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OVERVIEW
overview
'151 Calories' is a immersive virtual reality project where people can experience the thoughts and struggles of those with eating disorders. We not only focus on aspects like the consumption of food, but on social consequences such as isolation from family/friends and constant self hate.
As team leader, I ensured the visual design, language and quality of the project was consistent. I also programmed AIs, NPCs and various interactable objects in the environment. Using intuitive design, I explored how users could interact with our world. Additionally, I created the final poster design that was displayed for our booth at the SFU 2016 VR Showcase event .
TEAM
CHRISTY CHAN
BOYEE LAM
ARIEL ZHANG
EMILY ZHANG
TOOLS
CONTEXT
'151 Calories' was a virtual reality project for a immersive environments course (IAT 455) where students are to select a topic and create both a virtual and physical environment that's immersive to the audience.
The challenge or theme of that semester was to create a project that evokes empathy.
INSIGHT
Eating disorders is a potentially life-threatening condition but is not taken seriously enough by the general public.
With misconceptions promoted by the media and lack of knowledge, people find it hard to understand the struggles of those with eating disorders. This results to ignorance and the condition not being taken seriously. Can we use virtual reality to create a better understanding towards people with eating disorders?
WHY IS IT IMPORTANT?
Awareness is key as these general attitudes and stigmas attached to eating disorders by the public can prevent individuals from seeking help and limits the treatment options available in a community.
INSIGHT
Idea
OUR IDEA
FIRST PERSON PERSPECTIVE STORYTELLING
Utilizing a first person perspective, audiences will develop stronger emotional bonds as they go through various social and psychological experiences of a person with an eating disorder.
A first person point-of-view would be a more emotionally impacting and intimate experience for the audience. Allowing them to better understand some of the struggles people with eating disorder experience.
KEY CONSIDERATIONS
Key
NEW PERSPECTIVES
1
To prevent from being cliche and overdone, we showed a lesser known side of eating disorders, such as the social and psychological consequences that come with anorexia.
BEING AWARE
2
Prevent any possible frictions between our project and audiences who may come across our project and have previously experienced eating disorders.
OUR
INTERACTIONS
All scenarios and events in our virtual reality experience were based on our research from sources like documentaries to more personal
communities like pro-anorexia forums.
Personal sources were particularly valuable because these provided details about their daily life, fears and interactions with friends plus families.
MIRROR + SCALE
Player gets on the scale. Your reflection gets warped and your mind points your physical flaws with constant self hate comments.
FRIDGE
All foods have a rejection sign hoving above except for an apple. You'll get to pick a food item to eat but your choice will not matter as you'll choose not to eat but exercise instead.
EXERCISE
Player goes to lift dumbbells in their room. Each time the player finishes a rep, more background story and lifestyle info are revealed.
FRIEND
A friend visits baring lunch. The player attempts to hide food to avoid suspicion. Players can hide foods doing various actions. Storyline progresses as player interacts with NPC.
INTERACTON
MY ROLE
TEAM LEADER
My role as the leader was to ensure the visual design, language and quality of the project was consistent and the topic was being portrayed accurately with minimal frictions.
UNITY CODER
Unity Coder in charge of creating interactive animated AIs and other interactive assets (ie. Mirror, Scale, Camera effects).
GRAPHIC
DESIGNER
Created main poster & brochure that was send out to the media and used for the SFU "Immersive Environments" Showcase
My Role
CHALLENGES
FULL BODY
EXPERIENCE
To create a greater immersive experience and invoke empathy as the main character, we made it our top priority to assure for the audience to be able to see their body/arm movements.
challenge
The other programmer and I worked together and we took the position points of the Head Mounted Display and replace the rotation of the mouse with the Oculus Rift instead.
FRIENDLY AI
The main character's friend plays a big part to the story's narrative. Making the AI more like 'friendly' will prevent the story's frictions.
challenge
The AIs expressions and hand movements must transition in a natural form to so the audience can feel the AI is a real friend and gain an emotional bond with it.
RESULT
Our display at the SFU 2016 Final Showcase was a success. Our scenarios were immersive and well received. The audiences especially enjoyed interactions like the exercise activity, where eye movements were used to lift dumbbells, and interacting with our NPC.
Due to technology and manpower issues, only 2 of 4 scenarios were completed in the final product. Since our VR experience was narrative focused, it was unfortunate our story's ending had to be cut short. Some refinements and adjustments such as making the animations smoother or preventing the dumbbells from going through the camera if they were too close would be considered in the future.
INTERACTIONS
Mimicking of the visualizations of someone with Anorexia may experience such as exaggerated body image, voices, dizziness etc.
challenge
There were many interactive objects such as the mirror, posters, dizziness, speaking with AI. I was in charge of these interactions and each interaction required a different execution method.
VR Showcase Poster Designed by Christy Chan (myself)
CHALLENGE
RESULT
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