We’re a student-pitch team from CMU ETC working on an experimental Virtual Reality experience.
Creating a pitch project is a challenging and exciting journey, and seeing it come to life is a truly rewarding experience. Our journey began in October 2022 when we started preparing for the pitch project. We knew that we had to put a lot of effort and time into it if we were going to make it a success.
Our goals are to (1) create high-end 3D environment art in Unreal Engine 5 (2) with 2D live-action footage and (3) to experiment with indirect control by visual composition in VR.
During preparation, we did a lot of research and experimentation. We spent the first few weeks exploring the capabilities of Unreal Engine 5.1. and made sure that the 2D live-action footage could be integrated seamlessly into the 3D environment.
However, we knew that we couldn’t do it alone. We reached out to 17 faculty members for ideas and feedback and identified 2 Subject Matter Expertise from Schell Games and EA. Their input was crucial in shaping the direction of our project. We took their feedback into account and made adjustments where necessary.
We decided to base our project on the concept of the “society of the spectacle”. It is a critique of the way in which our lives are increasingly mediated by technology and how we are becoming more and more disconnected from our surroundings. We felt that this concept was particularly relevant in today’s world and wanted to create a project that would explore this idea and challenge the audience’s perceptions of reality.
We are excited to bring our vision to life and share it with the world. We will be posting weekly blogs on our progress, so please feel free to check it out and follow along with our journey. We appreciate your support and look forward to sharing our project with you.