Mechanical Eye: Week 08
[1] The images of VAN_01 from the previous week inspired the idea of growth within the van. Trying to align two temporal scales (that of 25 years, vs that of the exhibition visit), became a point of intrigue for me. The topography of the van interior becomes much more noticeable at a greater scale; cupholders, materiality changes, speakers, and door handles demand much more attention as the sill height of the window retreats upward. As the individual in the van grows in size, the window sill descends, and the undulation of the interior surface calms to a ripple (once a wave?). The ‘screen’ eventually gains primacy over the ‘wave’ in the battle for attention (fig. 1)
This interestingly calls back to an observation I made (unfortunately off the record) about certain objects in the van that remain invisible to the eye, existing primarily in the tactile realm. Specifically, the grip (fig. 2) behind the front headrest was a part of the interior that had never registered with me until this curious journey. It was during the initial reorientation from van-as-vehicle to van-as-room that I realized this grip was used to haul myself into the back of the van. I digress.
Although the bridge between concept and reality/virtuality remains hazy, the possibilities are exciting.
~The analogy of the interior surface as a calming wave over time is something I could imagine manifesting in the final space.
A scaling of the entire model in 3 dimensions could take place conterminously with a 2 dimensional scaling of the door (fig. 3). Perhaps the interior filigree might begin in a far more exaggerated state, that softens as the exhibition develops.
[2] Now that the scanning process is finished, the world is my oyster. VAN_03 now lives in the digital realm, ready for manipulation. Using maya as my home base, I tried a couple different ways of refining the exported .OBJ files from the Artec Studio software. I found that the UV mapping retains after manipulation in ZBrush (fig. 4). This increases the potential for mesh manipulation (i.e the previously mentioned scaling). This is also notable, as ZBrush (relative to Maya) lends itself to dealing with heavy meshes, deformation, and boolean operations. Once the Maya-Unity-Oculus workflow is ironed out, I can start to jump into the virtual realm to understand the perceptual implications of these manipulations.
I chose to put my aspirations of more intensive mesh modeling (i.e cutting the model into screens, deleting the floor and ceiling, etc) on hold. This was mostly due to the size of the mesh, however I thought virtual orientation of the raw Artec product would be valuable. Keeping this in mind, I chose to focus on the essential edits: removing the windows (blank screens) from the model, and aligning the driving console with the back of the van. Before relying on heavier boolean operations, I thought a lean approach could be executed by editing a transparency map in photoshop (reducing mesh editing even further).
To avoid getting sucked into hours of photoshop editing, I quickly assigned a bright red color to areas of the unintelligible Artec export (fig. 5). It became clear that there was no way of quickly determining which parts of the map were windows, and I reverted back to boolean operations (fig. 6).
[3] The transition from scanning to modelling was not a quick process, and it ended unceremoniously with a failed attempt to export the texture for the front seat. I eventually relinquished the laptop back to the YSOA without a textured seat. I was initially hesitant on incorporating the seat at all, knowing it would consume even more of my time and energy, yet I couldn’t help but feel the urge to include it.
~Maybe occasional, seemingly irrational endeavors are an important ingredient to creativity.
At the very least, that’s what I like to tell myself. Surprisingly, I found the seat texture was able to translate without an image mapped onto it (fig. 7). I started to decimate the mesh to see where this surfacing would fall off. This was a nice surprise in an otherwise empty-handed attempt to piece together the seat in Zbrush. It remains to be seen whether this offshoot finds its way into the final virtual environment..
Although I didn’t actually jump into my site this week, it was the first week that I put on the Oculus headset. Having previous experience using a VR headset in a professional setting, I didn’t expect a radical paradigm shift. Sure enough my paradigm remained intact, however I was pleasantly surprised by the aspects of the headset that were new to me: the audio component, and the controllers. I found both of these features to provide substantial help in ground myself in the virtual environment. This ‘grounded’ sensation recalls the tenets of Chalmers’ rear view mirror non-illusion from week 06: knowledge, familiarity, action dependence, and naturalness. The feedback loop between my hands and the virtual controllers naturally falls into his action-dependence category. Less obvious is the categorization of the audio component of the headset. Perhaps this sensation falls into the naturalness or familiarity category? I’m not so sure. While this is technically correct, I wouldn’t describe the audio-visual experience with either descriptor. In any case, this experience gave me a renewed interest in the audio potential of the exhibit.
With the Oculus headset and unity site set up (save some cleanup that can happen farther down the road), I arrest the week at the threshold of the immersive. Considering that the van is still very much dead in the water, I am happy that the headset came with a glasses-mount. I can use the Oculus and account for the rose colored glasses I plan to duct tape to my face as I proceed.
