REEXAMINE OUR DESIGN

This week marks the completion of the first quarter of our production journey. Our team has dedicated significant effort towards the design, playtesting, and pushing of boundaries. Now, it’s crucial to pause and reflect, taking into consideration the insights from professionals in diverse fields such as location-based entertainment, animation, theatre, and interactive design. We invited experts from the Entertainment Technology Center to evaluate our storyboard and presentation in the Cavern, a space featuring a room-size panoramic screen, to gain a sense of the final deliverables and offer valuable feedback based on their expertise.

The majority of the faculty members have emphasized the importance of the entire team understanding the rationale behind our choice of the panoramic screen and 3D glasses, as well as the specific design decisions made for our animation. They have recommended that we delve deeper into researching existing mediums within the industry, citing examples such as IMAX and panoramic screen installations. The team’s next step is to conduct research at the Carnegie Science Center, where a giant screen located.

When asked about their expectations, certain faculty members conveyed a desire for the audience to have the ability to walk and navigate within the space rather than remaining stationary. They also expressed keen interest in observing how small particles such as dust and bubbles, as well as the approach of monsters, could be portrayed with the assistance of 3D stereo glasses. These insights provide valuable guidance for the art direction in our production, prompting the team to continue experimenting with visual outcomes on the screen and making adjustments accordingly.

Regarding progress, we initially developed a draft featuring silhouettes of the monsters as the character concept. Both the entire team and our instructors showed a preference for a model that is more human-like, taking into account the thematic influence of Frankenstein’s narrative and our adoption of a hyper-realistic art style. For the next step, we plan to enhance the design by incorporating additional details, experimenting with the color palette, and introducing more variability to the monster’s physique, including features such as asymmetrical arms and legs.

Meanwhile, the environment artists will keep working on props and textures, and the VFX artist will start creating VFX in Houdini.