I have spent the last few weeks wrestling with Wonda VR to create the structure to present the 360 experience that the group has curated. It has turned out to really difficult to collaborate on the process of constructing the site as we have not found a good way of sharing and combining the work, it would be really useful to have the ability to distribute this and have different team member submit commits to the code base in a Google Docs or GitHub fashion, but we have’t found a way to do this.

As a result I have done the majority of the layout and connecting work, I have been able to use some of the experience that I gained in the past creating interactive DVDs in DVD Studio.

The concepts of the nodal view where you can see the connections between sequences and check the layout of the project, and a sequence view where buttons, media, and interactivity are edited are largely the same.

I have been frustrated that in WONDA VR may of the keyboard shortcuts that I am familiar with ⌘C (copy) ⌘V (paste) ⌘Z (undo), don’t work reliably, having to work with the mouse has made me feel very unproductive. (This might just be a bug with the copy of the software that I am working with, but it doesn’t make it any less frustrating).

After feedback from Ken last week the landing page has been adjusted to be the about page so that visitors are introduced via an explanation of the project. I have been working to animate this text to bring it to life as part of the interactive experience, but this still requires some refinement.

The basic navigation of the site is via interactive text buttons. Something that has been interesting to consider about text is how it is displayed in 360 space. WONDA has two options here one is a spherical layout, the other creates a faceted layout. Initially I was using the spherical layout but once the sequences became more complex the facet layout provides a more organised appearance.

Almost any object can be turned into a button by changing the parameters in the Link section. For internal linking it is as simple as selecting Sequence in the Go to option and the selecting the appropriate Sequence.

In order to show users that an element is actionable (I hesitate to use clickable as the experience is designed to be used with a VR headset on). It is possible to add interactions to elements.

In this above screenshot this interaction shows the Gaze Over state being used to reduce the opacity of an element as it is being hovered over, similar to a mouse hover over but this time with the consideration of it being a VR experience. When the user Gaze Away the element returns to full opacity. I have not been able to test how this works in a VR headset yet and am concerned that I do not fully understand how a hover and click experience differs in this environment. Similar to working with 360 degree video I am finding that there are many skills that I have developed on previous projects that need subtle reconsideration when working in VR.

Below is an example of an experience that I have been experimenting with for displaying artists statements over their poetic films. When a viewer Gazes (clicks) the text ‘Artist Statement’ the paragraph of artist statement with fade in (increased opacity), and the video pauses. When the viewer has finished reading they simply Gaze Away , the paragraph disappears and the video starts to play again.

This shows what it looks like in a web browser, the semitransparent background behind the white text helps with legibility, in a VR experience the text is bigger due to the field of view.

Although it would have been enjoyable to collaborate more on the construction process there has been a good team dynamic with peers creating different sets of the assets and giving feedback on the layout. This has been essential in allowing me to focus on the fiddly task of connecting all of the buttons and sequences and allowing me to experiment with the interactions. This has been another opportunity to explore an area of media practice, an interactive experience, that I feel I have neglected recently.