THEME:
Play and time
CONTEXT:
According to this week's theme, I thought about 'time' in phisical terms, so wormhole and time machine jumped into my mind at first, then I was considering about the possibility of working on this, then I give up it because it's too complex, then I was wondering go further on space instead of time directly, cause sometimes 'time' is inseperate from 'space', so 'space' can be used to express 'time' in a way.
At first, I did some research on Mobius band and penrose stairs, both of them can form a loop through a closed loop, the difference is that the monius band is the real closed loop, while the penrose stairs are the optical illusion. But they are widely used in many fields. For example, while wusing in literary and film creation, through this concept, an infinite loop of time and space can be created, an excellent example is in the film- Christopher Nolan’s film Inception, here is a link about some introductions of the penrose stairs.
'The illusion takes its name from a father and son duo of mathematicians, Lionel and Roger Penrose, who introduced the impossible object in a 1958 paper. The Staircase cannot be constructed in three dimensional reality due to its property that the steps forever carry the traveler upward in a loop. The same steps are traversed, but, impossibly, after the first time around (or second, or third...) one ends up back at the beginning, and the whole journey starts again. One can turn around on the stairs and descend, as well, with the same effect—continually treading the same ground, over and over.'
https://www.wired.com/2010/08/the-never-ending-stories-inceptions-penrose-staircase/
In reality, penrose stairs cannot be achieved, it only can be used to create some tricks to form a closed loop based on visual illusion, but it can cleverly applied to various designs.
Another research is about Mobius band, which is a truly achievable closed loop，finally I decided to do a project based on it. There are some articles about related research and theory.
'The continuum of crossing a Möbius strip is emblematic of how we experience time in a nonlinear way.'
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-timeless-journey-of-the-moebius-strip/
'It is interesting to note that the times at any one place on the loop are the same on both “sides” or “times” and that the arrow of time shown in the centre is always pointing in the same direction. Perhaps this is one way of showing how Time itself could be “twisted” in a higher dimension when it comes to time travelling and is able to cope with any so-called paradox. Then whether this Mobius Time Loop is in fact a single universe or that each “side” is a parallel universe splitting at the time travel trip is perhaps something to discuss later.'
http://www.cix.co.uk/~antcom/mtl.html
So finally, I decided to explore on how to make a loop based on the concept of these.
METHOD:
I try to make a 3d model animation in Blender, although this is my first time to do something in blender, it quite interesting in fact. I download a 3d model on website, and did some research on how to operate this software, after inserting the 3d model I download, I start to create two balls and a motion track, there are some details such as making the surface of the balls more smoother so that when they move, it would looks more nature. Actually this is the basic operation in Blender but I'm exciting with doing that. The next step is to make it move, so I switch to animation mode and add some keyframe, due to the real structure the model is, there is limited moving space for the balls, because this is not a closed loop.
After finishing all of these, I heve some trouble on rendering it, when I rendered this animation, it appears all wtite in the shot, although I try to set the light, I haven't figure it out eventually, so I will check it again later.
Here is some tutorial about the operation of Blender.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RgXNAPkGhWs&t=515s
REFLECTION:
Actually, there is a game 'Monument Valley', one of their inspiration for this game is the work of Dutch artist M.C. Escher, 'the core gameplay revolves around solving puzzles by exploring isometric “monuments” filled with impossible geometry and optical illusions.'
“People always ask how these seemingly impossible levels work. Impossibility and optical illusions are at the heart of Monument Valley. The trick is that the 3d elements are built in such a way that the camera sees them as possible. When the character walks along certain paths in the level they teleport to the next available point in screen space.”
To me, this is a good example of using visual illusion space in game design, based on the visual illusion space, it can build a loop.
https://www.invisionapp.com/inside-design/secrets-behind-the-success-of-monument-valley/
https://milanote.com/the-work/the-surprising-inspiration-behind-monument-valleys-most-beautiful-levels
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i0X8-5PpYVg
By Sher Zhang
Email Sher Zhang
Published On: 24/03/2021