Cities and the Sky:
An VR Display
about the project...
In my Immersive Media Design course in the Spring 2022, I worked with my team to create this 360 degree VR experience inspired by a fictional city called Andria from the book Invisible Cities by Italo Calvino. Andria is a city that reflects changes in the solar system. For example, the streets follow the orbit of the planets and the buildings reflect the stars. This city incorporates nature and the solar system in a peaceful way. This piece includes a stunning background with bamboo, mountains, greenery and houses inspired by beautiful asian architecture. The sky is a burnt orange with unique planets, stars and a shooting comet.
In this VR experience, the viewer is placed in the center of this world when they wear an Oculus headset. They can turn around and view the background and the three women floating around them. The stars in the sky follow the walking paths of the three women. The three women represent female empowerment since they have direct control over the motion of the stars. Our work also represents the intersection between nature on earth and the planets in the solar system. It also shows how humans are interconnected with nature and how our actions can directly affect the physical world around us.
the process:
1. brainstorming
To begin this project, my team and I read the book Invisible Cities by Italo Calvino in which Calvino describes a different fictional city in each chapter based on Marco Polo's explorations. We decided to create a VR display inspired by the city of Andria from the following chapter of the book...
2. creating the assets
Next, I created a vision board for our project. I used the vision board as inspiration to design assets. I created assets using free images available online and editing the images on Adobe Photoshop and Procreate. I used images of bamboo, planets, stars and human figures. Lastly, I added the assets to our environment in Unity.
3. practicing rigging and animation
Next, I created rigs for arm and head movement on Unity to practice animation in a 3D environment. I used these rigs to create animated human figures that float like otherworldly creatures in our VR display.
Then, I added the human figures I created to our environment in Unity. I rigged the human figures so they would move with the stars in the sky.
4. adding assets and presenting our VR Display
Next, we picked a single viewpoint in space in our Unity environment. Then, we added focal points above, below, in front and behind the viewer to create a full 360 degree experience. We picked skybox to create a smoky and orange, space-like environment. Lastly, we added audio (calming forest noises) to complete the experience. We presented our work in class for other students to critique at the University of Maryland's Brendan Iribe Center.