Pre-Assessment Review

Pre-Assessment Review of Project Proposal Realisation

Name: Luisa Jane Charles

Project proposal Title: Immersion

Context

Project Proposal

1.1 How are you using a range of critical and contextual perspectives within the development of your personal proposal? Give examples

As a starting point for my project proposal, I looked at a range of sources to give me inspiration and help contextualize the ideas I already had. It began with looking at artists working in similar media to that I am interested in to see what they do, how they do it, and how I could be influenced by it. I collected videos of these and put them on my ‘Bigger Picture’ page of my blog, for example, the ‘De Re Gallery’ by Gretchen Andrew, and ‘Seeing I’ by Mark Faird. On each video I wrote about these things (what and how they do things, and how it may influence my work), as well as critically evaluating the good and bad points of each to help me understand what I would count as success in my own work, and also speculated why they may be doing what they are doing. I went through a similar process whilst looking at the aesthetic context of the visual style I am proposing to achieve, collecting videos relating to the styles I am exploring, (such as imaginary environments, and merging 2D and 3D) and writing about the same points in reference to these. In order to help me understand the historical context of my ideas, I’ve created and continuously updated a timeline of the major events relating to virtual reality, interactive art, 3D cinema, etc.

1.2 How are you using detailed analysis and evaluation to clarify the development of your person project proposal? Where is it evidenced?  Give examples.

For most of my contextual studies, I have taken a critical perspective and evaluated my sources, and in the same way I am critical about my own work and ask for others’ critical opinions on my work. For example, to help develop my project proposal, I pitched it to a group of my peers and tutors in a petcha kutcha style presentation that can be found on the ‘Reflective Blog’ page of my blog. I received criticism on my proposal, which allowed me to improve it, and critically evaluated my pitch myself. Similarly I have been critically evaluating each piece I complete on my reflective blog, and looked into my previous work from other stages of the course to find contextual links within my own learning. From my first draft of my project proposal I developed a checklist of the different elements I would like my outcome to satisfy. I turned this list into a small graphic that allows me to very quickly and efficiently quantitatively evaluate each idea I have, which in turn allows me to develop my project proposal. As well as this I am writing a detailed analysis of each in order to fully evaluate my work and proposal in a qualitative way, to make sure I am being critical about my work in both a broad, summative way, and in a more fine-tuned, captious way. Finally, to fully clarify the development of my proposal I have been keeping record of the drafts I have gone through before settling on my final proposal, and analyzing and evaluating each draft to ensure my proposal is as detailed yet concise and accurate as possible.

Research

Primary and secondary

2.1 How are you using wide-ranging and in-depth research to support the development of your personal project? Give examples

My research comes from a wide variety of sources, covering multiple angles. Apart from my initial contextual research for starting to develop my project proposal, my first research took the form of primary research, expressed through photography. As seen on the ‘Practical Work’ page of my blog, I researched interesting and unfamiliar environments to help inspire me into how to create a believable imaginary environment. I turned these photographs into photo sets, organizing those into general landscape photography from England, and city and other photography from Berlin and Warsaw. Other primary research took the form of experimentation with possible materials, methods, and softwares, for example: light up paper houses test piece; blender and unity test pieces; testing out Google cardboard and oculus rift; and, user input test pieces with wii remotes, internal UI, and leap motion. This helped me to learn about my media much more quickly and in-depth than if I had just read up on it. I also critically evaluated work I had completed previously in the course in the same way I evaluated secondary sources so that I could get as much out of it as I could. As well as taking a hands-on approach, I researched my software’s and methods by finding online tutorials and tips pages that can be found referenced in my bibliography. By doing both primary and secondary research into the technical side of my project, I widened my knowledge early on and could go more in-depth with my learning. Though much of my aesthetic research revolved around contemporary artists working with technology, I widened my research by looking at classical paintings. This helped me fulfill my aims to merge traditional art with contemporary technology, explore both 2D and 3D work, and look further back into the historical context of my work. As further historical research, I created a timeline of the key events relating to multiple aspects of my project, allowing me to have in-depth research of a wide range of topics, over a wide timescale in an easy to understand way. I also did research into the aesthetics and form of other people’s work, looking at a range of different techniques and styles in order to get an as wide view of current work as possible, whilst still keeping it focused on my projects aims, and I did an in-depth analysis of each to ensure I got as much out of my research as possible.

2.2 How are you using analytical and evaluative skills to develop a range of creative solutions? Give examples

I am analyzing and evaluating each and every piece of research I undertake, both primary and secondary, in multiple ways. Each piece of secondary research on artists’ visual style or media is analyzed and ‘reverse-engineered’ so I can work out how they did what they did, and why (where possible). I then evaluate each piece for its effectiveness according to numerous criteria such as aesthetics, quality, narrative, use of media, etc. This helps me develop creative solutions for my own work as I can try to understand their methods and thinking and adapt them for my own use. I am doing the same level of deep analysis and evaluation on my own primary research and test pieces, and previous work, in order to develop my own creative solutions through trial and error. I’ve also created a graphical checklist to be able to quickly evaluate each piece and identify which areas require creative solutions. As well as the ‘success chart’ graphics, I created a ‘problem log’ chart in which I note down each time I’ve come across an issue that halts my work for any length of time. By analyzing what causes me the most problems and seeing how I tend to find the fastest solutions, I can use this information to identify where I need to find creative solutions, and what the best way of going about this is.

Problem Solving

Theory and Practice

3.1 What complex practical and technical problems are you solving within your project? Give examples

As I am working almost entirely digitally, I am facing all of the technical problems associated with this. Firstly, I have to abide to the limits of the technology and software I am using. For example, unity’s modeling and texturing capabilities are not good enough to perform the job to a standard I am happy with. Because of this I have had to do all of my modeling and texturing in blender, but this presents further issues due to having to work across platforms. For example, there are issues with ensuring colliders are in place when importing from blender, resulting in having to manually edit the import settings; if normal’s aren’t set correctly there will be see-through panels after import to unity, meaning each normal has to be checked in blender before import; and, the axis’ are different in unity than they are in blender (with y and z representing up, respectively), meaning each positional coordinate of animations has to be worked out and converted before every import. Not only do I have to solve problems relating to the abilities of the software, but also as I have never worked with any of these softwares before, this creates even more problems. After learning how to do something a specific way, I may discover that this prevents me from doing something I need to do later, or there is a more effective way of going about things. For example, creating image textures to wrap around an object when I need to UV map them for a realistic fit. Another large problem causer is working with code. All codes use slightly different syntax, and as unity woks with Csharp, Java, and Boo scripts, working across these can get very confusing. Also, if a single character is added, missing, or out of place, the code will not run, and this can be incredibly difficult to identify. Working with any sort of electronics or user input also presents further practical challenges, as the systems are incredibly delicate. If one connection becomes loose, or you accidentally create a short circuit, the entire system will stop working and it is often hard to figure out where the problem lies.

3.2 How are you solving complex theoretical problems within your project? Give examples

As documented in my Problem log on the ‘Reflective blog’ page of my blog, I have come across many practical, technical, and theoretical problems throughout the duration of the project. Organizing my problems in this way has allowed me to see where I come across the most problems, how long I tend to be stuck on them, and what my main methods for solutions are. This also helps me to realize the trends and predict the next problems I will come across, allowing me to solve them more efficiently. From my chart, my most common methods for solution are: Looking things up on the internet – finding forums or tutorials that answer my questions and allow me to learn exactly what I need to do; trial and error – working through the problem with all the ways I can think of until it solves itself; and, intuition – thinking the problem through until I find an answer though logic. The nature of my project brings up various complex theoretical problems that I have had to solve, most of these pertaining to the fact that I am working on 3D elements on a 2D screen. It often becomes hard to understand what space your objects are occupying, or how to go about creating them at all. In order to solve this I have learnt to utilize the 3D cursor in blender, which keeps a marker in 3D space, and I have had to get used to working on at least four screens at once when modeling: The front, back, side, and perspective views. Similar to this, it is difficult to imagine what the remaining, unseen sides of a 3D object look like when looking at a 2D image of a painting, or imagining and painting the surface of the unseen objects in order to texture them all the way round. To get around this issue, I have had to go on my own intuition a lot of the time, and spent a lot of time just thinking and visualizing what it is I have to do before diving straight into it. Also with a very virtual project such as this, everything must be imagined and planned before it can even come near creation; it is very difficult to start practically wand work on it from there, which is often how I like to work with other media. To solve this I have organized my work to begin with visualization, move onto sketching, to modeling, to texturing, to editing. I’ve also had to battle with problems for which there is no specific ‘solution’, such as deciding how much detail I want my models to have when it makes the file size rise and causes the experience to lag. For these, I have had to try using continuous solutions rather than choosing between one or two: trying out many levels of detail and deciding what creates a happy medium.

Planning and Production

4.1 How are you demonstrating the ability to efficiently plan organize and produce a personal project within the agreed time frame? Give examples

I am demonstrating my ability to plan my project through multiple planning graphics and lists. The three main planning documents I have completed are my project proposal week breakdown, flow chart, and gannt chart. I started organizing my project by breaking it down into four parts: Research, Pre-production, Production, and Post-production. In these categories I then listed all of the actions I had to complete in order to produce my personal project. Once I had this, I estimated the amount of time it would take to complete each action, and then arranged these in order of when to start each, bearing in mind some parts could not be started until other parts were completed. This became my week breakdown on my project proposal, and then with some tweaking, the addition of milestones, and the recording of percentage completion, it became my gannt chart. This efficiently organized my project as it was broken down into very small parts that were easy to deal with, and organized in a way that was easy to follow and would get me to completion at exactly the right time. Before making this, I made an organization flow chart that allowed me to be a lot freer with my experimentation before I knew exactly what my project would entail. The flowchart allowed me to stop and test each stage, ask important questions, and go down different paths depending on what was working and what wasn’t, and how much time I had left.

Practical Skills

Refinement and Realization of Ideas

5.1 How are you exploring, adapting and applying a range of practical methods and skills in the realization of your personal project? Give examples

At the start of the project, I experimented with a wide range of practical methods to help get a feel for how I wanted to work, for example, photography as a starting point to explore real life environments; small circuit work to explore electronics and simple interactivity using sensors; origami and paper folding to explore 2D becoming 3D; step outlining to think about engaging multiple senses at once (sound and visuals); flash animating to create an animation test as a guide for the 3D animation; stop motion animating to get used to animating in three dimensions; and hand drawing/sketching for concept art. I then adapted and applied some of these skills to work on the next set of things to do, such as adapting my concept art drawing technique to draw more accurate depictions of assets I needed to model through vector drawing, and then applying this to drawing orthographic blueprints to use as reference guides for the final modeling. I’ve also been adapting techniques, such as merging together the different modeling techniques I learnt through my test pieces (extrusion modeling, mesh modeling, subsurf modifying, etc.) and adapting them depending on the shape I needed to create. I’m also adapting methods I learnt in previous parts of the course, such as using similar photoshopping techniques to isolate the textures of different parts of objects that I used to remove the weapons from cards when making my tarot card stop motion, or applying my knowledge of arduino coding to working in javascript and Csharp (the code systems used by unity). My final piece adapts and applies many of these techniques, and more, such as app development, texturing, user input generation, and graphic design for instruction sheets in order to realize my personal project.

Reflection and Evaluation

Project Development

6.1 How are you maintaining detailed critically evaluative and reflective records of the development of your project? Give examples

Using the reflective blog page of my blog, I am keeping critically evaluative and reflective records of each piece and development I make. For each piece I evaluate it to multiple specification points, including how well it mixes media, how aesthetically pleasing it is, whether or not it successfully performed as desired, etc. I am also using my toolkit page to measure the effectiveness of my methods, and the bigger picture page to evaluate my research and sources, and previous work that is informing my current project. To reinforce my detailed reflective records, I am also filling out a checklist graphic for each piece that I created. It allows me to tick off what desired elements my piece does or doesn’t meet, out of a list of: aesthetically pleasing, interactive, responsive, immersive, animated, coded element, electronic element, 2D element, 3D element, physical element, and, virtual element. This allows to quickly quantify the success of a piece before going into more qualitative details in a full evaluation. My problem log also allows me to critically evaluate the development of my work as it shows me where I am going wrong, and where I am coming up with creative problem solving techniques, thus moving my project onwards and allowing me to reflect on the success of it.

6.2 How are you demonstrating that you are using evaluative and reflective skills to make perceptive decisions in support of your project? Give examples

Most of the perceptive decisions I am making are evidenced on my reflective blog page in the form of topic questions, for example, “Does CAD (computer aided design) make a piece lose its heart?” or “Who is my target audience?”. These questions allow me to make arguments for each side in order to reach informed decisions on developments to my project – before issues arise. I also made a question list, writing out every theoretical question with any relevance to my project I could think of. This allows me to be subconsciously considering all of these aspects at once, letting them slowly mould my project. Also, should the matter arise where one of these questions required an answer, I would be able to come up with one more easily. My problem log also lets me make perceptive decisions as it alerts me to everything that is going on in my project and allows me to make decisions quickly to develop my project in a certain way depending on the evaluation of the problems and solutions arising. Evaluating the feedback I received, for example after my petcha kucha presentation, also allowed me to make perceptive decisions based on other peoples’ criticisms and my own reflection. Finally, looking at the evaluation and reflection I have done on each of my pieces allows me to constantly make perceptive decisions on my work and mould it towards a more successful piece, for example, when the user input was creating problems and finally worked but not to such a great effect, I decided to focus on getting the modeling and texturing as accurate as possible instead.

Final Presentation

and Audience Consideration

7.1 What strategies are you considering to use to present your project?

I have multiple ideas on how to present my final project, but the one thing they all have in common is ‘google cardboard’. This is the make-shift virtual reality headset I will be using to play my environment on. It is cheap, easy to make and use, and ties in with my ideas of merging together 2D and 3D. For the google cardboard to function, it requires an android phone to work as the screen. One idea I had was to fully develop my app and get it onto an online app store where it could be downloaded for free, and create a QR code or programmed NFC tag that the audience could use to download the app onto their own phones. In this instance I would have a few google cardboards available, either to build by the audience as this adds an extra level of interactivity, or prebuilt as that may put the audience off it. Another way of going about this presentation would be to have a single phone with the app downloaded onto it, and use this as a permanent piece in the show. As cardboard isn’t the strongest material in the world and may not survive an entire week, I am consider getting the laser cutting bluprints and creating one out of plastic or another strong material to make it more permanent, though this does take away from the gimmick of having it made of cardboard and depicting 2D/3D boundary crossing. To ensure my audience’s safety, I plan on having an area marked out on the floor so that there is no risk of tripping over or crashing into other audience members whilst momentarily blinded from real life by the virtual reality. An extra idea I considered was to have a camera set facing the area, linked up to a screen in the other room. This would serve the dual purpose of recording the audience’s reactions for my own evaluative use, and be an extra entertainment dimension for the audience as people tend to act strangely whilst inside a VR environment.

7.2 How will you present your work in a skillful and proficient manner?

Give examples

In order to present my work in a skillful and proficient manner, I will try and make my presentation as professional as possible, and as easy for the audience to use as possible. For starters, as I plan on using just one phone in the final exhibition, I will have all my working apps (post debugging) arranged clearly on the home screen, marked as final piece and development work, and I will clear the home screen of any other apps. I will also create artwork for the app logo to help identify it and make it look like a more professional piece. To ensure everything runs smoothly during the show, I will make out an area on the floor that other must stay out of when someone is using the headset, so that no tripping or injuries occur. Also, I will create a clear instruction sheet with how to use the piece so that there is no confusion. Finally, to keep it in good shape, I plan on pre-making a new cardboard every day of the show to replace the old one.

Who is your specified audience and how will you engage them with your work?

My specified audience, as identified on my reflective blog page are to be people with a general working knowledge of art, but who may not necessarily know anything about technology, or virtual reality (other art students; parents, friends & family of students; prospective students; tutors and university staff; and, general art lovers from the area). Because of this, I need to try and engage them initially with the novelty of the interactivity, then the familiarity of the artwork, and finally ensure the technology isn’t overwhelming and makes them become uninterested. The interactive element of the piece is an automatic engager as it gives the audience a role in the piece, but to ensure it is easy enough to use to be entertaining, I will create simple to follow instructions and make sure the process is as simple as possible, without taking away from the fun of the interactivity. As most of my audience will have some knowledge of art, they should instantly recognize the painting I have modeled: Salvador Dali’s ‘The Persistence of Memory’. This familiarity should be engaging as they can look for things they recognize, and judge the accuracy. The virtual reality element should also be engaging as it is a novelty to most people and should draw some attention to people that have never used it before.