The last Pieces of the Puzzle

For the final presentation I will make sure to cover all or most of the main highlights of the assignment brief.

The main points I kept in mind while making my final presentation are as follows:-

Hardware Used:

• Macbook
• S8+ Galaxy
• External Mic

Software Used:

• Final Cut Pro
• Pixelmator
• After Effects (Logo animation)

Timeline of Video:

Intro (ar productions)      1-5 sec

Name of the project:       5-7 sec

Ethical Dilemmas in VR

Aim of the project :        7-15 sec

Project images/videos

Purpose:                        16-40sec

Video of me / video of VR world

About Project:               41-1:30 sec

Images of vr world/ tesla/ autonomous cars/

Level 1

Level 2

About ME:                    1:30-1:45 sec

Images n video of me/project/ending note     1:45-2:00

Production

For the promotional video I used video samples of:

• gameplay (in game VR) Including Level 1 & Level 2
• Me trying on the Oculus Quest Headset
• Different capturing shots of Oculus Quest Headset

Inside the Oculus Quest:

Oculus Headset:

Me trying the Oculus Quest Headset to try the game for photography/ promotion.

Video Editing Phase:

Since I used Final Cut Pro on my mac, my go-to software for everything related to video editing. I personally have used this not just for academic purposes but also for my content generation and general editing work.

I used minimum overlays and transitions. My main concern was sound editing as I noticed that my mic recordings sounded a bit low (probably because of my own low energy) however, I used the different keyframes at transitory moments in the video to manage the consistency of the my voice clarity and fidelity throughout the promotional video. I also used ambient music for background, obviously no copyright music of-course,  and fused both, background music and voice over, in a clear manner.

The music for background:

I choose this music as I liked the cool feel to it and also because it is only instrumental. This helps in voice mixture with voice-over and background music.

Another look of my editing panel on Final Cut Pro:

Logo Animation:

For logo animation I used my AR Logo (AR means Ali Raza, as I had prior experience using the Adobe After Effect.

I used Pixelmator to free hand draw for my logo design.

Tutorial Source:

Video Sample used for Promotional Video:

My Final Video:

Bibliography:

Research and planning for Promo Film

 I started planning this by looking closely at what the brief required. The main points which are absolutely necessary for the video are as:

1.     The video must be between 1 – 2 minutes (maximum) long

2.     It should introduce and explains both the project and practice of the developer

3.     It is designed for distribution over the Internet

4.     It should function as a promotional tool for me as a practitioner, the project and should be suitable for an informed general audience

5.     It should include a short, edited piece to camera were you talk about your specialist area of practice

6.  The Video needs to include titles and atmosphere/ music

However I also figured out that the aim is to create a strongly individual message which sells both you as an expert and the features and values of your project.

The Timeline of the promotional video:

Intro (ar productions)      1-5 sec

Name of the project:       5-7 sec

Ethical Dilemmas in VR

Aim of the project :        7-15 sec

the aim of the project is to highlight the confrontation between the classic philosophical issue with the latest technological advancements such as autonomous vehicles.

Project images/videos

Purpose:                        16-40sec

For my major study project, I have developed a VR experience, not exactly a conventional character game, but a kind of interaction of user and interactive scenario in which the user will be confronted with few moral decision-making junctions along the experience.

My intention behind the project was to create a VR experience immersive in the development/ production of a VR concept. In designing the virtual experience, I choose to fuse my philosophical interest with my digital media finesse.

Video of me / video of VR world

About Project:               41-1:30 sec

With advancements towards AI and machine learning along with huge investments by all big tech companies as well as car manufacturing brands it is inevitable that driverless cars will be used by everyone. The project hopes to contribute towards understanding the ethical reasonings that the programmers / developers of those operating systems should keep in mind when designing the outcomes of scenarios in automated machines.

The relevance of this project is the fact that these technologies are increasingly pushing the debate of moral decisions led by these autonomous vehicles more public therefore it is ought to be tested and researched on as much as we can. This project helps give insight on this issue by putting the user in virtual environment through which its responses can be analysed that can help the designers of developers of these machines when coding the algorithm to give preferences to user choices.

Images of vr world/ tesla/ autonomous cars/

I split the VR experience in 2 levels

Level 1 is an abstract tutorial level designed for the user. Here users learn the basic movements

Level 2 is a virtual simulation in which the user encounters the ethical dilemmas

About ME:                    1:30-1:45 sec

I am Ali Raza and I am pursuing Masters of Arts in Digital Media Arts from Uni of Hertfordshire and I will continue to excel in the field of Digital Media by working in creative outlets and finessing in being a digital artist.

Images n video of me/project/ending note     1:45-2:00

Research: My Top Picks for ideas storming

For my promotional videos I watched a plethora of videos to get inspirations and ideas and most importantly the filming aspect of it.

Personally I love watching Peter’s Vlogs as they are mix of interesting insightful content with a flare of his enthusiasm and excellant tips and tricks.

I took some interesting notes form this video. A good script binds all the elements of the video promotion.

Bibliography

The Major Study Project for MA DMA has not only helped me gain new skills, soft and hard, but has taught me more valuable skill of time management and discipline.

My remark on the aforementioned two skills of time management and discipline hold immensely importance as I have personally felt that Masters program is all about ones journey in exploring his/her own potential. While reaching epoch one learns by mistakes and the 600 hours of independent study helped highlight the gravity of these two important skills. Time Management is not just graphing the time duration required to complete a specific task. It is everything related to the time spent on the project as well as all the tasks/actions required, which includes planning and foresightedness of future events. Time management emphases on planning ahead aids in contingency and redirects the project manager (in this case the DMA practitioner) in the right direction when everything is going against the time and one has to come up new revised course of action to take the project back on track. Self-discipline is another important aspect that has influenced me in working on my project for the last semester.

The soft skills also include notably working with new technology like VR and specialist softwares like Unity, Android Studio, SideQuest, and etc that I have indulged while working on my project.

My researching skills have been more attuned thus allowed me to better trouble-shoot problems when they arise, also helped me to reach solutions that were not random acts but result of a continuous and consistence struggle of trying to find the solution that befits my criteria.

Since I had basic knowledge of operating and developing in Unity, along with not so strong C# background, I learned so many new ways to perform the task and find tutorials and courses that taught me and filled in the gaps already present. While production of the project I learned more about Unity and I feel I have increased my knowledge in using and working in Unity.

Lastly, I would like to highlight another aspect which is motivation. This is the backbone of any practitioner to continue doing regardless of what life throws at it. Some of the things that motivated me and helped me to concentrate on my work/practise while the last semester are linked below.

Also I would recommend a good read that helped me throughout:

Bibliography

Completion:

Here is the gameplay video that I recorded in Oculus VR Quest.

Oculus quest has a remarkable screen recording that can record/capture images in 2D, 3D and Full VR. Below is the gameplay video enjoy:

Full In game:

How to install .apk on Oculus Quest:

Sidequest on my mac.

How to record (screen video-capture) while in Oculus Quest:

To screen capture in Oculus go to ‘Sharing’ on the main floating panel. As soon as you press it a red dot is visible on the screen so you now the recording has started. To turn it off juts go back to sharing and press the record button again to stop and save the recording . All kinds of sharing gets saved directly inside the internal storage of Oculus Quest.

The 00:00:00 Error:

While sharing is made inherently simple by Oculus but once you try to copy the video file from Quest to PC/Mac that a whole different game ball.

All the files (videoshares) from oculus will have the play error once copied to desktop. After comprehensive research I was able to find a very easy way to counter it. Thought the video below aids but my personal experience taught me to just select all the files together and copy them together will reverse the error.

Solution:

Bibliography:

My Creative OverFlow

VR Project

I selected to make a VR project to sharpen my creativity in a field (VR Development/production) which is not my forte and since I am a VR enthusiast myself I hoped to increment adapt my creative-thinking with new media avenues. As I am fond of engaging in new technological devices. My creative thinking aided in envisioning the project and find creative solutions to work on project deliverables.

Storyboarding

In the initial stages of the project my creative decision-making helped me to layout the vision my project thus abet in illustrating the different scenarios of ethical dilemmas used in the Level 1 & 2 of the VR project.

Theme and Aesthetics

The project needed the right amount of artistic nature to engage with the philosophical aspect of the project (driverless car/trolley car problem) as well as correct balance of good colour schemes and overall of the project to have maximum user interaction and engagement.  In Level 1, since it is a basic tutorial round I have used simpler models and basic colour palette. On the other hand in Level 2 I used more natural settings and colour tones, along with city scape models, to highlight the importance of that level as it was intended to stimulate a user reaction to ethical dilemmas.

Music

Being an audiophile, music plays an important part in each part of my project. For Level 1 I used a instrumental non-copyright music track to go along with the basic abstract nature of the level. However, in level 2 I used city noises track for my project as it emphasised the levels purpose to immerse the user in the scenarios.

Deciding which hardware

I have incorporated this heading in my creative pursuits because deciding which hardware to use was a task that not only required technical finesse but in my case I used my creativity to choose Oculus Quest over the widely easily available Oculus Rift DK2. The only reason was to have the project be wireless to lessen the complication as well as give user comfort more importance.

Aim and Purpose of Project vs My Creative Juices

My creativity helped me envision a project that was not just engaging but also meaningful. The creative-decisions helped me achieve i.e, complete the project and smoothly run on Oculus Quest as well as arouses the user to question their moral designs.

How effective these decisions were

The effectiveness in terms of my creative-decisions was up to the mark as the steps I took throughout the project helped me complete the project how I desired and intended to achieve.

What I learned as a practitioner

• Project Management is a marathon not a sprint
• Constant changes and reinforcement of achieving set goals
• Try to build on what u have done

My Self-Evaluation of The project

The project completed on time and with all the deliverables that it aimed to achieve. The project lacked the photo-realistic graphics and complex manoeuvre mobility as compared to industry level projects but since the project aimed towards practitioners own development as well so I am satisfied with my project.

Bibliography

Export .apk to Oculus Quest

Step 1: Install SideQuest

Step 2: Create Organisation

Put the Oculus Headset in developer mode to be able to sideload to the Headset. To do this, you have to be a registered “developer”. This process is free. Go to dashboard.oculus.com on your PC/MAC and create an ‘organization’.

Step 3: Enable Developer Mode and Reboot

Now that you’re a “developer”, open the Oculus app on your smartphone or tablet in my case Samsung Galaxy s8+. In the Settings tab, tap on the Go headset and tap ‘More settings’. In the list, you should now see Developer Mode. Once you have enabled developer mode it is a good idea to reboot your headset to be able to see it on the device.

Step 4: Connect USB Cable and Allow USB Debugging

Drag and Drop on the SideQuest Screen.

Using data to preserve the environment

The biggest crisis that human kind has to face as a result of catastrophic usage of fossil fuels and extremely high numbers of pollutants damaging the environment is the global climate change that is affecting everyone and everything (UNDP, 2018). Two of the most at risk living things are plants and animals; both of which have multiple species nearing extinction or endangerment. In the age of technology, scientists are trying to utilize data and technological advancements in an attempt to preserve the environment, and to raise awareness of the impact that human life has had on the environment. These scientists have created UN’s Biodiversity Lab (UN Development Programme, 2019).

Figure 1. UN Biodiversity Lab Logo

The UN Biodiversity Lab has a Geographical Information System which is a data catalogue that has data pertaining to all aspects of nature in different areas around the world, and the impacts human life has had on those aspects of nature (NBSAP Forum, 2018; NBSAP Forum, 2019). This GIS data catalogue has an interactive map which is readily available online allows the user to visualize an exact range of the environmental or social or economic issues which have impacted the planet (Unglobalpulse.org, n.d.). Users are able to directly view the different factors that have harmed the environment. Users are also able to view countries and their specific environmental concerns based on the factors that have affected them, and can also view the different themes and their respective results (Wahlen, 2018).

Figure 2. UN Biodiversity Lab – Mapping Resource via From Air and Sea

The map is extremely easy to use and allows users of technology a very simple and readily available tool that helps them understand the ways in which the environment is at risk or has been harmed. It also allows for a deeper understanding of what changes might be needed to reach SDGs (Aims Team, 2018), and create conservation and preservation policy changes to help the environment (Ervin, and Sasa, 2018; Eye on Earth, 2019).

What is most innovative about this innovation is the use of digital media in an effort not only to educate, but also inspire innovation across the world. This map can easily be accessed by almost everyone around the world, which means that the interactive UI, the design, and the ease of access etc. all combine to create an excellent user experience. The use of aesthetically attractive digital media and interactive maps etc. allows users to experience science in a new way. Such an invention also showcases the ways in which digital media arts, as a field, can combine with new technologies to directly impact the world of science and innovation, and widen its range of users and audience.

Bibliography

Aims Team, T. (2018). The UN Biodiversity Lab : a scalable open-source Data platform to provide key information on the Aichi Biodiversity Targets and nature-based Sustainable Development Goals | Agricultural Information Management Standards (AIMS). [online] Aims.fao.org. Available at: http://aims.fao.org/activity/blog/un-biodiversity-lab-scalable-open-source-data-platform-provide-key-information-aichi [Accessed 7 Jul. 2019].

Convention on Biological Diversity (2018). Annie Virnig from the UN Biodiversity Lab. Available at: https://www.facebook.com/UNBiodiversityConvention/videos/337536407048736/ [Accessed 7 Jul. 2019].

Ervin, J. and Sasa, K. (2018). Mapping Change: Applying spatial data to create innovative conservation solutions – NYDF Global Platform. [online] Nydfglobalplatform.org. Available at: https://nydfglobalplatform.org/mapping-change/ [Accessed 7 Jul. 2019].

Eye on Earth (2019). UN Biodiversity Lab: Empowering Policymakers to Use and Apply Spatial Data. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nWytIBF30E0 [Accessed 7 Jul. 2019].

NBSAP Forum (2018). 6NR Technical Series – UN Biodiversity Lab #2: Using Spatial Data and Maps. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9NfzhjI3Wf8 [Accessed 7 Jul. 2019].

NBSAP Forum (2019). Using Spatial Data – Using the UN Biodiversity Lab to Support Biodiversity Monitoring & Reporting. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bo2WiIWtQ9s [Accessed 7 Jul. 2019].

UNDP. (2018). UN Biodiversity Lab launched to revolutionize biodiversity planning and reporting | UNDP. [online] Available at: https://www.undp.org/content/undp/en/home/news-centre/news/2018/un-biodiversity-lab-launched-to-revolutionize-biodiversity-plann.html [Accessed 7 Jul. 2019].

UN Development Programme. (2019). How data can protect wildlife. [online] Medium. Available at: https://medium.com/@UNDP/how-data-can-protect-wildl-821d9bfbd776 [Accessed 7 Jul. 2019].

Unglobalpulse.org. (n.d.). Accessing Spatial Data To Study Biodiversity and Devise Protection Strategies in Zimbabwe | United Nations Global Pulse. [online] Available at: https://www.unglobalpulse.org/projects/spatial-data-biodiversity-tool [Accessed 7 Jul. 2019].

Wahlen, C. (2018). UN Biodiversity Lab Offers Spatial Data for Conservation, Development. [online] Sdg.iisd.org. Available at: https://sdg.iisd.org/news/un-biodiversity-lab-offers-spatial-data-for-conservation-development/ [Accessed 7 Jul. 2019].

Production Process: Scenarios Layout

I build the different scenarios and imported the low poly assets for the characters on the pedestrians.

This walkthrough of the different scenarios.

So in Level 2 I have made the centre line as a street poles in the middle to force the user to make a right and left manoeuvre. To reinforce this movement I have scripted that If the user vehicle collides with the centre line (street poles) or if the user is unable to move to either side, the game will automatically restarts.

Script for trigger collider