Week 1. Virtual Reality
In this first lesson we found out what the general overview of the project was: making the sound for a collaborative VR ‘game’ or environment.
Those of us in our group that were there talked about our experience with games and VR as a whole, to get an idea of our experience and things we liked or disliked on the topic.
In February I bought a Quest 2 headset for myself with my birthday money as I had tried one before and enjoyed the experience (bar the nausea of motion sickness) and thought that knowing we had a module in VR coming up, it might be a good investment to use to make things and experiment with specialising sound (a lot cheaper than a spacial speaker set up).
I was very into the idea of VR when I was young. I think this was probably a combination of when the anime Sword Art Online came out and the original Kickstarter campaign for the Oculus Rift. My first experience was probably using google cardboard with my phone and finding it quite fun as a gimmicky thing for people to experience.
I think the more I’ve used VR though, the less I’ve actually been interested in it. Maybe this comes with getting older and more cynical. I had been thinking about selling my Quest 2 as I don’t use it much and I’d rather have the money.
During the summer holidays, I made a 3d environment in unity based on a small idea and ‘poem’ I made during lockdown but never got around to doing anything with:
The wise old king does sit alone The dust has settled on this throne The hearth, of ash and nothing more scampers of rats below the floor The sad old king does sit alone of muttered rambles, he does drone from lack of trust, his realm has tore A kingdom great, from days of yore The mad old king does die alone A pile of filth and yellowed bone A man once rich, reduced to poor A knock from death upon his door Our poem takes a change of tone no more a tale of bloody gore a tyrant dragon, Hurrah! No more! now hell alone must hear his roar.
‘The player, a scribe and poet, must navigate the dilapidated and derelict castle of a former king to discover his tale of decline and write about it. As the player encounters pivotal moments in the story (such as the king’s skeleton, the poison and the plague) they write down a line of the poem. The aim of the game is for the player to complete the poem and uncover the mystery.
When the player encounters a crucial part of the story they must piece together the scene by typing words to see if they link with the scene, for instance, when a bottle is found with a skull label they might type “poison”. If any other items in the scene are important then they must also be guessed on. Once all the important items in the scene are found the player will see a flashback of the scene. At the end of the flashback, the corresponding line of the poem will be added.’
I made all the 3D assets and textures myself. Something to put in a showreel or portfolio, or just an excuse for something to do while living at home unemployed during the holidays.
Although I made this environment and it works in VR, I didn’t implement any sound in it. This does, however, give me an environment to test sounds.
This session was also my birthday. After the class, we went back to Gallery 46 to help pack up the exhibition.