Rooting for You
Description
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Put yourself in the shoes of a high school student who signed up for Trees for Canada, motivated by the wildfires that happened in Fort McMurray, Alberta. You want to help by planting trees to regrow the forestry, but you don't know how. This interactive 360 video will guide you on how to plant a tree through self directed learning.
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Project Summary
This project fits the design brief because it needs a 360 video to be immersive. When grabbing the tools for the tree, you have to look down. When you want to see the animals around you (bird flying over you or horse standing behind you), you have to turn back or look up to physically see them. In most of the scenes, you have to look around to appreciate the full magnitude of the scene. Without the 360 video these experiences would definitely not be as immersive.
Brainstorming
For the initial brainstorming session, I tried to think of as many personas as possible and create an experience from their perspective. Some of the personas I imagined are the angry cashier in a grocery store, the lonely immigrant who is new to Calgary, the 5 year old kid who is afraid of the dark, a computer science student accused of designing a virus and is locked in a jail guarded by robots, and anime lovers who desire to be the Avatar (just to name a few). Designing with a person in mind it makes it a lot easier to design meaningful interactions and tell a story with your project. Below are the initial ideas that I had:
Initial Idea Sketches
Refinement Process
After sketching out our initial ideas, we had a critique session among fellow CPSC 581 designers. I initially liked the Avatar idea because of the cool interactions associated with it, but was stumped because it had shallow interactions and no backstory to it. I eventually chose the photosynthesis idea because it had the interaction of controlling time, as well as a purpose: teaching kids about photosynthesis. From this idea I branched off to further refinements:
Refinement Sketches
In one of these refinement sketches, i switched gears from the idea of learning about photosynthesis to something more meaningful, like planting trees to regrow lost forestry. I started thinking about the news and recent events, like Fort McMurray and British Columbia wildfires, and decided to center a story around those events. I imagined what it was like to be in high school again: not having too much money but having a lot of free time, and back then, and having a vast array of volunteer opportunities to choose from. As a high school student, whenever tragedies like these happen, I wanted to help but didn't have the means to do so financially. I used to volunteer at the Mustard Seed or the Food Bank, and I would like others to feel what volunteering is like too. My hope for this project is to allow people to empathize with wildfire tragedies, and prompt them to action in a fun and interactive way by planting a virtual tree. So are you ready?... Let's grow!!!
Implementation
Implemented with Unity and the Google Cardboard, utilizing multiple 360 videos to create an immersive experience. Some changes from the refinement sketches are as follows:
- did not have action of kneeling down to plant (time constraints, it is possible to detect kneeling using the Kinect)
- adding voice-over to create a more immersive experience, acting as an inner voice of the user.
- added a horse to the scene instead of animals that are naturally in the wild (constrained by the amount of free assets floating around). Originally planned on having a squirrel or deer sneak up on you.
- did not have a mentor behind user because i struggled to find a free asset that looked like an approachable volunteer/teacher.
- incorporated sounds for each tool, sending feedback to the user that they have chosen the tool.
Flow:
- First scene - you are surrounded by fire. Inner voice mentions that there have been wildfires recently in Fort McMurray and British Columbia, and that she wants to help by planting a tree. Look around and find an option to volunteer for Trees for Canada.
- Classroom scene - you are at the volunteer site (classroom) but nobody is there. You decide to plant a tree yourself. Look around for a "Let's go" option.
- On-boarding scene - road to Fort Mac. Video will end shortly and you will have to look for an option to start planting (on the driver's side of the car).
- Planting scene - it's time to start planting! When scene starts a horse and falcon sound will start. Falcon sound will keep going for approximately ~20 seconds, which is annoying but it happens in real life :). As time passes, the falcon will fly over you. Look for a good spot to plant a tree. To see if path can be selected, hover over and the patch should change its color. Once you select a patch, all your tools should appear beside you (a tree, stick, shovel and watering can). Choose wisely and pick the tools in order. Once you are done, face back and select the option to say you are done planting the tree.
- Depending on if you have done the planting in the correct order, the end scene will either show a beautiful forest or a wasteland.
One thing I wish i could have done was to integrate more of the story into the implementation. In the classroom scene, I imagined having newspaper clippings or pictures about the wildfire to tell more of that story, and have the user empathize. I also wish I did more with the interactions of the video, using gesture based motions (using a Nintendo Switch Joycon) instead of selecting it through a phone to create a more real and authentic experience. I wanted to be able to get nearer to the patch and have the tools visible when you kneel down to plant, and have different interactions available depending on whether you kneel or stand up. Also, Unity was a little bit tree-cky to learn (pun fully intended) which is also accounted for in the implementation and time constraints.
Upon showing the video to my friends, I realize after the fact that it would have been nice to have more guidance in planting the tree. Currently when the user selects a tool other than the shovel 5 times, the voice will suggest to pick the shovel first to dig a hole on the ground. After that, when the user selects something other than the tree 5 times, the voice will suggest to pick the tree next. After this, however, I think more voice overs need to be done to suggest that we need the stick in place for planting, then water the tree after.
Video
In the interest of time, the tree planting scene shows the best case scenario of when the user picks the tools in order. Normally if first tool chosen was not a shovel, and was picked 5 times, inner voice would suggest to use the shovel first.
Final Thoughts
Although there was a lot of heart behind my idea, the implementation part was lacking. I wish I could have implemented more of the planting gestures to make the environment more immersive; doing point-and-click takes slightly takes away from the experience of planting the tree. In this project I learned that implementation is just as important as ideation, moving forward I will treat them of equal importance.
Code
Prerequisites: Unity 2017 installed, Google Cardboard, an Android or iPhone smartphone.
Check out the release of this code here.
For Running in Unity:
To execute on your phone (Android):
To execute on your iPhone device:
Check out the release of this code here.
For Running in Unity:
- Open up Unity editor.
- Drag this Unity package onto Unity Editor.
- Follow this README for errors to disappear, and to install on your phone.
To execute on your phone (Android):
- Download apk file and save on your phone. Look for it in Files/ File Manager on your phone and select to play.
- If you want to have it as an actual app instead of a file, follow step 3 of For Running in Unity.
To execute on your iPhone device:
- Must have XCode or a machine running on Mac OS.
- Please follow For Running in Unity instructions.
Sources
Without these sources, I could not have gotten this project done. Thank you!
Base Code:Video Sources:
3D Assets:
Sound Assets:
Base Code:Video Sources:
3D Assets:
- Horse in tree planting scene
- Tree in tree planting scene
- Gardening Tools in tree planting scene
- Falcon
Sound Assets: