SEA OF STORIES
ROLE : TECHNICAL DESIGNER | SEPTEMBER 2016 - DECEMBER 2016 | TEAM SIZE = 4

OVERVIEW

The Sea of Stories is an attempt to create a computer generated pice of art for VR, which means all the assets are created within Unreal Engine. In doing so we hoped to discover rules of composition for VR as a medium for art.  The experience itself is an exploration of a fantasy world with an ocean and it's currents each a visual representaton of a story.

​As technical designer my role was to assemble all the different pieces to create the experience and handle all the real time rendered components of the experience.

CONCEPT ART TO VR

Mapping the oceanic world from a 2D representation into VR left it feeling empty and barren. What felt vast in an image, felt flat in VR. We adapted to VR by encasing the world in a waterfall basin, making it feel more complete.

WORLD LAYOUT

Even though the viewer has a 360 field of vision, we found it useful to identify 'money shots' and lay out the world to emphasize those moments. In our experience we had two such moments where we wanted the viewer to feel awed by the spread and depth of the currents.

PERCEPTION OF DEPTH

WITHOUT ATMOSPHERIC FOG
WITH ATMOSPHERIC FOG
In a sense this project was an exploration of Unreal Engine as an art canvas. One of the techniques we utilized was to make distant elements blurry to create an illusion of depth and scale.

PACING


The aspect of movement in a VR experience makes pacing a crucial element to consider as the viewer's perspective is constantly changing, creating a desire to constantly look around. The experience was designed to alternate between a wide and focused view so as to hold the viewer's attention when required while respecting the desire to look around.

DRAWING VIEWER ATTENTION

In the absence of narrative events, we still needed cues to draw the viewer's eyes. We used moving elements to draw the viewer's attention towards events that foreshadowed the viewer's journey.

LINES FOR INDIRECT CONTROL

Another way of guiding the viewer's eye is by utilizing diagonal lines to point towards the intended direction. The bird's orientation was an effective tool in drawing the viewer's eyes towards certain elements. In the absence of the bird, currents served a similar purpose.

PERSPECTIVE

Contrasting perspectives allow for the creation of moments that harness VR as a medium. The vast scale of the world contrasts with the following intimate sequence, enhancing moments of closer proximity.