Sunday, November 24, 2013

Change of Environment

I've decided to change my proposal. After struggling with coming up with imagery and an environment that interests me, I started to redefine the problem. What is an environment? It's not always driven by what is seen. So I took a step back and came up with the idea of creating an environment entirely from sound. With this in mind, I further explored what I could create that is both personal and reflective of myself. I love to create music, and so I think it would be interesting to share this passion with those who view this piece.

And with that, I've decided to create an environment that IS music. As you navigate through each area, you will be creating the environment you experience. No two experiences, and thus no two environments, will be the same. As the music is the most important feature in this project, I will be using simple organic shapes that have no intrinsic meaning. The aspect you will experience is only the sounds that you mouse over. The shapes are only there to give visual queues to where you are on the page.

I'll have stuff to show in class tomorrow to explain this approach in more detail.

Tuesday, November 19, 2013


Interactive Environment

The unique environment that I have created, I would have to say is a reflection of my life and also my interests that helped me become who I am today. The opening page starts with a tree, that was inspired by the one that I watched grow over the years in my yard. As the viewer clicks on the clouds, rain falls. With each drop the tree will get bigger. The braches resemble the gateway to the next path. Within each of these paths there are visions that resemble my daily interests and hobbies. These visions consist of the gym, swimming, a studio with musical instruments and a blank canvas. Within each path there will be clickable items that allow the viewer to interact with the piece. For example, when you click on the canvas it a drawing of a rose will progressively appear and the view will be able to click on colors to paint the rose. Once the rose is painted a button will appear that will take you to the home page where you can select another path. Within the path to the gym, there will be a figure that you click on which will then lift weights and grunt. Click on the towel to leave the page, which brings you to a shower. Click on the shower curtain to open it, and then the handle to run the water. But when you click on the soap the screen fills up with bubbles and you have to pop all of them in order to move on. Click the towel to go back to the home page. The trunk of the tree will also open to elevator buttons that go directly to some paths that are not linked to the tree braches, with a select button that goes on a path that has yet to be seen.   The interface will be full screen. The viewers will want to interact with this piece because it will be exciting and they will be interested in progressing forward in order to find out where the path will take them. I guess that I will be drawing most of my imagery, or taking real photographs. I will most likely find the sound effects using the Internet or creating them myself. 
*May change a bit.

Unique environment

My idea for this project is the classic Sci Fi idea of time travel with my own personal twist. This project will consist of multiple worlds or places in time in which the user can exit the time machine and explore  the surrounding area and the people animals and things that make said point in time unique (no set number of worlds yet but probably around 8 or 10 at this point).  The time machine will consit of multiple button indicating each time that the user can travel to, above that will be a large glass widow showing the world that the user is presently in and lastly above that is a clock with the exact date that the user is in. To the right of this will be a door the when clicked on will allow the user to exit the machine and step in said world to interact with everything present at that time.  Personally when leaving a time i want something to attack the time machine just before the person escapes to a new time like in  every cliché time travel movie ( an example of this would be a t-rex just about to destroy the time machine and right before it get to warp into a new time)

Who live there?
you, since i want this to be a first person experience and depending on the time an place the people and things historically accurate to said time

Where am i going to get my imagery from?
a lot of different places but my main idea is to get historically accurate paintings, photographs and drawings and make each world into a big collage of multiple images.

How big will my interface be?
full screen


Why would your audience want to interact with your environment?
who doesn't want to travel through time and explore places they could only dream about?

just found this, mad cool:
http://video.bobdylan.com/desktop.html

Proposal and Examples

All my examples are different pieces from www.vectorpark.com because they all have the aesthetic I'm going for:

http://www.feedthehead.net/  http://windosill.com/  http://www.vectorpark.com/park/

Now for the proposal:

     My environment is going to be one of imagination and simplicity, I was inspired by the work on vectorpark.com and am aiming to emulate that style in my own way. The environment I will be creating will take the user through 8 different settings, and to get from one to the next they'll have to find and click on a specific element in each area, so rather than offering all the options at once, the user will progress from section to section in a sequential order exploring the world I've created as they go along. Aesthetically I'm going for the same look as the work from vector park, a lot of colors with low saturation and no hard outlines for the environment and creatures within them. The 8 areas of my environment are (in order): Lava cave, Ice cave, Mountains, Clouds, Forest, Underwater, City, Space. All will use a different color palette but still retain consistency through the style.
     The creatures that inhabit each area will be unique and all lot like aliens more or less, they are these very simplistic creatures living in each environment due to their preference for the environment they're in. The easiest way is to describe what they'll look like is adorably bizarre. They won't be scary by any means and have a very childish flare to them.
     The purpose of the piece is to explore each section as you go and see what kind of creatures inhabit each area as you explore this fantasy world.
     In terms of size, I don't want it to fill the entire screen necessarily but take up the middle third of the screen in terms of width and have it as a rectangle that doesn't quite extend to the top and bottom of the window.
     The driving force behind why the audience will want to interact with the world will be the exploration of each section and the curiosity of what happens as you click on the different elements.
     All the imagery I will be hand drawing and then putting into illustrator. Because each environment is the composite of many simple shapes, as do the creatures, it'll end up coming together like a giant layered puzzle.

Unique Environment - Nicole Torrey

What does your environment look like?/ What is it about?
My environment is going to be an old junkyard where there is mountains of discarded tvs.  The main tv mountain that is in the front will have tv sets that are flickering with tv static animation.  The viewer can interact with these tvs by clicking on them.  Once clicked it will zoom in on the tv screen and start playing a video.  The video is of a stop motion animation drawing that I did while watching tv shows.  I want the piece to show that tv can be more than just a tool for zoning out.  For me tv is a source of inspiration and a way for me to escape to another world.

Who lives there?
The creature that lives in this environment is TV Man.  TV Man is the guardian of the tv junkyard, he protects and preserves the discarded tvs.

Where are you going to get your imagery from?
I will be hand drawing the imagery to create this environment.

Who big will your interface be?
I want my interface to be full screen.

Why would your audience want to interact with your environment?
I want to grab the audience's attention by creating interesting imagery and using looping movie clips or animations to guide them to what is the interactive elements.

Unique Environment Proposal

I want my environment to be a reminder to people to get up and explore what's around them.  You can find so many pictures of amazing places in your time surfing the internet that make you say "I wish I could go there," that I think people forget to take time to explore and find places around them that are equally amazing.  Most of my imagery will be pictures that I have taken from places that I've found around my home that I think have this amazing quality but that people have stopped taking the time to explore due to their busy lives and technology.  The interface will be full screen and start inside a house where your only choice is to leave the house and explore what's outside your door.  From here the door will open onto a forest path that you will follow to these different places that even in their simplicity have an amazing quality if you take the time to explore and enjoy them.  The interface will allow you to explore and discover the beauty that is all around us that can be so easily overlooked because of how busy life can be.

Project Proposal


What is your environment like? Be specific. Site examples if needed.

For my project, I want to create an environment that’s much more personal. My environment will revolve around a place I know well; my home. As a place where I’ve grown up and lived all my life, there are many experiences that reflect me as a person. I want to recreate these memories via rollovers and mouse clicks giving the users a way to experience and move around in a very personal space. I’ll be using photography as a basis for my imagery. Through these photographs, I will create a sort of hyper realistic atmosphere by contrasting the still with the motion of objects I feel are important to reconstructing my memories.

I want the imagery to feel natural. I want it to feel like people are living within the space. If it’s too clean, it will feel setup and staged. I do not want that. A somewhat disorganized, cluttered space is more of what I’m going for. I think this approach will create more interest; the user will have more of an idea as to what goes on within this environment.

Who lives there? Why?

This one is pretty self-explanatory. My family and I live within this space. This consists of my mother, her significant other, my brother, and myself. It also enjoys the company of other visitors, of which include my grandmother, my aunt and uncles, my brother’s friends, my girlfriend. The user themselves will become a visitor to the space.

What is it about?

My piece is all about taking a personal space and making it entirely external. I want to overstep that bridge of privacy and make something that maybe feels a little uncomfortable to the user, sort of like they are invading the space. This sort of atmosphere may not be present at first but will be created the longer the user stays in the space and explores each room.

How big is the interface?

I want to make an interface that’s fairly large. I need it to be a size at which people can see the details in the imagery.

Why would your audience want to interact within the interface?

I think users will be interested in the space due to the presence of an unknown existence. Users will see and hear that people live within the environment but will never actually see these people. It’ll give the user a sort of glimpse into the life of the family living within, my family. It’ll force the user to snoop and spy, gathering bits of information by staying in the environment longer. It’ll be most interesting if I can make the user feel uncomfortable.

Where are you going to get your imagery?

The imagery will be gathered through photography and small movie clips that loop. I want the environment to look very real but feel surreal as the user interacts within it.

Interactive Environment Examples

The Last Door (Official Site): http://www.thelastdoor.com/
Play on NewGrounds - Prologue: http://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/607574
Play on NewGrounds - Chapter 1: http://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/620456

Play on NewGrounds - Chapter 2: http://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/626913

 






Infinite Oz - Tin Man: http://www.syfy.com/tinman/oz/ 

 

Monday, November 18, 2013

Unique Environment Proposal

The environment that I want to create will be a child's nightmare. I want to start it off with a kid sleeping in his bed. The user will be able to click on the child's head. A dream bubble will pop up and show a city or town. The user can enter the city by clicking on it and it will take them to a street view. I want there to be more than one place the viewer can go in the city. I was thinking of places like creepy alleys, street drains, or empty streets. Each place can be explored for nightmarish creatures and monsters by clicking. I want the user to be able to click on certain objects to reveal nightmares, videos, and animations. I want to use all my own imagery. I want to sketch out all the monsters and have the kids room and dream bubble be drawn out and then have the streets be photography that I have taken myself.

Interactive Environment Concept

The environment that I am planning on creating actually has three separate sections, two of which have sub sections to them. The user starts on a full screen of a human eye looking out back at them. However, instead of having a normal iris, it is replaced by a scene of the depths of the ocean. This includes marine life that are swimming by, unaware that they are making up the iris of an eyeball. The pupil of the eye will be a scene of outer space, complete with galaxies, stars, and solar systems. The viewer then has two options, either to click on the iris or the pupil. 
Once the iris is clicked the scene zooms in (much like the zooming effect on the Jim Carrey Website)  until the whole screen is filled with the ocean and the viewer is no longer looking at an eye but rather is underwater watching the marine life. From here the viewer has three options, either to click on a far off reef, click the depth of the ocean, or go to open water. If the reef is clicked, the screen will again zoom towards the reef and the viewer is transported to this reef that they can explore. If the depth is clicked, the viewer goes to the bottom of the ocean to explore the lives of bioluminescent creatures. If the open water is clicked, the viewer can explore the many creatures (such as whales, sharks, and dolphins) that swim in open water. In each section the viewer will not only see but hear the creatures of each "world". 
Once the pupil is clicked, the scene of outer space will take up the entire window and the viewer again has three options. They can either click on a sun, on two colliding galaxies, or on a orbiting solar system. If the sun is clicked, they will be able to explore the fiery surface of the sun. If the galaxies are clicked, they can explore all the different stars and systems that create the galaxies. If the solar system is clicked, than they can explore the planets and their moons.
The main theme of this environment is exploration and vivid imagery. There really is no information to be gathered, but instead it is made for relaxation and play. The viewer can be transported to all these different places, view different worlds, and listen to the accompanying sounds. At the end of each window there will be a back but for easy maneuvering, as well as video in the ocean part, and an artist statement in the main menu (the eye ball). The connection between the eye and these places is that humans interpret their world mainly through their eyes. The environments that are being presented are places that many people could never see or experience. With this project they can get a feel and sensation as if they were discovering outer space or the ocean for the first time. 
The only unfortunate part of this concept is that almost all of the imagery will have to come from online, for obvious reasons. However, there are other things such as the eye or certain aquatic life that I could get from my own means. 

Proposal


       The environment I want to create will be about imagination. Whether it be a child's, teenager's, or adult, no one will really know. The environment will be about what's hidden in everyday things/objects. Anything can become anything you want it to be if you put your mind to it. I think too many people have lost their sense of imagination, and I want to bring it back. I want the audience to look at my environment and be able to look at simple objects differently after playing around with the environment. The user/audience will move around clickable objects in the pictures (environment), and the frame will then move for them to see what that object can become. Such as a flame in a candle becoming the pit of Hell. The interface will be full screen so the audience can see the objects well, and the imagery will come from my room, apartment, kitchen, so on, and the internet unless said otherwise, then I will use my own drawings. 

Websites examples

Examples:
http://www.liliaplanet.com/

http://www.2kgames.com/bioshock/ps3/us/launch.html

http://shapethehive.com/hive/#section=HiveHome

Nicole Torrey - Website Examples

http://www.hellosoursally.com

http://thequietplaceproject.com

http://wonka.com

Interactive Websites



http://www.homeostatic.net/

http://www.picassohead.com/create.html?skin=original

http://gotmilk.com/

Examples

Here are some examples of simply environments I found on Deviantart





Thursday, November 14, 2013

Examples of Interactive Environments

Interactive Environments

This one is from Coca Cola. If you go to menu it takes you to a bunch of different "H"s.
http://www.ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.com/

This is more like a game but it's still very interesting!
http://www.trevorvanmeter.com/flyguy/

Here's one for Zune
http://www.zunejourney.net/