Team VT Newsletter
(4/2/2012)
Following our halves feedback from the week prior we decided to nail down our key points of interaction, main features of content and overall our schedule as we move forward to our soft opening and final presentation to the faculty and ETC body. On Monday we met as a team to shuffle through the feedback we received, thoughts from the client as well as what we each personally wanted to achieve with the remaining four weeks of this, so far, extremely fun, exciting and unique project.
As stated last week we have completed a large portion of the functionality so we unanimously decided that we need to focus strongly on the polish, testing and iteration of the key bits of content we have made thus far. Agreeing upon this unified idea we decided that we would be able expand upon our interactive kiosks as well as tweak and polish the guided tour and teleport features.
Amidst impending workloads from our various electives there has been a strain on the amount of feasible work to be completed by our little team of four. Despite the odds we still pull together and implement as well as the rest of them. Early in the week Siddhesh and I refined the guided and teleport features by adding additional targets to the navigational-mesh (the system responsible for guided the guest throughout the space to the predetermined locations highlighting the main features of the space) to ensure the guests will be guided throughout the space in the most realistic manner as if being guided through a renowned museum.
As standard, the algorithm controlling the tour finds the most direct path between two designated points then, once it arrives at a target, immediately continues to find the next one in the sequence and that’s how the guest perceives movement. In our case it wasn’t realistic enough to fly the guest through the space so we knew that it had to be the right speed and flow in order to feel ‘correct’. To accomplish this we added more targets to have the guest ‘walk’ around objects in a more realistic manner as opposed to cutting corners in sake of speed. Also, Siddhesh adapted his original code to include a pause at each of the key targets allowing the guest to view the space and absorb what it is we wanted to show them. Along with the pause we’ve included an audio clip to inform the guest a little bit more about exactly what it is they’re currently viewing.
To iterate and build upon our kiosks we’ve decided to add an additional six points of interaction. We decided to split the kiosks in the media gallery to have each type of artwork be displayed via its own unique kiosk. The idea behind this is to give guests more to do within the space, to clearly demonstrate the diverse amount of potential media that can be displayed and most importantly ensure the guests don’t miss any content while enjoying their experience. Aside from media gallery changes we’ve added a kiosk in both the North-west and South facing points of the building. These kiosks will allow guests to view the original Gigapan images, provided by our client, as well as experience the ‘helicopter view’ as we have coined it. This kiosk will transport the guests view to the exterior of the building allowing them to do a 360-degree fly around and see what the building will look like from the exterior.
Our mini-map was also given an overhaul to include the newly added kiosks and some fine tuning to make it as user-friendly/informative as possible prior to our next round of play testing. Some features include a zooming function that focuses into the location of the guest while they are walking but upon coming to a standstill will zoom out allowing for the guest to see the building as a whole and where they are in relation to various points of interest within the space. We will be focusing on tester’s opinion of this system during play testing to ensure this is the best way to reveal information to our guests.
This week we have lots of polishing and refining to do in order to prepare for guest testing next week but we are excited and enthusiastic to get this product opened to the public as soon as possible. We would like to thank everyone for their continued support throughout the development of this project and hope you enjoy the completed version as much as we have enjoyed the creation process from within.