hardware | software

Hardware: General Architecture | Alignment and Masking | Rigging lasers | Computer-controlled lasers
Software: The choice of LithTech | 2D input ->3D world | Iterations on interactivity | Implementing a storyline

Iterations on interactivity

We started with a concept that remained true throughout the development of the show: use laser pointers to gradually "reflesh-in" dinosaur bones back to life. This started with an attempt to accomplish the painting in 2D, by "scratching off" an image of a dinosaur on top of a skeleton image. This revealed to have insufficient visual quality, and the magic just was not there. Moreover, it would have been very tricky to switch from an application running this 2D painting to LithTech's 3D environment. Because of these two reasons, we decided to implement the totality of our show in LithTech. Not only does this make our implementation more solid, but it also gives a much better look to the process, for example by allowing camera movements during the painting process. . Figure 1 illustrates the old 2D painting.

Figure 1: Our old 2D painting results. Click here to see a video of it in action in the Earth Theater (3.88 Mb).

Our first vision for the 3D painting was to "flesh in" the dinosaur's muscles with our lasers (Figure 2). Actual testing in the Earth Theater revealed that this was not satisfactory because of the size of each muscle. There was a poor direct feedback per laser pointer, as a single dot on the screen could make a muscle appear that is as large as 5 feet tall on the screen.

Figure 2: The new 3D painting. This allows us to have a layer for muscles which will eventually be covered by the dino skin.

Next, we tried painting each polygon of the dinosaur skin by assigning a piece of texture to it (not illustrated here). Our dinosaur models have the possibility to have their polygon count increased or decreased at will within seconds, until the number of polygons is refined enough to give a direct feedback to each laser. This texturing approach was given up because of internal engine restrictions that could not be solved in a timely manner. However, the per-polygon collision detection was convincing enough for us to keep iterating on it.

Figure 3: Throwing spheres at the dinosaur.

We then considered "filling in" the dinosaur bit by bit by throwing spheres at it (Figure 3). Again, each polygon of the dinosaur can have a sphere that is attached to it. Making the sphere small enough guaranties a good individual feedback for each laser. However, the visuals of this approach were poor. A little modification led to our final solution (Figure 4).

Figure 4: Our current approach:Bio-Bubbles!

Our current and final approach consists in shooting bio-bubbles at the dinosaurs. Each color of Coolneon group paints bubbles of the same color. Once thrown, the bubbles do not remain static on the skeleton but are animated in circular motion, which enhances the feeling that they are actively bringing the dinosaur back to life. Once an appropriate number of bubbles has been reached, the final transformation animation is triggered. The bubbles pop and let the live dinosaur appear. The dinosaur roars and moves: he's alive! That's im-fossil-ble!

Second Interaction: Raptors

As the peak interaction of our show, we will have raptors attacking the Bio-Bubbles on the Trex as it's being painted. The raptors will come and tailwhack the TRex skeleton to pop out a certain percentage of the painted bubbles. This distracts the attention of the audience and adds enough thrill to the show to make the painting of the TRex climatic.

Previously, we had planned to have the guest point at the incoming raptors to scare them away from the TRex. The guests would need to divide their attention between painting the Trex and scaring away the raptors. As the guests shine their lasers at a raptor, it would slowly change color and brightness while the lasers remain on the raptor. As more lasers would target the raptor, the faster the raptor would change color and brightness. When the raptor would reach a given threshold of brightness, it would run away from the Trex. If the raptor was not scared away, it would get to the Trex and destroy some Bio-Bubbles. Time constraints did not allow to implement this. However, we were not certain to have it in the final version even if time had permitted because it might have been confusing to the audience that their laser pointer would now have a different usage from that of during the first interaction. This is an example of when user testing would be crucial to determine the appropriate steps to take.

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