My Roles: Designer, 3D Artist, Cinematographer, Live Voiceover, Video
Team: 5 people
Dev Time: 3 weeks
• Designed an experience that combined the strengths of interdisciplinary teammates.
• Created a game mechanic that allowed players to interact with 360° footage in VR.
• Wrote and performed a live story to integrate the quirks of the mediums into the audience’s suspension of disbelief.
Vanderforge is a mix of 360° footage and 3D VR environment, designed with mechanics that integrate the mediums smoothly to tell a story. Because our team of five had two members who were not game developers, we wanted to combine VR with film so that everyone could play to their strengths.
We didn’t want the film to appear like a 2D video placed haphazardly in a 3D world, so we chose 360° film. This came with unique challenges. Imagine this: the camera records everything in all directions around it. Where does the cameraman stand? The crew? The people pulling strings to make special effects?
I wanted to apply the 360° film to a sphere object so the player could hold the scenes like orbs representing memories or locations. When touched, the sphere would expand larger than the player, thus putting the player inside the video. The resulting video is surprisingly convincing, considering the player is standing inside a sphere, yet seeing a real-life scene.
However, because the video is still a spherical shell, the illusion is broken when walking too close and realizing the real-life objects cannot be interacted with. To resolve this, I devised a mechanic: the video pauses, the player places a 3D VR object into a designated area on the sphere, and the video continues with the object in the recording. It is as if the player has an effect on the real-life recording, but of course it is simulated with a jump cut with everything in the same position except the newly added object.
The development of the story came after figuring out the mechanics because the story had to account for the filming difficulties and technical limitations we were dealing with. We ended up with a story about Mr. Vanderforge, an evil corporation owner who destroys the environment. The player must infiltrate Vanderforge’s office, from which they obtain 3D VR objects, and bring the objects to alter Vanderforge’s past, which takes place in the memory orbs where the videos play.