VR Animation: Two

Narrative VR Experience | 3D Animation

This is the first time I tried to tell a narrative story in virtual reality in Unreal. The short story is about loneliness and hope. 

Due to a huge disaster, most elves who used to live in the forest have died or left so there are only two elves live in the forest now. The male little elf named Charlie keeps praying to the old tree for help. But the tree never responds to him. Another elf tries to comfort him but it doesn't work. Charlie is almost desperate, but he sees sunlight through leaves and still remains a little hope. 

The audience will see the story from the perspective of the second elf.

Idea

Character

I decided to make my own character using Oculus Medium. Making VR in a VR environment is a very cool experience. I found a baby-sized body in Medium and used it as a reference, which is much easier than making it out of thin air for me. To rig more easily, I changed his position to the traditional T-pose.  The cut little elf was named Charlie then! Then I uploaded the .fbx file to rig the character and add animations.

Environment Setup

This part is about Unreal. I bought one asset package in Unreal Marketplace. I think the lovely animation style matches Charlie. But the color and placement of assets was not what I pictured in mind so I changed the placement of elements and their color tune.

Animation in Sequencer

I use the sequencer to do the animation. The difficult point for me is how to make Charlie’s animations to be continuous. I also found it hard to control the movement of the camera. What we see in normal preview mode is always a little different from what’s in VR mode. And I had to control the camera to move smoothly in order to avoid discomfort in VR.