A VR experience using Unity, Maya and the Oculus Quest 2. My group's experience was a walk through the Evolution of photography with an emphasis on film. This assignment was done under the instruction of Professor Shadrick Addy with teammates Angela Hinojosa, Carter Teal, and Will Yuan.
Project Proposal
Game Overview
The objective was to educate all camera users (from smartphone to professional camera users) on the history of cameras and the two existing kinds of methods to actually produce an image chemically or digitally. We take you all the way back in time, during the invention of the first ever camera to present day, exploring the most recent cameras. Cameras are an accessible part of our day-to-day lives. We constantly use these very technologically advanced tools - on our phones, computers, tablets and even professional cameras. These common forms of technology one day started with performing the basic of tasks. We use all of these things blindly without acknowledging the history, which is why Evolution of Photography plans to create a bridge between the user and inventor in the camera and film realm
The Evolution of Photography VR allows players to walk through a museum displaying the first camera every created through high end modern day camera. These models can be picked up, and read about through picture frames sharing photos and photographers relevant to the camera models. Players then enter a dark room where they get a first hand experience of what the different staged of film development look like.
Project Roles
Professor Shadrick Addy| Director
Jessica Malony|Visual Communication Design| Game Item and Interactivity Design
Carter Teal| Visual Communication Design| Environment, Interactivity, and Game Item Design
Angela Hinojosa| Visual Communication Design| Game Item and Interactivity Design
Interactive Objects
The game items we chose to make interactive include all camera models, the photo galleries, and the dark room.
Camera Obscura
Canon DSLR
Canon Film Camera
Minolta Film Camera
Nikon DSLR
Nikon Film Camera
Sony Mirrorless Camera
The First Digital Camera
Walkthrough Video
Overview Poster
Challenges
The most challenging space we explored was the dark room which required extra detail in lighting and more assets to truly feel like a dark room and give the user an honest experience. We also faced some challenges with making objects interactable. We approached this challenge by simplifying our work due to time and asking for help to get the basics done. One of our sources of interaction is being able to pick up the different cameras to get a better understanding of the details of the camera. Another was having text pop up in the picture frames as the user got closer so that they could learn more about famous photographs and the camera models. This was a pretty big challenge as it was not something we had gone over in class but with our teacher’s help Angela was able to simplify the idea and break it down into more easily repeated steps. Our feedback from our peers was primarily positive with no specific critiques outside of things we alread knew such as fixing the box colliders and finalizing our work.
Future Implications
In the future designers could build off of our idea by adding a more indepth history of cameras as well as allowing the user to take a picture with the different cameras to understand how each one functions differently. They could also add the right door that is used to enter a dark room as well as the full process of developing a photo and different variations of it. This could ultimately be used as a classroom tool for photography students and hobbyists to learn how to use different cameras without having the access to multiple different models or a space like a dark room.
