"More Than Meets The Eye" Animated VR Experience

First training session in the HTC Vive VR room at the Medical Institute, University of Dundee Dr. Caroline Erolin - HTC Vive in the Medical Institute at University of Dundee HTC Vive headset To get acclimatised to using VR, Caroline suggested looking around some landscapes, starting with 360 degree, rather than fully immersive VR beach...With an intense dislike of geodesic domes and cavernous interiors this seemed like a great idea! Progressing into interiors, Caroline introduced me to the LAB within Steam  .. https://store.steampowered.com/ , where there was an option to enter into a 'game-like' environment, pick up a bow and arrow and shoot at soldiers. The game appearance and environment was far more familiar and reminded me of my gaming experiences Atari > Sega Mega Drive > Playstation.... Next up was the lab, where I could teleport and select different worlds to enter. I jumped out of my skin when I stooped down to pick up the controllers, which w...

Key points from today's OPD session Getting Started with the Literature Review with Dr Gordon Spark at UoD. Literature Review is to be analytical rather than descriptive Three fold - Content, Style and Structure. Structure being the key Don't simply show end product, but how idea came into being...take the engine apart.  Analysis...break something down into its constitutional parts Night view of the Pompidou Centre. Copyight of the Pompidou Centre. Photo by PH Migeat. What is a literature review? Reading around subject 2 stages - Process and Product (all material read and actually what's included eventually) Survey of the field e.g using a map as a metaphor > Map > Defined Boundaries > Territories not included > Where are the borders > Show broad contours > Specific Points of Interest. Define perameters Original Contribution - is really quite small. Doing something different. Critiquing the literature and what it doesn't do. Place...

Meeting with Fiona Fyffe-Lawson, Graham Pullen and Anna Notaro to review the annual report for the University's Research Degree Programme Review. Within the meeting I suggested the idea of a new exhibition and networking event for the PhDs and research community at DJCAD. Preliminary idea to be discussed further. Exciting possibilities!

Supervisor Meetings: Date : 26th November 2018 Meeting no : 3 Present : Phillip Vaughan (1 st ) Fraser Bruce (2 nd ) Andrea McSwan (Student) Tasks set and completed since last meeting: (23 rd October 2018) ·          Weekly update of Blog: https://andreamcswan-phd-lightfortheblind.blogspot.com . 70 posts ·          Permanent desk allocated , as I am class rep! in room 5011 (next to the bridge). ·          Plus a laptop is in the pipeline. ·          Met with Caroline Erolin. Good discussion about VR. Wishes to be copied in on communication. VR training scheduled for 12 th December. Google cardboard purchased and VR apps to be experimented with. ·          Made contact with PhD community and will be one of six who will arrange the research talks in the Research Kit...

Great talk by Fraser Bruce about what we can learn from bees and how they operate. I particularly liked his networking dot-to-dot diagrams that indicated creative and social networks; drawing inspiration from bees. The fact that bees play to their strengths and become excellent at one role, rather than trying to be all things to all bees was great. Calum Kolvin spoke about his working practice. I was struck by this piece and how the objects and lighting play together to create a multitude of lighting options; especially on the flat table top that creates the majority of the face. Notice a photo of the composer looking through the window and Calum captured in the fish-eye mirror to the left. Very inspirational and full of depth and colour. James MacMillan b.1959 Composer - Calum Kolvin (1996)

So for my first meeting with Caroline Erolin (3rd)  https://www.dundee.ac.uk/djcad/staff/profile/caroline-erolin.php  we spoke about VR. Ahead of VR training with Caroline on the 12th Dec, she suggested I play with Google cardboard for now. Not with the expecation of it being good, or a permanent tool to use, but to get me used to the immersive sensation. I didn't like the Oculus Rift experience and Caroline said this wasn't unusual.  So, hopefully this cardboard device, which is easy to remove (!!) will be a good starting point!

Brilliant. Invisible art direction and acting. Utterly convincing and complete entertainment from the 20th Century Fox intro to the final credits.