Space Elevator, week 3


Bryce: Learned about materials and shaders in Unity. Begin composing elevator scene. Found Earth and many shader, environment, and utility assets.

EarthShop

Liang: Searched through the Unity Asset Store and found some 3D models that might be useful. Began work on writing the story line but found it would too complex if every possible result was considered in the development of plots. Will simplify the story later.

Trevor: Found data on global elevation and sea level rise as well as air pollution, ground pollution, population, and deforestation. Found Unity assets to help with haze and other environmental effects.

 

Accomplishments:

Decided for sure to visualize coastal sea level changes and deforestation, our goal is to have at least one more visualization, General pollution visualization or population

Compiled a list of assets to use and also visual references for our aesthetic style

Footage of Earth from space both day and night for reference

List of visual extras if we have time: Clouds + Lightning, Aurora

 

Found many useful databases for visualization

 

Problems:
We are finding that plotting the interactive system to be quite complex, so we are considering simplifying the branching paths into a more linear progression with small effects from previous questions.

  • Showing what the current Earth is, and how it will change through the interactions, project the changes all around us in different views
  • We need to focus in on which visualizations we are going with
  • Using sea level rises as the initial motivator, this causes the necessity of tough decisions
  • Bring media visualizations around the user as the result of choice, but then move them towards the Earth to direct gaze and show visualizations

 

For Next Week:

  • T: Begin creating maps in ArcGIS, create stepped visualizations of data
  • L: Find sources for good scientific communication and simplify story/choices
  • B: Learn more about Unity lighting and shaders, begin composing elevator entry scene
  • Start finding media resources video, graphs, and images