Immersive Design
Research:
I originally planned to do a horror type environment based on the tea party in alice in wonderland however When I started trying to flesh the idea out it wasn’t really going anywhere and didn’t make too much sense so I scrapped it and started looking into other things to do with alice in wonderland which is where I found the Alice in wonderland VR game which helped me decide my new idea.
For this new idea I’m wanting to do a 360 horror experience. In this it will start off in a shop with a bottle that has a message saying do not drink, the user then consumes it. Once they do the environment will change for example colours, wall positions etc. The fall will then open up and the player will fall through (down the rabbit hole), the user then loads into a dark/barely lit house where paranormal things will happen, for example chairs flying across the room, lights flickering/ turning on and off. One final thing will happen cause the screen to go black and the user will then ”wake up” back where they were and the bottle will be gone. (Story has been updated and is stated further down).
I got the idea for the bottle/flask with a potion inside from the Alice in wonderland VR game trailer where there’s a potion in a box that the user consumes causing the environment around them to change (Screenshots below).
I then started doing some research into some scary/horror themed VR experiences that are on YouTube, a few that I found are Face your fears: your bedroom is haunted, Stranger things VR and The conjuring 2 VR I watched them looking for anything that would fit the idea that I have and could be used as inspiration. I found all of these to be really good and great example for what I am aiming to do, all examples are shown below.
Below is a screen shot of the room from the stranger things VR experience this is how I would want my room to look, along side this is a gif showing off a paranormal thing happening, in this case its the light swinging on its own. There is also lights all going in the same direction and audio queues that happen during this experience which would be something I could include in mine to help the user know where they should be looking at certain points. They keep the user grounded by them never leaving the floor as its a standing experience.
Another good example for this is the face your fears: your bedroom is haunted VR experience, they make sure the user is grounded as they never move from their bed. However you do look around the room a lot due to different queues like lightning flashing outside, other examples are shown below. They also use the audio along with environment really well creating a tense atmosphere that keeps you on edge constantly, which is something id love to be able to do with mine. below are multiple gifs showcasing the movement and the different things that happen throughout the 3 stories.
A final example and the best one for what I’m aiming for is the conjuring 2 VR experience, the user is always in one place and is only moved when needed, paranormal things happen around them causing the user to look at certain things for example the tv gets bright and static starts followed by the lamps flashing around the environment before the room goes pitch black, along with no sound creating tension before one of the ghosts appears in front of the user causing a jump scare.
Story Boarding, Audio & General Planning:
To help get an idea of how I want the shop and room to look and how want it to play out I created a rough story board to help. I then followed this up with a list of some sounds I could you when either guiding the player to look at a certain place or just as something to spook them & build tension (images below).
I made sure to do a front and back view of the rooms since it is a 3d experience instead of a 2d one you would get when playing a game or watching a video normally.
I then noted down some sounds that I could use throughout the experience, its not an exhaustive list as it will depend on how the room(s) end up looking and what items they include. I will try to incorporate left and right audio channels so that the user will look in that direction, this will then allow me to throw the user off with sounds from different directions and building up the tension.
For navigation the screen will fade in and fade out, mainly happening when the user falls down the hole, from that point navigation will be minimal/not at all as they will just look around the environment similar to the examples shown above.
Now that I had the setting and the general idea down I then started planning the story and how these things connect. On the left is a quick summary of the story and on the right is a rough plan of how the actions will play out, just so I can make sure it makes sense.
I have also decided to make some slight changes to how this experience will play out. I originally planned for it to start in a shop but instead it will start within the garage of the house where a magical item is found instead of a potion bottle and that then causes the Alice in wonderland inspired things to happen along with the paranormal things.
Some more changes have been made so that the story can flow better as I read through it again and it did not, it also means it is not over complicated as I felt like I was over doing it before compared to what I am able to do. So the user is a new home owner who doesn’t know that evil spirits live within that house. These spirits play with the new home owners reality causing them to lose their mind. The story board below shows how I have planned it out.
After searching through the unreal market place trying to find something that would fit my project I found a house that had a full interior made so I added it to a empty project and exported it to maya, I then started testing/playing around with the lighting and just seeing how it would look in VR (video below).
The Cheshire cat smiling in the dark has given me the idea of having either his face or some similar smiling in the dark at random times, causing tension to build and keep the user on edge.
Another idea is having clocks ticking from the start in the background and over time as things get worse the clocks become more and more intense before going completely silent and the user returns to the garage at the end and the item is gone, & things will be back to normal. This idea came from all the clocks you see as alice falls down the rabbit hole in the 2010 film.
I’m also thinking of making one of the rooms or objects turn upside down similar to how in the animated film by Disney where the hall at the bottom of the rabbit hole is upside down and similar to how she is upside down sat on the ceiling in the 2010 film.
Embodiment & Navigation considerations:
For this VR experience there wont be any limbs visible to the user and the movement I plan on using is a fading in and fading out of black or having the camera slowly move in a direction so there isn’t any unnecessary movements that could cause the user to feel sick, they will be encouraged to look around by the different queues that will happen throughout the experience. This is semi used in the conjuring 2 VR experience to move around to the couple rooms used and the example shown before from the stranger things VR experience.
Digital Affordance:
As mentioned in earlier planning, I will be using lighting queues and audio queues to direct the player to look in certain directions. They will start off quite simple for example, flickering lamp or some footsteps but as it progresses it will get worse and more sound and visual queues will start happening at once. There will also be general background sounds, for example wind, rain or maybe a branch tapping on a window. I also thought about adding in some complete moments of silence to add suspense, but it can throw the user off with sudden silence and it also effects how good sounds come across, which was covered by Helen in a recent lecture.
When it comes to colours they might play a role in terms of lighting so the lights might be red and once the evil essence has left that room so it returns to a natural warm colour, examples below. This would help to give the user a clear indication that the room is possibly back to normal.
As well as there being a change in the light and the overall look of the room there will also be some kind of audio que that will let the user know if their reality is possibly back to normal. I did originally plan for it to be a cross that the user would lift but that would end up looking strange as it would just be floating since there is no body, so I may end up having a cross on the wall that is upside down and ends up turning the right way up, again helping to reinforce the evil essence being cleared from that room. This gif from earlier research shows a VR experience that has a similar thing implemented to represent the evil spirits that are within the house, as the crosses turn upside down instead.
Audio Considerations:
For my project I’m wanting to do left and right channels as I have planned to use audio as one of the ways to get the user to look in a particular direction when I need them to, which is very common in any horror media whether its a game, film or VR experience. However if this does not work for some reason or I end up not using it I will still have the lighting queues and other visual things like a cupboard opening slowly or an object falling over to get the user to look a certain direction when needed. I also have to make sure the audio I use fits the environment/genre or else the mood I’m wanting to create wont happen, this mainly applies if I decide to use music in certain parts which is very common as like most things in horror, it helps build tension before a jump scare or nothing at all.
I will be using pre made sounds for this project as sound is something I have struggled with whenever I have made my own and I feel like it would have taken away from the experience if the audio just sounded horrible. However its something for me to work on in the future and if I get better at it then this project can be returned to and have my own audio added instead.
Development Approaches & Any Issues:
Now that i had my full plan in place I started putting it all together in maya. The first thing was the lighting, i wanted it to start off as a normal light before flickering and then changing to red to change the atmosphere of the room I chose the colour red as it is something alot of people connect evil or bad things with. The different sounds i could use was the next thing I started to think about. I thought about how I would set the mood for the experience by having it raining/ there being a storm outside with potentially heavy winds. Next was the objects that might move throughout, so a creaking door, a chair scraping etc, I dont want to go overboard and have lots of things happening at once as it may become overwhelming for the user. The final area I thought about for sounds were paranormal. For example ghosts whispering or walking around the environment since hearing something or someone and not seeing them can be very off putting and scary in the right situation. Now that i had my full plan in place I started putting it all together in maya. The first thing was the lighting, i wanted it to start off as a normal light before flickering and then changing to red to change the atmosphere of the room I chose the colour red as it is something alot of people connect evil or bad things with. The different sounds i could use was the next thing I started to think about. I thought about how I would set the mood for the experience by having it raining/ there being a storm outside with potentially heavy winds. Next was the objects that might move throughout, so a creaking door, a chair scraping etc, I dont want to go overboard and have lots of things happening at once as it may become overwhelming for the user. The final area I thought about for sounds were paranormal. For example ghosts whispering or walking around the environment since hearing something or someone and not seeing them can be very off putting and scary in the right situation. I then thought about different visual paranormal things that happen within media, and one of the most common things is floating furniture or other objects, some examples are below.
While this happens sounds around the user will play making them look around the room and hopefully spook them. As you can see in the video below when the lights are white there’s a grainy film flickering, this was an issue I struggled to fix originally but after turning up the camera (AA) setting to 6 and dropping the clamping value down from 10 to 1 it got rid of it completely.
I then did a test of the garage section of the experience, I was testing how it looked, how fast the camera and door moved, but also the highest quality setting within adobe premiere pro.
I continued doing test renders when making little changes to do with the lighting or how fast or slow something happened within the experience, to make sure it came out how it was intended to. Below are some other examples of test renders I have done. One is just a loop of a transition between one scene and another as I needed to see how fast it happened and if anything was glitching etc. The other is me testing the shrinking scene in the garage to see how fast/slow it happens so I could decide if it needed to be sped up or slowed down. I also just wanted to see how the lighting looked.
More changes have been made to these scenes including, lighting, length, speed, and just how it plays out overall. This will be linked below. The new premiere pro settings that were put on canvas were used for this video and I think the video looks cleaner than previous tests. There is also a couple problems shown within this video, one is the speed of the door opening, and the lighting needs to be changed again.
Below is a screenshot of the audio being synced/lined up with the visuals on screen so that they are timed well, happening when I expect them to.
Final Video & Reflection:
Here is the finished VR experience, I am happy with how it turned out especially with this being a prototype version of a VR experience. This is a good platform for me to build from in the future and is something I will possibly return to after university. Being able to use premade assets and sounds really helped and allowed me to focus on how it all clicked together using my story board. There is also clear room for improvement and I think it could of been better/ included more if I had not had such a over complicated original idea that was just never going to be able to be done. I also had some issues with rendering at times where viper either crashed or the render failed so some time was lost waiting to see if it was going to work or not and if not I then had to re render X amount of frames.
References:
IMDB (IMDB, N/A) alice in wonderland upside down [Image] Available online: https://m.imdb.com/title/tt1014759/mediaviewer/rm451254273/
Pinterest (alyssa Infante, N/A) Alice in wonderland Upside down animated [Image] Available Online:https://www.pinterest.co.uk/pin/241927811211229336/
HouseLogic (John Riha, N/A) Room image [Image] Available Online: https://www.houselogic.com/remodel/painting-lighting/interior-lighting-trends/
Indiedb (MrCiastku, N/A) Room image [Image] Available Online: https://www.indiedb.com/games/shadows-a-short-horror-game/images/image-21
pxfuel (N/A, N/A) Cheshire cat image [Image] Available Online: https://www.pxfuel.com/en/desktop-wallpaper-zabxr
Gifer (N/A, N/A) Chair Floating Gif [Gif] Available Online: https://gifer.com/en/7qA5
Tenor (MGKFAN, N/A) Door Opening Gif Gif [Gif] Available Online: https://tenor.com/en-GB/view/ghost-opening-doors-spooky-gif-21572265
Giphy (Clipping, N/A) Table Floating Gif [Gif] Available Online: https://giphy.com/gifs/clppng-sub-pop-daveed-diggs-clipping-3oz8xYOt3lUryN8bHq
Epic Games Store (Next Level 3D, 2023*) Modern House *Free for the Month Market Place [Assets] Available Online: https://www.unrealengine.com/marketplace/en-US/product/modern-house
FreeSounds.org (Bernuy,2018) Monster sounds [Sound] Available Online: https://freesound.org/people/Bernuy/sounds/418287/
FreeSounds.org (deleted_user_2104797,2015) Monster sounds [Sound] Available Online: https://freesound.org/people/deleted_user_2104797/sounds/325278/
FreeSounds.org (OXMUSEXO,2012) Door Creak sounds [Sound] Available Online: https://freesound.org/people/0XMUSEX0/sounds/168650/
FreeSounds.org (TheGuitarManjp,2017) Heavy footstep sounds [Sound] Available Online: https://freesound.org/people/theguitarmanjp/sounds/385013/
FreeSounds.org (InspectorJ,2016) Rain Thunder sounds [Sound] Available Online: https://freesound.org/people/InspectorJ/sounds/360328/
FreeSounds.org (Xdrav,2011) Bulb broken sounds [Sound] Available Online: https://freesound.org/people/xdrav/sounds/115276/
FreeSounds.org (InspectorJ,2016) Ticking clock sounds [Sound] Available Online: https://freesound.org/people/InspectorJ/sounds/343130/
FreeSounds.org (InspectorJ,2017) Clock Chime sounds [Sound] Available Online: https://freesound.org/people/InspectorJ/sounds/401221/
FreeSounds.org (Tom_Kaszuba,2022) Clock Pendulum sounds [Sound] Available Online: https://freesound.org/people/Tom_Kaszuba/sounds/657255/
YouTube (Stranger Things, 2017) Stranger things VR [Video] Available Online:
YouTube (Warner Bros, 2016) The Conjuring 2 VR [Video] Available Online:
YouTube (Vicinity360, 2020) Your bedroom is haunted VR [Video] Available Online:
YouTube (RedlineVR, 2021) Alice In Wonderland VR [Video] Available Online: