An Afternoon
Walk-through Video
Concept
This project is an animated narrative VR experience inspired by the symbolist poem "The Afternoon of a Faun". Presented in the first person, the experience explores the faun's quest for beauty and primal desires through abstract, emotional expression.
Story-telling It tells the story of the faun, a mythological half-man, half-goat creature embodying the forces of nature and animalistic power, as he reminisces about his unfulfilled pursuit of nymphs in a forest during a dreamy afternoon. His encounters, as ephemeral as dreams, evoke a sense of beauty tinged with regret.
Target AudienceTargeting art, narrative, and exhibition enthusiasts.
Design
Group Role
Name: Yining
Role: Coordinator, Story Script Adaptation and Creation
Yawen - Lead Designer for Scenes 3 and 1
Vincente - Lead Designer for Scene 2 and Debugger
Emily - Debugger and Developer
As a team project, we collectively discussed creative aspects, including interaction and scene design, the overall artistic style, and the atmosphere we aimed to create. Given the tight timeline, each scene was led by different individuals, with others providing support as needed, facilitating project progression. we chose objects and colours that would create a transition between scenes, such as colours or atmosphere that blended well and objects such as the flute which appeared in every scene to connect them symbolic.
Delivery Strategy
During the initial design phase, we documented brainstorming outputs on a Miro board, then detailed each scene and interaction in a detailed script. We used Unity Version Control for content development, ensuring every step was backed up. Weekly meetings on Tuesdays covered creative content and individual responsibilities for the week, while Saturdays were dedicated to collaborative work and addressing any issues encountered.
In a project driven by creative design, it's essential to regularly update on progress and share future ideas, maintaining a unified style and efficient problem-solving.
User Journey
Keypoint
1.the scene 2 style is inspired from The Afternoon of Faun’s Ballet stage design
2.
Personal Contribution
In the project, I am primarily responsible for conceptualization and coordination supervision, organizing and allocating work. Influenced by “Goliath”, I referenced the concepts where “users cannot move and are placed within the scene, with all events occurring around them” and “generating interactive or animated objects from abstract and simple shapes”. The inability of users to move means that all actions need to be orchestrated. I wrote controllers through code, which included timings for pauses, triggers for voice interactions, interactions, and camera movements. In Scene 1, the small spheres are automatically generated, launching from the user’s position and randomly appearing 360 degrees around them three times. In Scene 3, the musical spheres are also generated automatically, launched from a distant point, moving forward along two paths, producing a particle effect when they disappear, and playing random musical notes.
I consider that, as a narrative work, a plot is essential. I made the Faun the protagonist of the story, narrating the entire story in the first person and adapting the original poem into three acts while maintaining the symbolic style of the original text in terms of writing style. In terms of scene design, mimicking or simulating real object modeling blindly would take a lot of time, whereas abstract scenes, though initially more challenging to conceive, become easier to implement once established. Therefore, all interactive objects are glowing objects, and spheres are a consistent element (as particles and objects) throughout each scene.
In organizing the work, it is necessary to make other members aware that the project should be designed in an abstract form and to maintain regular communication to keep the style consistent across all scenes. When a detailed plan is discussed, the story's development process should be written into a detailed script to help members understand.
Reflection
In this project, even though there are areas for improvement, I believe we achieved our goals. In the previous month, we were unsure about what kind of project we could produce. I knew we had to create an abstract narrative project based on the poem “The Afternoon of a Faun”, similar in form to “Goliath”, with a style reminiscent of oil painting. Still, I had no idea what each element would be like or how to structure the elements to form a scene. Meanwhile, some team members were confused about how to create abstract scenes, and others were unsure of what the story was trying to convey. We needed to devise a plan and provide a specific implementation script for everyone to follow. This genre was new to everyone involved, which is why I was determined to continue with this form. Thus, we started with the script, setting up different scenes like a film director, and used C# scripts in Unity to code and arrange the sequence of events. None of us had relevant experience, and it was tough at the beginning, but everyone was eager to contribute to the project. Discussions were well-attended, with frequent inquiries about whether anyone needed help. I am grateful to my team members; the completion of this project is a testament to the team's effort and belief. I believe that everyone did their best within the limited time available.
I also identified some areas that need strengthening, such as the necessity of backups at each critical point, especially when we use Unity version control to work on the same scene simultaneously, which has resulted in one person's changes being overwritten by another. Additionally, when disagreements arise within the team, someone must make a decision, whether or not it is the best one, instead of wasting more time on discussions.