Welcome to the Full Stop team’s dev blog!
We’ll get straight to the point. This first week, we determined our respective roles and met our client, Lorelei, and briefly our advisers, Heather and John.
During our meeting with Lorelei we clarified our understanding of the project. Major takeaways:
My Voice My Choice (MVMC): Is a “90-minute assertive resistance training program that emphasizes skill practice in an immersive virtual environment” developed by Lorelei with Guidehall at Southern Methodist University (SMU).This program uses VR to help train high school girls in assertive resistance, a research proven effective method to reduce sexual victimization. “The goal is to make standing up (for oneself) automatic”.
The original program uses VR to simulate scenarios where high school girls would feel pressured and feel the need to stand up for themselves.
Problem we’re solving:
Our deliverable is a prototype that solves the following major problems:
Portability: The previous, feasibility test of the VR software for MVMC was very successful, but the way it is used involves an actor improvising live and controlling a VR character like a puppet to help train the guest. This is not portable; for example, this program cannot be given to a school guidance counselor because they would have to train actors of their own for each session. We’re trying to create a new version that would allow a single facilitator to run the session alone, using pre-recorded acting.
New content: We’d also like to make multiple scenarios that include different levels of difficulty and allow for a different range of avatar to simulate pressuring the guest, based on scenario descriptions Lorelei provides for us. Our target guest, for easier consent for playtesting, will be college girls.
Conception, Research and Pre-production
Lorelei expressed openness to different technological platforms and solutions. Ideas we’re exploring in addition to the original CG VR
- 360 video. Rather than CG scenarios, it may make sense to use 360 video, because it provides the immersion needed for program to be effective and even more realism. We’ve looked into example projects and pros and cons; more next week.
- We considered other ideas like networked VR, AR and cardboard
What’s next
We’re on the lookout for these things in production that need to be planned early and well:
- We need to convert scenarios into scripts for the actors we need
- We need to arrange for actors or voice actors and be able to give them clear instructions, material to work with, and direction
- Access to a motion capture studio will likely be needed if CG characters are involved
- Courtesy of Lorelei, next week we will be trying the training session ourselves to better understand it
- We really want also to know the needs of the facilitator and the training process of the actor
- We’re considering developing fast prototype as soon as possible, such as a proof-of-concept 360 video or paper prototypes for the scripts