20th Feb
By now, I have finished the second version of the script.
Inspiration
This project was inspired by a webcomic called False Knees. Actually, I knew this comic at first because one of the pages of this comic was very popular on Chinese social media. The phrase “the meaning of life is to go to the pier to eat fries” has become the most popular meme on Chinese social media in early 2022. Everyone uses this meme to ridicule themselves, show that they don’t want to work, have no dreams, and just want to eat fries. In fact, this is not a kind of self-pity but an expression of everyone’s desire to simplify and ease life. In the beginning, I also liked to use this meme. Whenever I feel exhausted or in a bad mood, I want to read this comic and tell myself, don’t be low or push yourself too much, the meaning of life is to go to the pier to eat fries, then go to the restaurant and repurchase a bag of fries. So when I knew the theme of this project was a comedy, I immediately thought of this comic.
I want to make a VR story about two seagulls, and I hope that my users can explore the true meaning of life in a lighthearted and humorous way. I was thinking about whether to replace it with another animal as the protagonist, but I quickly rejected the idea.
First of all, the story of eating fries is the story I want to restore the most. It interprets the meaning of life from the perspective of a humorous seagull. I think this is perfect black humour, and the reason why only this page of comics is so popular must also be because most people recognise its content and jokes.
Besides, the seagull itself is a bird with a sense of humour in people’s eyes. To be precise, the personality of the seagull is very similar to the harmless little thief in the film and television works. Before deciding on the protagonist, I searched a lot of information about seagulls. For example, seagulls would laugh when their companions were unlucky or go into the supermarket to steal potato chips and grab food from people at the beach. Their behaviour can feel wicked, but it’s funny. It doesn’t make people think they are very hateful, which is the personality that a comedy character should have, especially a black humour comedy.
I have to say that the archetypes of my two seagull figures and characters are Cal and Kunrong. One person is vivacious and intelligent, speaks quickly, and has bright eyes, while the other is a roaster, speaks with a sense of ridicule, and has small eyes. In addition, I have watched a Japanese anime called HYOUKA before, and the hero and heroine in it also matched my expectations.
Interaction Idea
In VR projects, especially adaptation projects, how the user interacts is very important. In the beginning, my idea with Yiran was to make the audience become the third seagull and join the conversation of those two seagulls. I thought so at the time because, since I want the audience to believe in the way of seagulls, it is better to let the audience become seagulls. One of the advantages of VR is embodiment. When designing VR projects, why VR is a critical issue and making the audience a seagull is to maximise the advantages of VR in the context of this story. Cal also put forward the idea of a bird watcher, which I liked very much, but later in the tutorial with the teacher, the teacher still suggested that we use the first plan.
Script
Actually, I only read the seagull page in this comic before, but after I decided to make this adaptation, I repurchased this comic book and read the whole book. I have to say that this comic book writer is really talented. He is very good at creating laughs with the different personalities of different animals. But I actually can’t understand a lot of English jokes, so I chose some that I can understand and are related to birds (especially seagulls) and then asked my team members to pick out what they find interesting.
It’s been very smooth up to here, but after I started writing, I only wrote one opening and then got stuck for a week. I couldn’t write anything that week because it was so scattered, and I felt confused and clueless. At first, I tried to collect some ideas for the story on our miro, but I found it was still quite confusing, and there was no clear idea.
Later, my team members and I put all the selected content on the miro. Using the method of a previous guest teacher who gave us exercises in class, we put each story into a good storyline in the form of pictures. This is very helpful. Sometimes it isn’t easy to go from 0 to 1, but it is straightforward to go from 1 to 100. Since we used this method, my thoughts have been completely opened up, and I can write the prototype of the story smoothly.
The first version of the script was written relatively simply, with only simple plots and dialogues and no content such as different perspectives. In addition to the transition in the sky, there are three scenes in which the story takes place: the beach, the pier, and the city. There are some places I am not sure about, so I marked them in red. I hope my team members can give me some suggestions in these places after I send the script to them to read.
After I sent the first version of the script to the crew, everyone gave me a lot of feedback, especially Cal, who helped me add POV and change some of my lines. We had a tutorial with Despoina when we were writing the second version of the script, and her advice to us was that we had too many transitions and scenes, and it was better to combine some scenes if possible. So in the second version, we combined the beach and the pier in one scene, and then I added some stories about the city.
Collaboration
My team members and I chose miro among several cooperation platforms because it is like a whiteboard; you can freely add text, pictures and draw logic diagrams. There are no parts that need to be jumped, and everything is placed above is clear at a glance. In addition, its form is infinitely extended, which is a bit similar to that it can radiate from one point to countless points. It has no format that allows team members to diverge their thinking better. We also set up a to-do list area above. Every Wednesday, we have a meeting in the study room of the school library. At the end of the meeting, we will write in this area what everyone is going to do this week.
When I was looking for a teammate at first, I only had the idea of a seagull. Yiran found me and said she wanted to do this idea with me. Later, we held this comic book at the meeting of different majors as a promotion for this book. This idea was shared with others repeatedly, but most of them showed no clear interest. Yiran and I thought we couldn’t find our teammates that day, but we didn’t expect Esme and Marianna took the initiative to see us and say they were very interested in our ideas! At the same time, we chatted with Cal at the meeting that day and asked him if he had any ideas. He said he had no ideas and had not found a teammate yet, so Yiran and I invited Cal to join us. This week Kiro and Jiachen from sound art also joined us; the feeling of going from one person, one monotonous idea, to many team members, combining various opinions into one project is fantastic. I am delighted that they are all charming people, they are very organised and communicate well, and we are all enjoying this collaboration.
Sound list
We have also completed the sound list. Cal and Yiran mainly thought about the ideas for some unique sound effects, and I was responsible for finding the reference for the background music. As long as I had the idea of seagulls, I had already thought of using background music similar to SpongeBob SquarePants. I have always liked the background music of SpongeBob SquarePants. I feel that this music is lively and funny, and it fits the story of the seagull in my heart. The transition music is inspired by that transition reference video and uses Titanic-like romantic music to create contrasting humour.
27th Feb
Script
I have finished writing the third edition of the script this week. Compared to the previous version, I removed some uncertainties and added endings. Like Tom and Jerry’s ends, I envisioned the end, where a circle gradually shrinks after a hilarious move. We’ve had a meeting to discuss the script, and it’s confirmed that this is the final version of the script. My team members said I couldn’t write any more; it might be hard for them to finish writing too much. (The writing has a total of eight pages)
Game Design Document
This week, I finally finished our game design document based on the entire script. Although this document is not necessary, we all feel that this document can help us better promote the production of the project, especially the asset list and interaction list.
3rd Mar
Coding
In the early days, when I wrote the script and documentation, Cal and Yiran had already started building the environment and testing the interaction, so now I don’t help the unity project very much. I can only help Yiran write some code so that she can use it directly. This week I helped Yiran write some minigame code, including timer and eat.
Debug
I also helped them with an issue in Unity this week. They imported the controller model, which is the wings of a seagull, to help users better assume the role of a seagull. But this model cannot track the controller in Unity. This problem was encountered in my last semester’s project, so the solution went very smoothly. I was still complaining that I had almost all the issues, but this semester when I can come up with answers in one fell swoop, I am thrilled that I have encountered these problems in practice.
I found out on a forum before that you need to apply for an app id and a secret number on Oculus developer and then enter these two numbers into Unity to connect to the controller smoothly.
10th Mar
Collaboration
We didn’t communicate very well in helping team members write code this week. Every time Yiran asks me to write a part of the code, she is trying to write the same code simultaneously, so we often write the same code, but this significantly reduces our efficiency, and there is no point in doing the same thing twice. Later, I communicated with Yiran alone and explained my thoughts. I felt that Yiran should inform me of her progress to prevent us from doing the same work. And Yiran also said that I should ask her in time instead of waiting for her to tell me.
Through this communication, I realised that this is not one person’s problem but caused by our lack of proper and timely communication. After this time, we have learned more about how to communicate efficiently to ensure smooth cooperation between people in all aspects of the project and all positions. More importantly, I am more aware of the importance of communication and standardised workflow in collaboration, and I believe these can help me better cooperate with others.
Coding
This week I helped Yiran write the code for how the minigame starts, but as I said earlier, we did the same work, so this code is useless.
I also helped Cal write the transition code I used for my homework last semester, so I wrote it quickly.
17th Mar
Animation & Debug
This week I added an animation of roadside pedestrians to the city scene. I downloaded a population system on the Internet, which can quickly generate pedestrian animation.
And in the process of constantly solving problems, I can feel that I am better at finding solutions. I think that I have gradually mastered logic to solve technical issues. This week when we put on the headset at the beginning of our city scene, there is no way to display all the content, and it always feels like something is blocking it. I thought that it might be the canvas stopped the lens, or there was a problem with the camera’s parameters. Later, following this idea, I found that the problem was the depth parameter of the camera.