PROJECTS
Z - Zone
Date
May 2022
Teammates
Aaron Wang
My Role
Ideation
Physical Computing
Unity Scene Building
VFX Building
Tools
Unity
Arduino
Fusion 360
Project Description
Z-Zone is a meditation visualization space that provides an immersive calming experience. Z-Zone aims to assist the user/visitor release stress by creating a private physical area that is augmented with digital technologies. When you enter into the space, you may use the joystick on the right to explore the virtual and acoustic environment. One important message we want to convey is that one can hardly get rid of stress completely, but instead embrace it as part of our lives.
Background Research
What do we have today?
-
They occupy a huge physical space
-
Often held as an exhibition (need to take a whole day to visit)
-
Manners of relieving are separated into different rooms (not criticizing, a business model to cover the fee)
What do we want to achieve?
-
Occupy a limited space (easy access, target users, integrated in other space)
-
No violence (eg: smashing)
-
Combine multiple ways of relieving stress(seeing + listening +...)
Visuals help to relax
-
Natural environments can provide restful experiences, reducing the need for directed attention.
-
Natural environments can stimulate involuntary attention and thereby reducing directed attention.
-
Universe instills a sense of safety in part.
-
When the space is landmark-free, it's naturally calming to us, much like closing your eyes is calming.
-
Fractal geometry (nature/man-made) can have a mesmerizing effect.
-
Stress levels can decrease by up to 60% just by looking at fractals.
Sounds help to relax
-
Nature sound: A walk in the woods can affect heart rate and alter connections in the brain.
-
Sound frequencies: Specific types of sound frequencies can alter the activity of the brain. Listen to this. It can slow the heart rate and lower blood pressure.
-
Jazz: Music with a slow tempo encourages the brain to sync with its beat. Pick a title with an average of 60 beats per minute and slowly feel your brain dance to the tune and carry you into a more relaxed and stable state of mind.
Fabrication
In order to achieve the features I have mentioned above, we decide to use a capsule-like structure. Of course, we have considered problems like claustrophobia, etc. To deal with that, we will put a warning sign outside the project. Other than that, we think a relatively tight, dark, and peaceful environment is advantageous to our audience.
As for the visual display, after looking for a lot of architecture-related information, it seems that a dome structure has its unique magic power by making people feel peaceful and relaxed. Meanwhile, practically speaking, a dome structure does help a lot especially when the audience wants to stare at the visual pattern on top of them for a long time by easing their neck pain.
After figuring out these basic elements, we started working on the frame by first using Fusion 360 to clarify the length and thickness of the structure and then assembling all the components together.
Virtual Space Production
Visual Design
We first refer to the game "Gris", trying to build our mood board based on it. (Gris is a game about the journey of a little girl who eventually redeemed herself. Its visual expression of different stages of sadness also is very inspiring to my project.)
Based on this, we used the VFX in Unity to create a little ball, which is the abstract representation of the audience, wandering alone in the virtual space.
Next is about designing a tunnel to restrict the moving range of our little ball. Because while users wander around and explore the big environment aimlessly, we don't want them to feel that they are lost. But meanwhile, we also don't want them to feel boring because of the repetition pattern. So we put a lot of effort into designing a tunnel with the end, regulating the range of the space available for exploring and making them curious about the end of the tunnel. This is also in alignment with the message we are trying to convey, which is that one can hardly get rid of stress completely, but instead embrace it as part of our lives. The tunnel is like our stress, instead of breaking it, we need to learn how to live with it.
Technically speaking, in order to achieve what we have in our mind, we designed our own shader graph in Unity.
Interaction Design
Since the whole project is about helping users to do the meditation and feel refreshed. We don't think a super complicated interaction is where we should focus on. Consequently, we design a simple joystick controller as the connection between the audience and the ball. We use serial communication so that the data sent from the Arduino can be read in Unity.
Sound Design
Meanwhile, we use the ambient nature sound to help the audience to quicken the process of entering the meditation or relaxing.
User Test & Iteration
This is what we got at the beginning of the user test. It includes all the elements we want to add to our projects. While we do receive some critical comments and do several changes according to it until we are running out of time and have to put it into public play.
1. We change the shape of the tunnel from a triangle to a cylinder. Because we project the whole scene on a dome structure, the original triangle is bent in a strange way. So we have to fix it so it's visually more satisfying.
2. We lower the intensity of the texture of the tunnel. Based on our users' feedback, they feel that it's too overwhelming and the moving pattern is distracting them from relaxing. So we do several rounds of iteration and find the suitable intensity for most users.
3. We add a new function that allows the whole scene to get dark when users don't use the joystick for a certain amount of time. Because if that's the case, users probably have already fallen into sleep and the visual pattern is no longer helping them to relax but is a distraction.
4. We reposition the sound file to make the transition between stages more identifying.
5. We tune the parameters of the volumetric fog to fit the idea of the project. Fog will fade away when you go through the tunnel, indicating that you are better at dealing with the stress.
Exhibition
We have displayed our work at the 2021 Spring IMA End-of-Semester Show. During the show, we heard positive feedback from the audience saying that in such a noisy exhibition environment, when they lay down in our project, they can actually get a sense of peaceful mind. Moreover, we even met a businessman who is interesting in making our idea into a product. But we are not making any progress yet because of the Covid situation. Below are the photos of the scene.
Reflection
If we have more time to do this project, I will mainly focus on the fabrication part. As you see, even with the wooden structure and black fabric, it still seems not so "safe" to get into this place and have a good rest. You might be aware of where to put your personal belongings or stuff like this. So I will definitely say that a more solid outlook will bring a more satisfying experience. Another thing we have to fix is the acoustic treatments. Right now we are using 2 speakers to play the ambient music, but with a thin shade, we can neither prevent noise from coming into the project nor let the BGM not disturb others. So I think this is another serious issue we have to fix. A potential solution might include using thicker material or headphones.