This Monday, we had Heather Kelly with Nathan Black, John Dessler, and Jonathan Walton visiting the team, and trying out the product.

Here are some feedback from each of the group.

Group 1 – Heather and Nathan

1. Construct a field:
   • Nathan: If you can use 4 flat images to make a wall, to make a field, that could be really interesting
2. Interaction with reality:
   • Nathan: The overlay of reality, how do you make that connection between people’s art and the real world space?
   • Wenbo: That is why we enable the artists to edit the artwork.
   • Jiayu: For mixed reality, it requires very precise occlusion detection, and it could be challenging.

Group 2 – John

1. Safety concern:
   • If in the future someone wants to specify what area the artists are able to place, you are able to do that. The artists could be competitive. Even if you did not build it, make sure that someone in the future could manipulate it.
2. Provide the tools:
   • About the Token idea, we don’t manage but we give the tool
3. About the experience:
   • Feels good, but don’t know how would it work if the traffic exists like at the pop district.
   • UI feels ok, but stay consistent, people don’t want to learn.
   • A regular person who is joining this experience, the GEO feels cool
   • VR is taking you to the imaginary world, AR is bringing the imaginary world to my world, and AR should look like it is really in my world.
4. Evaluation
   • Was this a successful semester for you?

Group 3 – Jonathan

1. File format:
   • Jonathan: Do you have a sense of what kind of artwork people are uploading?
   • Jiayu: 3D, GLB, 2D, png.
   • Glendon: For the artists we are collaborating with, they are using 2D.
2. Art creation:
   • Jonathan: Even if you place several 3D pieces in the same area, you could still make a virtual gallery. If I were an artist, I would like to create some artwork that is specifically designed for this area, or I would want to take a bunch of existing artwork and arrange it in the area. Some of the 3D interactive art would work.
     • The photography part is interesting. It reminds me of “The Wonderspaces”.It allows people to take selfies with the installations. It is a sort of modern art that meet social media. It is like social media art. It’s really impactful to make it an effective exhibition.
     • Think about how to help artists who only have 2D art to exhibit their art pieces. If you can include it somehow and it will really help. You cannot change the app too much in 2 weeks but you can change how you talk.
     • Take some of your own stuff. If you want to be a serious platform for artists to use, the content matters. Document how people interact with them.
     • You could even make an arch or a maze. You can’t walk through 2D art in reality, but you could think about it.
     • If you only have flat art, you want to put it in a flat space putting in the middle. It could be different ways to build it up, it is better to document those possibilities. You could put a really big one, and people will be surprised by that.
     • You could provide a template. To give people a sense of where people could start with. Show how we put the artwork outside, and how it looks from different angles in the final presentation. (Might be better to do it at the pop district) Show it is mostly 2D/3D art. For 3D art, you could even ask the level design team, and mention them in the final presentation. You can make a fake obstacle course(racing game).
     • Virtual buildings will be very cool. It is like a big piece of art. Big enough for people to get inside of them? Forest?
3. Smoothness:
   • Jonathan: Better than I thought. Overlapping might be the issue. State it in the documentation. At least the big pieces. It will be interesting to see if you have small pieces arranged in the space, will they be accurate enough? You might want to find out what is the limit of the technology and what makes the experience fun (large/small scales? Tall things like plants?) It’s like designing art for the app.

Alumni Playtest

On Friday, we had the ETC alumni test the application as well. We received very positive feedback and appreciation. Thanks to everyone who participated in this playtesting event!

Summary

The team is going to present next Wednesday (5.3), and we are going to do our best!