Final Project: VR Poem

A VR Poem.

There are two core conceptual directions this project can go in:

Make a VR environment that contains an audio voice over recording and/or text of a short poem. The environment supplements the poem.

or

Make a VR Environment that is a poem.

Note: Whether you choose an environment that is or for a poem, the work should be standalone. If it is for a poem, it should include the poem.

Technical Limitations

• No interactivity
• No large animated timelines or scene switching
• Animated assets are okay, but having things enter and exit is out of scope
• Must run on Quest 2 with controllers as a standalone android build
• No hand tracking
• No pass-through

Technical Requirements

1. A VR Scene of that passes the “bar” of technical competence that allows the technical environment to get out of the way of the experience. In other words, it should be “good enough” that it’s flaws aren’t distracting or detracting.

   • Avoid things like: misaligned scenery, default skybox, unwarranted repetative models, stretched textures, and so on.

2. Spacialized Audio implemented in VR.

   • At least one original audio recording that is spacially connected to the environment.
   • It should not be playing through my headphones like “normal” audio, but sound like it coming from “somewhere”.
   • You will almost certainly have more than one audio file/recording in your project, and almost certainly edit found files - but one must be recorded yourself.

3. Custom 3D Model created for the scene

   • Again, you will almost certainly have more than a single 3D model made for the scene, but you one must be created by your own hands.

4. Readme.txt containing:

   • Everything listed as required by the readme in the syllabus
     • ie: name, class, year, project description, attribution, etc.
   • Background knowledge I need to know to understand the project.
   • Background knowledge on your selection: Explain why a selected poem or created environment is meaningful to you.

5. A working build - a “.apk” file that runs on an Oculus Quest 2. The app identifier must be changed (instead of “com.DefaultCompany.FinalProject”, it should be something like “com.HDyar.MyPoemName”). This will allow the projects not to override each other when we download them all to our quests.

Artistic Considerations

This is a very open-ended assignment. You should feel the freedom to have fun with it, but remember that the tone of this, too, is open-ended.

Creative Directions

Aim to be more serious than a joke. Unlike most jokes, this is something that, once we “get it”, we can still spend more time considerng it. It may not over once it is over.

Aim to be should be clear and effective. Creating mystery or intrigue is challenging, as one may end up having just created confusion or obtuseness.

Aim to be personal. This project will not be interesting if is not interesting to you. If you choose an environment for that poem, I will ask you to briefly explain why that poem is meaningful to you in the readme.

Aim to be brief. Experiencing your poem should take less than two minutes. The technical limitations (no animation, scene switching, timeline playback, interactivity) warrant this artistic direction.

Aim to be Interesting. When it comes to environments, less usually isn’t more. If you asking a user to spend a significant amount of time in an environment that they cannot even interact with, we want to give them enough visual elements to spend their time with.

“Poem”?

Let’s consider poems for a moment:

• Tools of self-expressions
• Small, generally single focused, pieces of expression
• An artistic medium with broad acceptance that subjective analysis is an okay way to think about them.
  • Poems are personal
• Poems can be tools for communicating the human experience, like memories, desires, and feelings.
• Poems take place over time, and are read in an order. A poem is a sequence of words. The sequence of lines is important. There is not just delivery of emotion, but a staging of the scene. There can be narrative beats to a poem.
  • This tangibly separates poems from other “piece of art” frameworks that we could be using to think about this project.

Some more thoughts about poetry:

• Mark Yakich in The Atlantic
• ‘It Is Something of an Accident That You Are the Reader and I the Writer’ at Poetry Foundation

First-Person Poetry

Consider the perspective of the user. For this user, decide on how we want them to be effected.

• Reinforce a sentiment
• Have an emotion
• Bring them to a moment from your reality
• Think of a time in your life where “You had to be there”. Bring them there.
• Hand them a truth.

Mediums & Sequence

Mediums can be categorized by how we view them over time.

• All at once, or sequentially (photograph vs. film)
• User-Controlled pace or determined pace (graphic novel vs. film)
• User-controlled order-of-viewing or determined order-of-viewing (panorama vs. book)

Poems would be sequential, user-controlled pace, with determined order of viewing. VR Environments would be sequential (I can’t see everything around me all at once), with user controlled pace and user-controlled order of viewing.

In mediums that do not control a property, like pacing, they often still indirectly control this property. Graphic novels employ page turns, full-page spreads, and consider density of text vs. visual information carefully.

Because we likely want to “softly impose” a certain order of viewing, we want to design our environment where the first things are noticed first, and other details are noticed upon investigation. Basically, through design, we (the artist) are indirectly controlling the sequence. First you notice the murder victim in front of you, because it’s big and violent and attention-getting, and has visual weight… Then you notice the bloody knife on the floor.

I chose murder because of a user-as-detective analogy that you may or may not consider as a lens through which to consider your project. Not because a murder scene is neccesary a great starting point to think about these project…