Mar 27 – Mar 31
Written by: Alyssa Tang
Posted by: Qiwen Lei
During this past week, our team dedicated most of our time and effort to enhancing the audio features and refining the models for our project. We hope the audio would accompany users as they explored the history of the steel industry and the Hot Metal Bridge. Our goal was to create a more immersive and engaging experience, which we achieved by incorporating transcript functions that allow users to read the audio script on their phone, as well as sound functions that enable them to adjust the volume or mute the audio altogether.
We also made progress on the artistic side of the project. We completed the barge model and textures, which are based on historical towboats, and received valuable feedback from our instructors.
Our team also invited a consultant instructor, Mo, to provide valuable feedback on our project. Mo is a visual effects and art styles expert who provided excellent suggestions for improving the overall design of the project. In particular, he recommended discarding the “placing the 3D model in the real world” design, as it would ruin the experience if the model wasn’t perfectly placed on the surface of the river. Instead, he suggested using historical pictures with animations and effects to create an engaging experience. This would allow users to view pictures of what the spots used to look like, which aligns with our project’s name, “bridging time.” After discussing Mo’s suggestions, we decided to implement this new design. We have already animated two spots’ pictures and are excited to see how they perform in our prototype.