Blog Week3

Week 1: Jan 29, 2024 – Feb 2, 2024

  • Team Bonding in Chinatown Inn (photogrammetry models)
  • Second client meeting
  • Quarter presentation
  • Modified Idea direction

Team Bonding

We went to Chinatown Inn for our team bonding event, hoping to receive some of the insights for our project and get connected with the restaurant. Unfortunately the owner is not in town, but we scanned a lot of the interior designs for the restaurant that we could process through photogrammetry to include in our project.

Second Client Meeting

We have updated our progress to our client and we received a lot of feedback to move forward. We brainstormed ideas in the aspects of improving our interactions for multiplayers and AR/VR.

We also use the feedback to further develop our content and goal to prepare our quarter presentation.

Quarter Presentation

Our goal: A demo about Pittsburgh’s Chinatown that shows the capabilities of the ARENA platform in storytelling, multi-user interaction, and AR/VR via browser on any device. We also want to provide feedback on the development and improvement of ARENA as an accessible platform for XR Development for potential content creators looking to use ARENA. If we can deliver a demo on ARENA platform to tell a good story, while utilizing ARENA’s multi-user interaction and AR/VR features, we will consider our project as success. Along the way, we would collect feedback on the development and improvement of ARENA for their team to better develop the platform.

Experience overview: Guests are new immigrants to Chinatown in the 1870s, forging a new life through doing important roles in the On Leong Merchants Association Building, a central hub of the Pittsburgh Chinatown Community. They are witnessing and experiencing the rise and fall of Chinatown. Potential experience audiences: Tourists, Immigrants, International students

Tech: Art asset pipeline – Maya/Blender & Substance Painter, ARENA API, Unity Live Link – Scene Editor, Python script system – Scene Controller.

Question/ Concern: The ARENA platform: unknown risks ahead, but we will work with the team to find a workaround and utilize the platform to its maximum potential. We will find consultants and do more playtests for the storytelling and interaction aspect.

Our Quarter presentation went really well receiving feedback from the faculties. Major feedback was how we could present a clear direction for our project that facilitates AR and VR for multiple players. We also received resources from the librarians and faculties in our research side.

After the presentation, we immediately discussed our main direction and were able to stick with it.

Idea Direction

  • Miniature 10min 
  • Phone, table, AR, multi user(different panels, announce big story stages for all panels at the same time, smaller interaction each user play on their own, common goal-money/population increase in number)
  • Vision:
    • Programer: table place, build more buildings function, more people function,people help people, simple interactions, building on the table, games up above the buildings
    • Artist: scope model, not precise buildings, 2D(UI panel)&3D, need more reference (library, person who made the documentary)
    • Narrative design: game, npc, event, stories
      • 1870-no building to shops open
      • More people move in
      • Court
      • Move out
      • Fade out 
  • Elements in game: Nowaday, Blv ally, Chinatown Inn, trigger letter that let people move out
  • By Monday 

Narrative & Game Design- (Penghua & Anton user flow) how many people/interaction by 

Tech- click, interactions, functionality Monday() infrastructure 

Art- concept art (Chinatown sketch)build more buildings