A short video of the first draft.
This was the export that was play-tested by students of the Museum Sciences program (MUSE360), thanks to the support of Dr. Samaya Nasr at RIT. Here, we learned that the students struggled with the speed of the navigation tools and wished they had the option to fly.
From a Museum Sciences perspective, they were also very interested in learning more about the structure in a narrative sense, which, of course, was not part of our goals for this test. However, this feedback was extremely valuable as it provided directions for future iterations.
Similarly, I brought this test game to an Architecture course for review as well. Dr. Alissa De Wit-Paul from the RIT Sustainable Architecture program tested the game by sharing it with two groups of students. One group was learning about sustainable design in an online course, and the second was doing so in-person and therefore could physically visit the site.
Our online users immediately felt like the game provided a stronger spatial understanding of the building, however, a key issue was in how our animation team built the surroundings. As it happens, Architecture is very reliant on site-specific design (shocking), and placing the building in a rocky-mountain-circled glen with a picturesque well and pretty grass just didn’t give the students what they needed. The pumpkins were even more traumatizing to the serious study of architectural preservation!
The in-person students has similar feelings regarding the siting of the scan. And while a scan cannot live up to a real-life experience (yet), having access to it when developing sustainable designs was helpful.
Overall, the consensus was that animators should not be allowed to record real-life on their own, but with a partnership, this could be the start of a beautiful new journey!