WEEK 11 – MAGI STUDIO W.I.P SUMMARY

Goal

Make an environment that puts users in an alien place that they do not understand to create feelings such as stress, confusion, isolation and fear

I have taken a new path and am focusing my experience on creating emotions within the user, rather than showcasing mental health/chronic pain.

As a result I am focusing on feelings of isolation, anxiety and stress to create an uncomfortable 3D VR experience. I am using these emotions as they are ones that I have experienced as a result of suffering from chronic pain, and I want to explore how a 3D virtual environment can create these feelings within a user. 

Pointers

• Don’t talk about making user feel what it’s like to be in pain
• My experience needs to be motivated and justified through the use of anxiety and isolation 
• Only discuss what users will see and experience when in the game
• The feelings created by this changing alien landscape relate to chronic pain without having to mention it
• I am creating a seemingly normal nonchalant scene that takes users by surprise with the sudden changes
• Exploring how a changing environment puts users in a state of fear and confusion and ultimately isolates them from reality
• Exploring emotions and how I can manipulate them using a virtual reality environment
• Sound to sprinkle on top later in my project

What I Need to Do:

• Work backwards
• Create the final completely distorted environment so I can test if my idea will work
• Push the limits of distortion, take my simple town environment and completely distort it to isolate and make users feel uncomfortable
• Use lighting
• Make buildings that hide the sky from the user and cast sharp shadows onto the ground to isolate them
• E.g. Bent buildings act as a representation of pain, buildings become teeth that close in on the user
• Mesh with deformations in Maya and Zbrush

Inspiration:

• Dark City (1998)
• Doctor Calingari
• Doctor Strange
• Inception