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the SOcial Butterfly EXperiment

Experience the monarch butterfly migration with motion capture & 360 Audio technology.
Team
Creative Director: Phoebe Lin
Producer: Eriane Austria

Technical Artist: Kelly Zhang

Gameplay Designer: Jeremy Suh

Gameplay Engineer: Tim Lin

3D & VFX Artist: Julio Martinez

Audio Engineer: Rayna Sevilla

3D & Lighting Designer: Juan Lopez

Texture Artist & 2D Designer 

Sharon Chang

Skills
Experience Design, Leadership, Interaction Design, Visual Design, Narrative Design, Set Design, Worldbuilding, Web Design, Scriptwriting, Gameplay Design
Timeline
Feburary 2024 - April 2024

Overview

I creative directed for this motion capture and 360 audio experience where I worked with team members to create a live, shared reality experience about the journey of monarch butterflies. 

 

Here I've created a summary of the experience and will do a deep dive into the game design and narrative decisions I've made to take this project one step above an interactive game:

Designing for a Shared Reality

1. I led the team in organizing a pitch deck outlining the user flow and technical implementation for a shared reality experience, which is defined as a form of reality derived from a strong common experience between many people. 

2. With the rise of dome experiences in 2024, I wanted to take inspiration and bring audiences through a spatial journey of many different environments.

3. I've designed moodboards to demonstrate the look and feel of each location on the map

KEY INITIAL QUESTIONS

It's a motion capture experience, how can we move around and use the space?

How can we make our experience drive social change?

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What theme would fit best? Bee dances or butterfly migrations?

What story do we want to tell to make this more than just a technology demo in the Lab for Immersive Media?

What are the best affordances that motion capture, 360 audio, and lighting can accomodate experience open to the public and audiences who are new to motion capture?

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Blending the Physical and Digital

Conducting a series of research stints to understand the different landscapes we can base our audio and visual experiences off of, I created informational moodboards and directed for the team to:

 

  • Design accurate levels to demonstrate real world circumstances monarch butterflies encounter on their journey.

  • Have direction in the audio design, 3D setdressing, and 2D branding of the experience.

  • Bridge the digital game engine component with the physical motion trackers and room through fabricating an interactive display with narrative about a mysterious Professor M hiring interns for a science lab for the Social Butterfly Experiment.

guest experience & Social impact

We opened for our first live showcase and garnered significant attention for the novel motion capture based social experience. We hope to move forward in the future with collaborations in this sphere to make the Social Butterfly Experiment more impactful. 

I designed the official website to demonstrate the team's vision and work for the public.
 

Landing Page
 

I created this website to demonstrate the overall deliverable and goals achieved in our 6 week production timeline. I've provided services in:

  • Research-Informed Art Direction 

  • Landing Page

  • Brand Guidelines

  • Experiential Learning Design 

  • Narrative Design

  • Copywriting

  • Gamemaster / Live Actor Scriptwriting

  • User Interviews and Playtesting

New technologies
and applications

After 7 weeks of pre-production and production, my team and I have delved into new technologies with motion capture, 360 audio, QTM streaming, and lighting to create a narrative-based edutainment experience. 

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In the future, I hope to apply this project to future creative directing and learning design for shared reality and social impact driven experiences.

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