For Term 3, our new assessment is to develop an immersive, storytelling experience.
Me, Alex, Olfa and Vivek decided to focus on music and its representation. My own dissertation ultimately revolved around the same area of study, which gives me the possibility to practically explore the topic.
In visual music, there have been many attempts of visually representing the hypertext of the song: the inherent mental process the we perform whenever we listen to an auditory experience, and we create a narrative and an imaginary that resemble that hypertext. It is something I experimented myself by making the animation for few concerts in Italy. Below, one sample of my work.
Since the age of Pythagoras and his theory of the spheres, until today’s most advanced CGI software, the way we visualise music is always different.
RAPIDFORM (June 2019)
I contacted Rapidform, in Kensington, to get a full-body 3D scan. Following, the process of digital scanning made by Hannah (Rapidform):
[wpvideo 7ha5VkkB]
1. RETOPOLOGY (Wrap3D)
The result of the scan is a high-definition .obj model, made of thousands of polygons. Hannah’s job was to reiterate the amount of polygon and retopologies my model. To do so, she imported the 3D model in WRAP3D (which as always is not available for Mac), where she fixed few errors from the scan and smoothened the surfaces. I couldn’t have access to this process.
2. FIXING THE MODEL (Cinema4D and ZBrush)
With C4D I further fixed some errors present in the model, and finally apply the textures.
3. TEXTURES
4. ANIMATION IN MIXAMO
Finally, before importing the model to Unity, I animated the model in Mixamo, which gives me the possibility to create the rig, the skeleton inside the body that makes the animation possible. I played around with different animations until I got the result I wanted.
5. IMPORT IN UNITY
Finally, in Unity I imported the animated model and created my VR scene.
6. NEW TEXTURES AND THE ANIMATION IN VR
Everything was looking perfect, although the re-create the theme of the music and the sense of anxiety generated by it, I decided to use Substance designer to generate new textures and apply them to my model.
The final result is supposed to be a weird, psychedelic journey together with many versions of myself, all chit-chatting together towards an unknown destination.