Hanrui Shen
Portfolio
VR Garden
In Virtual and immersive environments course we have four team members, and my role is doing the modelling. Also, I did part of the function and familiar with using VRTK. In the beginning, we decided to do an interactive garden which probably links to our studio project, but finally, we are doing entirely real garden in studio project. For this project, our plan is doing a 3*3 meter big garden and some plants which we can pick them up, and if people touch the plant, they will make the song and touch different plant part it can create a separate song which is quite interactive and interesting. Another, we also made everything collider which is similar to a real garden.
In my role, I am responsible for making the model for our garden. Actually, I knew lots of modelling software but I not entirely familiar Blender which I consider that suit for Unity other software maybe have some bugs when I Import to Unity. Firstly, I tried to follow the Youtube tutorial the grass in Blender which uses 'hair' grass. However, when I Import to Unity, the grass disappeared, and I did some research found that 'the "hair" grass is some integrated system in 3D software like Blender and nothing that you can export to Unity. Unity generally works with meshes, textures and materials. But a hair system is something extraordinary and not typical for real-time rendering.' Therefore, I use Unity terrain to do the environment. I got some pictures of the texture from the internet and added grass which downloads from the asset store which I think is better than I make. Secondly, I start to do the fence is not a hard part but our teammate wants to me add vine on the fence. I did a leaf and UI mapping the leaf then I used bezier function to do the root. After, I put the blade follow the root and change the size and rotate each one. As I have to finish modelling in the middle break, I bought some plants from the asset store for our garden, but I did most model. Thirdly, I import them to Unity and make the right size and put them the excellent position which is kind of garden design. Then, I tried to add VRTK function to the model; I also tried some VRTK example discovered that 005 example is suitable for us because we want to do a lot of grabbing function. Therefore, Alan and I followed the case to add the feature to our plants, and on Tuesday we practice in the VR to check the model size, and everything runs well. Unfortunately, some setting problem in our controller we spend lots time cannot find the issue, and our lecturer helped us to solve that. Finally, I also tried to help our team to do the text box which shows the information of plants.
In conclusion, I have learned how to use Unity and some plugin in Unity, also I improved my modelling skill. It is good VR experience for me because I have less VR experience. I feel interesting about VR, and it might be one direction in my further job.
reference:
BLENDER Tutorial: Creating Grass in Blender [Video file]. (2016, April 4). Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mZR_WKVYiX8
CURVES! (Bezier curves, curve modifier, tubes, tapering...) - Blender [Video file]. (2017, December 24). Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mvaH8jHX4GM
How to import this grass??? (n.d.). Retrieved from https://forum.unity.com/threads/how-to-import-this-grass.228426/
Physical Garden
Blueprint of future Auckland
we use animation video to show people our blueprint and design. In modeling part, I supported my team a lot. Firstly, we decide to use Cinema 4D to do the animation I use Blender and SketchUp to do the building and Alan also use SketchUp to help me do the model which he did the satellite town part. Because we are doing almost half Auckland which is really big work so maybe some detail I have no time to add also the texture and UI mapping not perfect. Secondly, when I finish the model, I import the model to cinema 4d to add texture and when I tried to do the terrain in cinema 4d it’s quite hard and there is some issue I can’t solve it recently and also the animation people it will take a lot of time in cinema 4d. Alan and I saw some video on Youtube which is some simple animation of building and camera, they use Lumion. I also try to use Lumion do some test and I consider it’s really easy to add certain animation and camera view and good quality. After that, we thought use Lumion to do the animation. Lumion is suitable for us to do the video and also the video quality in Lumion is great. Therefore I import our model to Lumion to add texture and try to export the render preview when we team think it’s alright, I give the file to Hugo to do the animation. Also, I support Hugo to do the animation in Lumion and I think we did good video. For me, the hardest part is doing the railway and connect them because it’s hard to do the perfect and each part maybe not at the same level, for example, the connection of floating island and CBD which it is not same high of the railway I have to adjust, after that I have to adjust everything. even now I still think some problems in our railway, we probably use the camera angle to avoid it to show people the good view. In addition, when I import the model to Lumion, I have to check everything is fine to make animation and some models maybe need to separate and some maybe group. I did a lot of test in Lumion to make it work. In the animation part, I help Hugo to do the keyframes and building rise also we have communication to solve some problems. Lastly, our team did the voice over and poster and Hugo cut the movie and we finish most work. If you see above photos which I render bit from Lumion, you probably think in modeling part and texture we did good work.