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"Getting It On" A Musical VR Journey of a Breakup told through Origami

Osiggirl
Protege
This is a collaboration with the hot Indie group Sales, and their hit single "Getting It On." The mission is to use Virtual Reality to simulate what a breakup feels like while staying true to the group's aesthetic. Since Sales uses the visual of collages and paper for their albums and singles, it seemed natural that Origami could be an interesting use of the medium.
The idea is to have the user inhabit a world made entirely of paper and origami and the different ways that paper can transform from folding, to cutting, to ripping, to melting when it comes in contact with water. The world will be built first out of physical paper then 3D scanned and built virtually.
Sales Getting it On
Sales "Getting It On"
Wearenotsales
Wearenotsales and I
This is me and the group Sales whose song I will be adapting into an interactive VR experience.
Background of opening
The experience will open with you floating above a paper moon with a paper space-scape.
Balloons
I'm a description. Click to edit me.
Forest of Happy Memories
The space-scape folds up into a scene of a colorful origami forest.
Paper Forest
A forest made of paper.
Deer
Origami woodland creatures
Cardinal
Origami woodland creatures
Bunnies
Origami woodland creatures
Butterfly
Origami butterflies follow your hand movements
Visions of Couple Happy Together
Some trees turn into visions of the couple happy and together. Doing things, kissing, etc.
Dead Trees
The forest fades into darkness, and the paper couples are melted away with tears.
I have received written permission from the group, and have begun to look into 3D scanning options with a scanner that is available through my internship.
26 REPLIES 26

aleemhossain
Expert Protege
I love the visuals! 

Osiggirl
Protege
Thanks aleem! I am currently looking for an origami artist to collaborate with, but I look at this as a kind of inspiration board. :smile:

Osiggirl
Protege
This week, I accomplished so much on this project without even realizing that's what I was doing. Internships FTW! I was given the task of writing inputs for an Xbox controller. Even though I didn't get that far, I did write my first piece of functional C# code, that allowed the character to move if you held down the "space-bar" key as well as an arrow of the direction you would like to move. This weekend I'm working on getting the gamepad inputs, as well as setting up the Gear VR to run my builds.

Additionally, I was given a crash course in 3D scanning as I have access to one through my internship. I was able to get halfway through scanning my rubber duck that was given to me in my first engineering class (I still get a kick out of being classified as an "engineer" *squeeeeee*). I'll have to finish up the 3D scanning on Monday, however they did give me an internal manual about their process that I can use!
Additionally, I emailed a local origami club, and posted an ad on Craigslist for an origami artist. If I don't hear anything back, I may have to check out some artist collectives next weekend. 
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I am also looking into an area at a local makerspace today. Here I would be able to meet with any potential origami artists, as well as litter the area with my disorganized creative process. I will post updates on how it goes. 

Finally, as Friday wound down, one of my co-workers asked me if I wanted to learn Blender animation and help to animate some plant movement. While I can see how this would be a very valuable skill that would obviously help me add a level of realism and mysticism to this project, I have to wonder if I would be spreading myself too thin by tackling it. I think my brain is only capable of retaining a certain level of information, and I would hate to dump something important (like the fact that I am just starting to understand coding) for something I could just as easily pick up in a few weeks. 

In summation; taking this internship was probably the best decision I could have made on how to spend this summer. I'm only 2 weeks in, and it's keeping me moving forward and working toward my goals!

Osiggirl
Protege
This past week I spent quite a bit of time learning Blender animation, skinning, and rigging. I can see how these skills would be important, especially when it comes to an aspect of my forthcoming project that has thus far baffled me. I realize that I can animate one scene folding up into another using Blender animation. I could even animate the origami that I 3D scan. This way I can have paper butterflies that actually fly, bunnies that hop, any type of animation I would be interested in! 

My quest for a space and an origami artist have thus far been fruitless. However, I am going to a local Hackspace after work tomorrow to try to see if I can utilize some of their space as a staging area for my future endeavors. Fingers crossed that this works. 

As for locating an origami artist... I guess I have to go and troll local art schools after my internship this week... Let's see how this turns out. Otherwise I guess I'll have to take a crash course in Origami folding, at least until I can afford to throw money at a talent? I seem to have hit an impasse with locating such a talent, but I guess I'll power forward.

Here are my goals for the coming week:
1. Hopefully locate a workspace
2. Contact at least 5 potential talents
3. Work on deploying my current prototype to the Gear VR just to see if it works -- do it with gamepad instructions

If I can accomplish these 3 things, I'll do backflips. 

Osiggirl
Protege
Hello Launch Pad Cohorts,

A lot has happened these past couple of weeks that I am soooo psyched to talk about. First, I was able to find a project space through a coding class I took last semester at a collab place called MIT Sprouts. A few months back I showed VR to a group of high school students, and they were kind enough to open up their doors to me in return.

Friday before last, I met with a professional Origami artist and was hit with something quite bizarre: not only does he charge $100 an hour to fold Origami, but different Origami designs are actually protected by copyrights! I would have to contact the original artists to get permission unless I used Origami that was already in the public domain. This made me decide to loosen my definition on what I would accept as Origami. I might just end up cutting pieces then folding them to mimic the look without stepping on any toes legally. In any case, it's a good idea I decided to research this topic.
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On another note, I went to a local paper store and began to create a scrapbook of sorts of ways I would like the scenes to look. The enchanted forest looks the most compelling, however, I am still working out what woodland creatures I would like to participate. While I want the origami worlds to definitely look like paper, shopping at this store really opened up my perspectives to the different ways that paper could look, and the different kinds of worlds it could create. Since the enchanted forest especially is one that I want to embody all of the halcyon happy memories of moments past, I think that opting for a dreamlike fairytale quality is the way to go. This can be expressed in colorful and logic defying choice in paper.ushho6q04se8.jpg
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I am soooo excited to get folding and scanning... which brings me to my next part.

The 3D Scanning process. I have decided to opt against the scanning process that is used at my internship, and instead use a simpler process using my Xbox Kinect, and a software called ReconstructMe. It is supposed to be a pretty easy to use. I am going to do some tests this week on how it works with the folded origami and I'll post the results. Can't wait to share!

Osiggirl
Protege
3D scanning success!! I was able to scan an origami tree and insert it into a Unity scene!  The process consisted of taking at least 100 photographs of every angle of the tree. Then I rebuilt it in Agisoft PhotoScan. The whole photography process takes less than an hour if you set it up right. The longest part is actually building the 3D model.

Here are some pictures of the process so far:

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First I folded up the Sheet Music paper into a simple tree. When selecting the type of paper to use, it was important to use a paper that not only had a varying pattern, but also texture. I though that music notes were a perfect melding of both the practical needs  of the project, and the artistic integrity. Another type of paper that I am using is love letters written with a fountain pen on parchment paper. 

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Then I placed it on a well-lit textured background so I could take a series of photographs circling it. 
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This is how the first rebuilt mesh looks in Agisoft Photoscan as it attempts to connect the known points to create a 3D image. Here it is showing where every photo was taken in space, along with the points that it is using to rebuild. 
ssypfimyh1y1.jpgThis is a photograph of the final generated mesh, and it looks pretty darn good! Weeks of research had led me to believe that 3D scanning origami would be nearly impossible, but my first outing was such a success! I think I have my amazing mentor to thank since she is the one that automated the process at Wayfair! Way to go Rebecca!!!

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I photographed the beautiful paper that I selected and built Unity scenes that correspond with what I need for the experience. I wasn't exactly happy with how everything has turned out so far. For instance, I don't think that the point is really conveyed that everything is paper. I think that I need to re-photograph a lot of it with more dramatic lighting, while also texturing the paper through crumpling. 
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This is the first scene in the experience where you are floating above the surface of the moon. The moon is actually a balled up piece of paper. However, I don't think that I conveyed that accurately enough. When the viewer looks down, I want them to realize they are standing on paper. I am going to crumple the ball more dramatically and rebuild another model. The background looks great in this case I think. 
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The second scene in the enchanted forest of happy memories turns out to be much of the same. The plane that you are placed on doesn't look like paper at all. Finally, as good as the tree looked when I actually build it, I think it lost some of its highly textured quality when I imported it into Unity. I have to re-examine the process that I put it through in order to figure out how to keep the roughness of it. 

Now that I have a successful pipeline under my belt, I am ready to move forward with the development of the project. I am actually working with a pretty amazing Unity developer who is super enthusiastic about this! We are working with a Unity plugin called Koreographer that allows you to sync game events with musical notes. This program is going to be at the crux of the development process for this experience. I am in the process of of story-boarding out the experience note-by-note. However, I am finding it quite difficult to express the visuals I have in my head in a cohesive way. I think this will be my biggest struggle, as I generally just sit down and feel my way though building something artistic. This time since I am collaborating with another person, communication is key. I am going to do some research on how to outline a project such as this. 

My goals for this week are to 3D scan the rest of the models that I need and story-board out this project.

akababa
Protege
Looks amazing! So impressed with your ingenuity!! Can’t wait to see next week 🙂

DrSzilak
Expert Protege
This looks great!  Stick with the origami. It is a great aesthetic. Having been to Japan last year, I can tell you they hand out origami paper to kids on the airplane. You might be able to find and work with an older Japanese American  person--no copyright and they know how to do it. Not sure where you live....

Osiggirl
Protege

DrSzilak said:

This looks great!  Stick with the origami. It is a great aesthetic. Having been to Japan last year, I can tell you they hand out origami paper to kids on the airplane. You might be able to find and work with an older Japanese American  person--no copyright and they know how to do it. Not sure where you live....


That's a great thought. I actually lucked out doubly because my mentor happily folded up the origami for me no problem. She was able to do everything but people... but I am brainstorming on how to handle that part. I might not have the people represented with origami at all... we will see.