This week, we had 3 main goals to accomplish: 1) Keep refining the systems with new features and start working on the integration of our Mo-cap system and VR camera system; 2) Keep working on the script and arrange some shots in Maya as preparation; 3) Communicate our project goal and progress with faculty in 1/4 walk-arounds and sit-downs.
TECH PROGRESS
Before 1/4 walk-arounds, Varun successfully got the VR Mo-cap system work smoothly. With Oculus Rift S system, now we are able to capture character head and hand movement with the system:
Meanwhile, Kevin finished the focal length adjusting feature. By simply swiping the trackpad on the vive controller, the user can get the image with different focal length parameter and experiment with different shot sizes. However, we are also facing a challenge that the virtual camera naturally get shaky since it’s hard to shoot stable footage with the small-weight controller. Kevin is now working on the placing camera feature to enable static shots first, and we start brainstorming about the solutions for implementation of virtual handheld shots or Steadicam shots such as designing a prop, but that is currently lower priority.
INTERESTING CASE
One of the first challenges from a storytelling point of view, in Butch Cassidy, was the opening scene. The script writer had detailed the shot beautifully but the issue we faced was that the scene described was impossible to stage in a manner that made sense. One of our key takeaways here was that scriptwriters don’t necessarily think like directors or DPs. Our way forward, in situations like this, is to understand exactly what the screenwriter is trying to convey but then stage the scene in our own way, so that while the idea remains coherent, it also visually makes sense and is “dynamic”. Our approach for this task was much the same, where we could visually depict the scene details but with a few visual modifications. It also made an interesting case study to talk about during our presentation.
QUARTERS FEEDBACK
The presentations and discussions in quarters went pretty well with faculty provide meaningful feedback. In terms of materials, Shera created work flow diagram and refined the user storyboard to illustrate our pipeline.
The feedback can be summarized as follow:
- About the target of the project: “Target audience” was frequently mentioned in the questions — we are a discovery project but we are also building our own tool sets and pipeline. The design process of a product should be based more on users but not just the assumptions of designers. Thus, interviewing people in film industry and conducting effective playtests will be equally important when we are experimenting new things.
- About the measurement of success for project, and “good enough” for previz: How to measure our success? What quality is “good enough”? What problems are we trying to solve? This week we voted for the measurements that each of us believed decide our success, and created our Metrics Matrix. Prototyping, documentation, effectiveness(of the pipeline), technology and passion of experimenting new things are the metrics the team picked. We believe as a discovery project, what each of us will learn from the process is significant.