The ‘Golden Lights’ scene was consisted of warm glowing light particles raining down on the user. The visuals were designed in a way that wouldn’t be too graphically intensive for the Oculus Rift, utilizing low-poly particle effects made directly in Unity.Sonically for this scene we mainly focused on glassy crystalline sounds, chimes and ringing bells, generally within a high to upper-mid frequency range. We thought this matched the visual design of the scene well, in terms of the bright light and purity it conveyed. The visuals also saw a gradual evolution, in terms of the color, density and placement of particles.
The combination of the spheres in the ‘Red Surfaces’ scene had a wider view from above, providing a nice way for the user to admire the environment. The camera object was changed to one that supported the Oculus Rift headset in Unity; this was necessary for all scenes so that the user heard proper spatialized audio. Visually, in addition to the invisible triggers in the scene, we added more that would trigger several spheres in the distance which had distance-based sounds attached. We also altered the terrain so that the user was able to ‘climb’ it and perch on top of mountain peaks if they so desired.
The third scene, focusing on linearity and angular geometry was once again unique, as this time the user could move around, but while led by the camera in a fixed direction. Interactivity-wise, it was a mixture of the two previous scenes, as we could use a mixture of distance-based sound emitters and directional ones. There was also the unique aspect of the reactive floor, made up of infinitely-generated cubes which grew and distorted in shape depending on the audio. This was achieved by adapting the FFT-analysis code written by our supervisor, and applying it to 3D wire-mesh cubes modeled in Maya. The sound the cubes reacted to was a standalone composition, which aimed to incorporate more low-frequency bass to match the vibrating cubes. Several lightning bolt clusters were also modeled and placed around the terrain, each with their own randomized multi-sound emitters. These emitters included deliberately low-fidelity ‘retro’ sounds, loosely inspired by 8-bit chip-tune synths and percussion. The sounds were picked to complement the composition, and not clash with it stylistically.
