This is the section of my portfolio where I try new things! These are all projects where I've dabbled with new technologies or processes to learn a little more about what I might be able to do with them in the future.
MotionBuilder (Motion Capture)
During my senior year at Ohio State I decided to branch out and try my hand at motion capture, a class offered by the Advanced Center for Computing and Design here at Ohio State. Under the direction of Vita Berenzina-Blackburn, I learned the basics of Autodesk MotionBuilder.
For my first two projects I worked with a team to capture choreography of our own design and then individually applied that data to a nymph model. For my open experimentation project, I captured an actor completing several different dances and retargeted that sequence in MotionBuilder as well, which went much smoother now that I was more familiar with the software. I had a great time working in motion capture!
See screen recordings of my projects below:
Sotisses - VR GravitySketch
As part of a 3rd year Industrial Design Media Course, my group (Hattie Carr, Maria Bowman, Jackie Brandon, Sarah Kocher) was asked to design a restaurant experience in virtual reality using GravitySketch on an Oculus headset. We took this opportunity to develop a restaurant based on Pixar's "Ratatouille".
Each piece was drawn in GravitySketch, based on repurposed human things that the rats now use in their French-cottage style restaurant. See our presentation and video walkthroughs below:
Celeste Courtyard Bike Rack - A Dive Into the Hyve
As part of a 3rd Year Industrial Design Media Course, my group (Chuck Backus, Ben Drake, Katie Bush, Sarah Kocher) were tasked with incorporating a bike rack model into a location on campus, Celeste Courtyard. Using iPad pros, we 3D-scanned the location and uploaded it to the Hyve, an asset acquired by OSU's Department of Design that encourages immersive design in 3D virtual space. See our presentation below:
Ice Cream Escape Room (Blender, AR, and Masking in Premiere)
For an emerging technologies class, my group and I set out to learn the 3D modeling software Blender, which none of us had ever worked with before. Within the software, we created different elements of an ice cream themed escape room, imagining what an escape room of the future might look like. I focused on learning how to animate in blender, as well as how to create models in Blender for the Pepper's Ghost Effect, imagining what ice cream holograms might look like. Check out our presentation and the "faking it" videos from it below!
Buccaneer Bay Board Game - Unreal Engine, Blender, and Figma
For an emerging technologies class, my group and I set out to create and visualize a pirate themed board game we called Buccaneer Bay: The Ultimate Game of Plunder, Piracy, and Peril using softwares with which we had very little to no experience.
I set out to learn the basics of Unreal Engine, with the goal to create and export a scene I built from scratch. Learning the software was a fun adventure. The fact that it was free with a library of assets was greatly appreciated. And I was able to use what I knew from other softwares, like keyframe animation, in Unreal as well, especially for camera movements and getting the pirate ship to move. Once I had created all my scenes in Unreal, I exported everything to Premiere Pro to combine everything into a promo video for our board game.
In addition to Unreal, I worked with my partners in Figma to create different game assets, like playing cards, game tiles, and tokens. This was my first time working in Figma, and found my prior knowledge of Illustrator super helpful in working my way around.
Check out our Buccaneer Bay presentation! I've also included the video I created using Unreal and Premiere.
