About the event
The 2017 National Science & Innovation Gala was an event hosted by the Canada Science and Technology Museums Corporation Foundation at the Canada Aviation and Space Museum in Ottawa. The event celebrated the important contributions of Canada's youth - past, present and future, as well as Canada's 150th. It honoured the achievements of the winners of the STEAM Horizon Awards, and hosted special guests and speakers including the Governor General of Canada David Johnston.
The gala was steampunk themed and presented a number of innovative projects ranging from robotics to virtual reality.
About the project
This was a 35 day blitz where nine of us worked 80 hours a week to create a virtual reality demo catered entirely to the event/museum.
The demo was a scenario based simulation where we recreated the inside of the museum from a specific vantage point. That vantage point being the location where the demo was displayed so that users would see the museum transform around them into a virtual steampunk space. The user was surrounded by various aircraft, each with its own unique interactive - animation driven scenario. The demo had a total of five different scenarios ranging from 1-2 minutes each.
My role
I was appointed the role of Lead Artist. My tasks included the following:
To work with the other artists and ensure they had tasks with a clear understanding of the specifications.
To manage the projects Master file, which housed all the most recent versions of every asset. This file served as a means to make sure all assets were working properly and were ready for exporting.
Exporting all assets from the master file for the programmers.
Modelling / texturing / animating various assets.
Taking care of any loose ends. IE: broken animations, unfinished models, optimisations, etc.
I committed just over 400 hours to this project during its 5 weeks development cycle.
Some of my work
Sikorsky S-55
One of the aircraft I had the opportunity to recreate with a steampunk aesthetic.
I used Art Deco style forms for cladding, industrial/Victorian era windows for the cockpit, and used a mix of iron, wood, and copper materials. Since the particular Sikorsky at the museum is named the Shearwater Angle, I gave it a pair of ornate wings. Finally the face was inspired from the automatons in one of my favorite steampunk games: Thief II the Metal Age.
Side by side comparison of the real Sikorsky, and my steampunk version
In our demo the Sikorsky's scenario involved its giant copper head detaching from the aircraft and revealing gear driven legs. It searched for the player as they attempted to solve a puzzle in order to shut the Sikorsky down. It stood an intimidating eight and a half feet tall when detatched.
Wind Tunnel Entrance
This asset was one of the centrepieces of the environment. It served as the entrance to the wind tunnel deep below the museum where two of our scenarios took place.
User Console
This asset had one of the most complex designs for the entire project. The dais represents the play-space in VR, as the user would face different aircraft the console desk would rotate into alignment and provide information on the aircraft and its scenario. The desk was the conduit for interacting with everything in the environment. It was designed to be somewhat of a "Rube Goldberg" style gadget hub that could service any scenario we came up with. Making use of it's drawers, sliding panels, monitors, and anything we found room to tack on.
Showings
Though the demo was tailored specifically for the event and was going to live only for one night; it was very well received and was invited to be displayed on a few other occasions.
A large lineup of children and adults waiting and watching others try the demo during the solar eclipse event at the CASM.