Our assignement for Introduction to Virtual Reality first semester, is to create a VR music video.
I will create the music video for the song “Broken Boy” by Chage the Elephant, an american indie rock band.
Here there’s the link for the Padlet presentation—–> https://padlet.com/aghaffarian1220191/pyplxrtvlsyb3u40https://www.youtube.com/embed/iECixGaKVk4?feature=oembed
I decided to divied the lyrics in three parts, each of them will have a different scenario that will represent the main characters thoughts and feelings at the moment.
PADLET LINK: https://padlet.com/aghaffarian1220191/yxrac3md8utn4kw3
Scenes description
lyrics #1:
I was born on the wrong side of the train-tracks
I was raised with the strap across my back
Lay me on my side or hold me up to the light, yeah I was burned by the cold kiss of a vampire
I was bit by the whisper of a soft liar
Any good friend of yours is a good friend of mine Broken boy“
How does it feel?
Broken boy
How does it feel?
How does it feel?
I underlined the “keywords” to which I will refer to in the video. The first scene will be on the top of a moving train, where the main character (13-14 years old boy) will be cased by a vampire, till the point to bite him; by doing this the whole scene will “freeze”.
lyrics #2:
Tell me why I’m forced to live in this skin
Tell me why I’m forced to live in this skin
I’m an alien, not just an alien, oh
Tell me why I was born to live in this skin
Tell me how I’m supposed to be forgiven
With my hand in the hive and the sun in my eyes, yeah
Broken boy
How does it feel?
Broken boy
How does it feel?
How does it feel?
The second scene will develop in the main character’s bedroom. It will have a sort of dramatic atmosphere, created by dark colours palette, minimal furniture and design. Here the young boy will stare at his own reflection on the mirror in the corner of the room, and he will reveal himself as a little alien.
lyrics #3:
I was born on the wrong side of the train-tracks
Always born on the wrong side of the train-tracks
Lay me on my side or hold me up to the light, yeah I was burned by the cold kiss of a vampire
I was promised the keys to an empire
Any good friend of yours is a good friend of mine, ohBroken boy
How does it feel?
Broken boy
How does it feel?
How does it feel?
The third scene will take place in the space, where our character will be happily sleeping on his bed, floating in the immense vastness of the space. Around him the viewer will see the typical space elements, like the stars, planets and the sun which will have a huge smile on it as well.
MV meaning
The scenes are thought to be three gradual steps in someone’s life, in the period between 13/14 years old, when kids start to grow up and enter in preadolescence, acknowledging that they are no longer children but neither adult, so I wanted to show in VR this “unique” period of life where we try to understand who we are and enter a new phase of the life of which we are perhaps scared at the beginning but also attracted to it.
However, the first scene represents the growth anxiety, in fact the main character is chased by an enemy and doesn’t want to be caught, as it is that we want to run away from growing up and stay in the childhood’s world. The second scene is a “middle state” where the protagonist is looking at himself changing skin in the mirror, it is as he is facing the growth, discovering his new self for the first time. Finally, the third scene is the acceptance of changing, therefore the character is relaxed, he accepted that he can’t do anything to stop this process and should just embrace it instead of fighting it.
progresses:
During the holidays I’ve been working on modelling the assets on Maya in order to import them on unity once finished. Here are few renders:
Week 10
During this week I figured out that my OVR camera did not work properly, and after several unsuccessful attempts to make it work, I decided to open a new project and to not import the OVR plug in, but simply having only the main camera on.
I have restarted the first scene from scratch, modelling the elements by my own, because the one I had previously imported was too heavy. To model the scene I used both Maya and Unity, and it turned out to have a simpler and clearer design.
On Unity I created the green ground and the “walls” around it and added box collider to them, to not let the user leave the scene once in VR mode. As regards lightning and colours I opted for dark colours and soft lights in order to create a sort of mysterious atmosphere. To increase the user attention and involvement I added an audio source too.
I did the same for the second scene which takes place in the main character’s bedroom. For this scene the character will stare at his reflection in the mirror while boxing by his own. For the animations I took my inspiration from few film clips, to understand better the movements. Here the link of a clip I’ve seen:
I still have to finish the animation for my third scene, but this is what I have untill now:
what has changed?
Since my initial MV idea had many elements that required knowledge in scripting, (for example the transition between the main character into a little alien), which I recently started to know how it works, I decided to keep the main idea, but change how the user will visualize it in VR.
Therefore, I focused mainly on animations, which is the feature we focused most throughout the semester, but mostly with them, I was able to give life to the scene, letting the animations tell the story and communicate with the user through gesture.
Apart from animations, another important element to which I paid a lot of attention, have been the colours, because they have the same strenght and immediacity in communicating a particular atmosphere or a state of mind.
Colour psychology
Color can play an important role in conveying information, creating certain moods, and even influencing the decisions people make. Color preferences also exert an influence on the objects people choose to purchase, the clothes they wear, and the way they adorn their environments. Color is a powerful communication tool and can be used to signal action, influence mood, and even influence physiological reactions.
first scene:
PURPLE: People often describe this color as mysterious, spiritual, and imaginative. Purple tends to occur rarely in nature, so it is viewed as rare and intriguing.
GREEN: Green symbolizes nature and the natural world. Perhaps because of its strong associations with nature, green is often thought to represent tranquility, good luck, health, and jealousy.
second scene:
BLUE: Blue is a color often found in nature such as the pale blue of a daytime sky or the rich dark blue of a deep pool of water. It is for this reason perhaps that people often describe the color blue as calm and serene. Yet as a cool color, blue can sometimes seem icy, distant, or even cold.
YELLOW: Yellow can also create feelings of frustration and anger. While it is considered a cheerful color, people are more likely to lose their tempers in yellow rooms.
Third scene:
WHITE: Some of the positive meanings that white can convey include cleanliness, freshness, and simplicity. The color white often seems like a blank slate, symbolizing a new beginning or a fresh start.
BLACK: Black is associated with the water element and evokes power, mystery, and calm.
Transitions between scenes:
For my MV I wanted to create smooth transition between the three scenes. To achive this goal I found on youtube ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CE9VOZivb3I ) a really helpful tutorial that taught me how to create crossfade transitions.
- Firslty I had to create an empty game object that I renamed “LevelLoader”, than parented it to a UI canvas (renamed as “CrossFade”) and finally parented the canvas to an UI image , adapted the image to the whole screen and changed the color in black.
- Secondly I had to create two CrossFade animations, animating the image Alpha.
- Than I added to LevelLoader a new script:
- And finally dragged the LevelLoader game object into my assets, making it a prefab that I cuold use in the other scenes.
Audioscript:
The other script that I wrote ( found the tutorial here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xtfe5S9n4SIis) allows the music to continue through the scenes without restarting from the beginning:
Animations
Here some clips of the animations from each scene!
third scene
mirror effect:
To create a mirror on Unity:
firstly: create a plane object (that would be your mirror) > add a camera that faces the object > create a render texture > set the size of the render texture 1024×1024> drag & drop the render texture on the camera and on the object.
Video reference: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U9yTnRuU–A&t=120s