During this week, each group presented their final projects, which are so inspiring and impressive to me. On Tuesday, groups who did topics with food brought us a “feast”, food they made themselves, including Kimchi, soba, Kombucha, bread, as well as cucumber. It is interesting to have a chance to eat food made by our classmates and to hear the stories behind each dish. I think it might be hard to think deeply while cooking a certain food during our daily times, so those projects could afford the group time and chance to think and experiment with food more profoundly. On Thursday, different groups showed us amazing final projects, and some of them definitely opened my eyes and made me gain a lot of fresh inspiration. As I stepped into the classroom, my eyes were suddenly appealed by the skin-textured dress hanging in the middle of the room. That was a simple projection mapping technique, where they just mapped the images of flowing skin textures to the white dress via projection. This projection mapping technique has been applied to fashion design widely (“5 Best Projection Mapped Dresses: Projection Mapping in Fashion”). However, the visual style and techniques of the project were so effective and eye-ball catching. I enjoyed seeing how the scars as well as different other skin details were flowing on the dress; I could almost feel the skin breathing on that piece of cloth. Another project that I was deeply touched by was Matthew and Alexia’s children’s picture and poem book. The childish but adorable hand-drawing illustrations and the sincere and romantic poem together depicted such a meaningful, thought-provoking, and philosophical picture. I was totally touched by the concept, which connects the immersive universe to our tiny lives. I wish they could print the book since I definitely want to own one myself.

Annabeth and I also presented our final project. We spent a lot of time working on building the animation and AR section. I was responsible for designing the cards, the animation, as well as the rendered conceptual images. I mainly used the software Houdini, Nomad, and C4D to create the 3D models and animations.

We planned to first design four divination cards that represent four mental states, depending on different EEG brain wave levels. The four cards represent the normal state, slight stress, medium stress, and heavy stress. We planned to design four different animations and AR scenes corresponding to each state. Specifically, when the audience scans the specific card “ejected” by a card machine, the audience will see a corresponding immersive AR animation that guides them through a mind meditation and help them calm their hearts. However, we suffered a lot from executing the AR scene successfully, and we kept testing the techniques for several days. Fortunately, we had an excellent reaction from our class and from the professor, where people were so engaged in playing with the AR. Based on Professor Vesna’s suggestions, we would definitely keep working on this project, further refining the visual and technical parts. Maybe in the future, this project could be actually executed and realized.

Citation

“5 Best Projection Mapped Dresses: Projection Mapping in Fashion.” Www.youtube.com, www.youtube.com/watch?v=fVzarVn6r4U. Accessed 13 Mar. 2023.