Advanced Play Design A1

Assignment One Write Up

Week One - Play & Observation

At the time of creating this work, I observed the thoughts I was having regarding my Studio 2 project where I found myself trapped by too many ideas, and as a result not feeling like I was progressing. In order to represent this internal observation, I decided to create a simple low poly platformer that disappears around the user as they progress through the small environment. The low poly style of this
Magi work, and the fact that it responds to the users interactions to create a feeling of being trapped had a direct influence on my Studio 2 project, inspiring
me to build a virtual 3D environment that changes around the user to stimulate emotions. From this work I was able to build upon my Studio project, where I pitched my inital idea of creating a styilised exterior space designed to represent feelings of depression. 

Week Two - Play & Tinkering
Using the theme of tinkering as a spring board, I explored the ways in which I can use the timeline in Unity to create simple animations. This act of play and tinkering helped me better understand how I can create in built animations in Unity, which has become a very important skill that I have incorperated throughout the development of my Studio project. As seen in week 4 and onwards, I have used Unity’s in built animations to create basic levels of interaction within my prototypes, in which the user can open doors, and cause walls to move towards them by
moving through triggers within the environment. This type of play has very much assisted the evoloution of my Studio project by allowing me to create more
dynamic and interesting spaces that can respond to the users movements.

Week Three - Play and Materiality

Combining real life material and 3D graphics, I decided to use this weeks as a chance to learn some basic Augmented Reality. Being so accustomed to creating and rendering 3D models within a computer, it was a welcome change to be able to see a 3D object interact in real time with a real world object. This task taught me the importance of breaking away from the ‘mundande’ and ‘familiar’ world of rendering objects in Maya and Unity, and has sparked my interst in regards to what is possible with Augmented Reality. Despite not having a strong connection to my Studio project, this work assisted in showing me how important it is to engage with practices I am not familiar with and the impact it can have on ones perspective. 

Week Four - Play and Place

As we move further into the semester I decided to use this class to build upon a prototype I had been working on, in which I was devloping an interior layout for my Studio project. To make it more interactive and to add another level of play, I created an opening door animation (in a similar fashion to Week 2), and wrote a simple OnTriggerEnter code that registers when the player walks through an invisible trigger within the environment. When the trigger registers that the player has moved through the space, the door opens before the user and gives the illusion that the environment is reacting to their movement. This act of the environment responding to the players movement is something that I have carried throughout the rest of my Studio project, and is one of the key interactions that I am using to help create my responsive 3D virtual space within Studio 2. 

Week Five - Play and Objects

To tie in with the continued iteration in my Studio project and the theme of objects, I decided to return to the drawing board and redesign both the layout and environment of my Studio project. As I have noticed that the prototypes I’ve been working on in previous weeks have been looking rather bland and rigid and far too big, I have decided to both scale down the size of my environments as well as change the overall style and aesthetic. Moving from the rigid and rather stale white box prototypes I had been working on in previous weeks, I tried to throw myself into a much more crazy and fantasy asethetic that I feel will be much more successful in creating an environment that has the ability to evoke emotions of isolation, helplessness and a sense of no escape. By scaling the size of objects and distorting the structure of my models I believe I have created a more refinied environment that will hopefully better stimulate the users emotions as they traverse these disturbing landscapes. 

Links
Week 1: http://magistudio.net/work/advanced-play-design-week-one
Week 2: http://magistudio.net/work/advanced-play-design-tinkering
Week 3: http://magistudio.net/work/character-place-and-simulation-and-advanced-play-design-week-3 Week 4: http://magistudio.net/work/apd-week-4-2
Week 5: http://magistudio.net/work/apd-week-5-1