create a 3D headband that might look mediocre.
The best part, worst parts and limitations of the prototype
This prototype has both good and bad aspects. I think the best part of this filter is that it is very relevant and also fun. Due to the Olympics being currently on, people tend to use their phones, whether that is to keep up to date with results or share the event with others through social media. This filter becomes a fun way to celebrate with friends and congratulate New Zealand athletes. However, it being relevant also means that this filter will be quickly outdated. Instead of being a filter, you could use regularly, it would spike during the Olympics and never be used again. However, in the future, the headband could be updated according to the year, but it is still only seasonal and not constantly used. This filter also has a few limitations. This filter was only made for one person at a time, meaning it isn’t compatible with more than one face. Although it is only a filter, it doesn’t do much other than make you look different to reality. Ideally, it would be great to make this filter more interactive, for example, by choosing which country you would like to support. The last limitation I found was fitting it into all phone types. When designing the layout for this filter, I struggled to get the same result for phones with different phone resolutions. When releasing and submitting my lens, this meant that It is likely to be imperfect and maybe not 100% compatible with every user’s device.
Future developments for this project
To develop this filter further, it would be great to see it more interactive with the user. A few suggestions I have would be enabling more countries to choose from.
It could be a good idea to have live updates of their medal winnings and to see results. Overall, I think this assignment was quite successful considering the equipment, time and knowledge I had. In the end, I was able to produce a working prototype that I was proud of and could be developed into something great for the future.
WEEK 3 & 4
These past few weeks my group and I have been working towards our first submission of our project brief. I have been mainly focusing on creating the Gantt chart and planning out how we will achieve this paper.
Making the Gantt chart has meant that I had to think about what is needed in order to complete this assignment successfully but also allowing time for us to learn and make mistakes as we are all new to creating AR.
These past weeks Chontel and I also took a trip to the Auckland Art Gallery. We did this so we could see what was currently showing at the gallery so we can gain inspiration and create something relevant for our AR. We decided to go to the Art Gallery in groups so that we could take different insights and come back together to collate our ideas and inspiration.
From here, we will be collating our ideas and start ideating our favourite ideas. Then we will be able to start or project brief ready for the first submission.
WEEK 5 & 6
This past week we are back into lockdown, so, unfortunately, we haven't been able to meet up as a group, however, we have been working on our wireframing for our AR. We decided to work on Julia Morisons artwork 'Liquifaction' shown in the picture below.
We thought that this piece of artwork as a lot of potential for creating an AR. We also chose it because one of our team members experience the Christchurch earthquakes, which this piece is based off. We thought it would be a great opportunity to try and educate people a little bit more about liquefaction and the earthquakes relating to Christchurch.
From here, we have our first stand up where we present what we have completed, what we are doing and their challenges and what's next.
The wireframe I have been working on (seen above) represents the property that could've been damaged throughout the earthquakes. The idea for this is that the cars will be moving onto the canvas' (animated) and then once the first car reaches the end of both canvas', the ground will swallow the cars up - which is what liquefaction does. From here, a a group we will come together to discuss the ideas and make more of a plan on how to animate them and make the AR come to life.
Mid-semester break
During the mid-semester break, my group and I needed to change our project brief slightly in order for it to be doable throughout lockdown. We decided to continue with our original idea as we thought that it is possible to achieve this even if we are at home, as all that is needed is a canvas or blank paper.
From here we decided to aim towards an AR that had a narrative meaning each couple of canvases' would display part of a story that explains the process of an earthquake. I was focusing on cracking walls and objects, which is what people normally associate with at the start of an earthquake.
Other than illustrating wireframes for the first canvases, I have been looking into possible software we could use to orchestrate or AR. We have found Adobe Aero to be very user friendly but limiting. We have also looked into Unity that it is very possible to achieve what we want with a lot of online tutorials, but maybe constricting on what device you use.
The challenges I have been facing if not knowing how to properly wireframe an AR as I have never done it before. It has also been a little hard with no in-person communication anymore. Another challenge I have faced is that although Unity is a good option to use and many tutorials online, a device that I have struggled to run unity. Therefore, may have to find other software.
Moving forward I will be working on properly illustration my wireframes and making sure they look cohesive with the rest of the group. We will then talk as a group about the creative direction we want to go in and how to tackle it. By next stand up I hope to at least start with using the AR software and hopefully having a draft.
WEEK 7 & 8
These past weeks I have finalised my design for my two canvases and had a look around Unity, finding tutorials that may help us. We came together as a group to decide on the aesthetic for our canvases and how we would achieve that. I also create a miro for us to work on. We used it to brainstorm aesthetics and also how we show our work.
I have found it hard to create an abstract drawing, as that will suit our style the best, but still recognising what the canvases are showing and how each canvas will tell its own story. We were wanting to possible have GIFs however, I found that unity doesn't support GIFs, therefore having to make our canvases static. I’m working on putting my canvases into unity and it working well.
Next is time to really get it working on putting everything into unity and making it cohesive. We will specifically allocate roles as up to this point we have been working together. But in order for this to work well, we all need to be focusing on separate things.
WEEK 9 & 10
These past weeks I have mainly been focusing on app layout for our final product. I have been getting feedback from friends and family on the layout and their thoughts on it as a whole. I have made brief sketches on how we would like them to look as well as just starting to navigate around unity.
I am still working on setting up unity scenes and how to connect scenes to app layout. However, I can see the image in-game mode but not the scene mode. These past weeks I have had major issues with unity and Xcode. Trying to find other alternatives and found it hard not being in person. I haven't been able to open unity until Friday went and zoom doesn't work for me on the laptop anymore, making it harder to have calls with group and lectures.
Next, we will work on unity and make a video for final submission.
WEEK 11 & 12
These two weeks have definitely been then hardest and most frustrating out of them all. Chontel and I have been continuously trying to understand and work unity but we have realised that it just isn't possible due to our lack of knowledge but also incorrect software.
From here we have decided to develop our AR on Lens Studio, something that we are both familiar with, therefore, enabling to finish our assignment. This also meant that we would have to change the plan for our overall outcome. Now a user would use an individual filter for each canvas rather than an app directing you to these. These individual filters can be accessed through a snapchat QR-code.
From here, I managed to work out how attach our canvas to something we had at home (as we cant enter the Art Gallery)
The canvas shown above is cars falling, and using the particle feature to imitate that. Once I completed half of the frames I taught Chontel and she did the others.
From here Chontel was able to film the scenes using the AR of the imitated art gallery for me to edit.
Editing the video took me a while, a lot longer than I anticipated due to having to do a few effects such as AR time-laps, adding multiple frames for one video and so on. However, we are super happy with how it turned out and now we just need to perfect each AR canvas for final submission.
