In this essay, I will discuss in depth the production and the development of The Egypt Expedition - The Immersive Experience. I will explore in detail all 3 steps of the production (Pre-Production, Production and Distribution) for this experience.
Pre-Production
Creating this project I tried to find the best way of delivering a small educational experience that can reach a high number of people. In my pre-production phase, I researched different communication alternatives that evolved during the last 2 years of the pandemic. Understanding where the market is going is an essential step in creating a successful product. When you are looking to create a 3D interactive experience your list of options is shrinking significantly. Wonda VR is a 3D engine that uses 3D Stereoscopic images and videos to deliver the story. "Our goal is to make collaboration more meaningful and engaging, across geographical and cultural distance." (WondaVR, 2022). Unfortunately, Wonda's engine is not powerful enough to support 3D assets. Being priced at £1500 / Year, WondaVR is falling quickly from my plan. Further, I explored additional solutions such as Tvori and conventional 3D engines such as Unreal Engine 4 and Unity but based on my limited experience with the software I moved on to something that can sustain my workflow.
The artefact was created using the online platform Hubs by Mozilla. Hubs is an online service that allows individuals from all over the world to connect and share ideas in inspiring virtual places. Companies, teams and friends used Mozilla Hubs as a communication platform, especially during pandemics time. As Zoom and Teams were positively affected by the pandemic, registering sales 72% higher than before, Mozilla had their benefits with a boost in users of 35%.
Mozilla Hubs allows creators to discover and build new immersive places using Spoke. Spoke is their 3D Engine built inside their browser. With minimum coding and 3D modelling skill, creatives can explore a huge library of assets to share their ideas.
Having previous experience using Spoke, I decided to implement my project within Mozilla Hubs. Eventho, Hubs is a great platform for transmitting ideas and organising social events, it has its weaknesses. The platform will not support files bigger than 150MB and not very detailed textures. Knowing the advantages and disadvantages of the platform I was able to formulate and streamline my workflow. Using Blender, I was able to create some of the assets for Hubs and lower the size and the details within the objects. Once I was sure what software I will use to create and publish my work I adjusted the story to match the channel of distribution I used. The initial mechanics of the experience was adjusted to be easily accessible by inexperienced individuals independent of their age. The overall experience serves as educational material that delivers a mild historical insight. Schools and other educational institutions will constitute my target audience with a higher concentration on history. The project will be also designed to be accessible to children with disabilities as it will not be built on complicated commands.
The Story
Understanding the history and the development of the place is essential for understanding the meaning and the backstory of this experience. As I've stated before, The Mysteries of Egypt is an Immersive Virtual Reality Experience that will transport its viewers back in time. The project wants to achieve this by combining history with fantasy storytelling. Based on the historical discoveries, the experience will add to the story of the existence of an ancient artefact that promises to heal and cure one of the most feared diseases on Earth. The theory behind the story is based on real beliefs that the locals of Egypt embraced. In the book "Myths and Legends of Ancient Egypt by Joyce Tyldesley (2010) is stated that the local citizens of Cairo were going to the pyramids to see the future and to gain knowledge from the past pharaohs. Additionally, the gods of Egypt guided the myths and the beliefs of the people towards ancient items that possess unimaginable powers. The knowledge and healing were coming from both herbs and talismans. For example, the scarab is seen as both a protector and love keeper if its wings are closed and a balance between life and death if the wings are open. Similar meanings and myths generated the idea behind this Immersive Experience. The small backstory of the experience is a mixture between reality and fantasy, combining elements of both fields. In the experience, The Egypt Exploration Society hires you to go back to the exploration site and search for the lost artefact. This artefact is placed inside the pyramid in the new void discovered in 2016. The magical artefact has been several times mentioned in historical magazines
but it was never marketed as something that exists. The researchers cannot deploy an entire team to go to the pyramid as this might damage the integrity of the structure of the artefact. The item you are looking for it is a bronze amulet that has been worn by King Khufu at his coronation. In ancient Egypt the coronation was not a one-day event, the celebration often lasted weeks or even months. Festivals and feasts were healed in the name of the new pharaoh. At the celebration, gifts were given to the new king alongside the symbolic element of his god and his father Dynasty Ring.
In the story, the player will impersonate one of the students of Jean-Philippe Lauer. Professor Jean-Philippe Lauer was a famous Egyptologist and architect that got involved in the analysis of The Pyramid of Giza for the first time in 1934. He conducted a careful analysis of the artefact recovered from both the complex pyramids but the Tutankhamun sarcophagus and other valuables recovered from the monument. Jean-Philippe led the excavations of the main galleries of Giza, generating important conclusions on antiquity and its society. Lately, he retired from the university in France where he continued his studies and started teaching students
Egyptology and archaeology. Finally, he died in 2001 at 99 years old in Paris.
As stated before, the main character is impersonating the professor's student which has been multiple times recommended by Jean-Philippe itself to different institutions and official Egyptology research labs. The exceptional work you've done as part of the university where the professor taught, led you to be hired by multiple institutions that studied Egypt and its history. Your mission is to go once more inside the pyramid and to find the artefact. Once you find the ancient piece you will need to secure it and safely transport it back to the research institute.
In the experience, you will be guided by small hints of the character's past that can lead the player deep into the backstory presented. You will be placed inside the pyramid at the entrance that has been created by thieves back during the Dynastic period. The player will be provided with a minimum of equipment that will facilitate the possibility of further exploration. As part of the starting package will be a touch, a laptop containing files of the case, and a communication device. These items will be displayed in front of the player o a table. As part of the starting kit, the files on the laptop will display a bit of the backstory and it will guide you towards your objective. The road to success will not be obvious from the first seconds. The artefact will be hidden inside one of the objects in the room. From the actual structure of the pyramid, we can find the first trap just above the main entrance. The contraption is formed of 2 massive steel plates that are meant to collapse one on top of the other to seal the pyramid once the construction is done. This reinforcement determined the creation of the second entrance as the thieves knew of it from the locals. The second and third trap is placed in the burial chambers just before the main archway. They are constituted by 2 wholes connected to the air shafts which will throw 200 kilograms of sand at the entrance to the chambers sealing them. However, the burial chambers were pierced by the thieves and everything was stolen. Within the experience, the traps were left out as Mozilla hubs will not allow complex gravity systems. Additionally, the mildness in the difficulty of this experience will contribute to the final educational target. Informational materials will be available to explore the environment offering more insight into Egypt's history.
Once the players are comfortable with the room around them, they will be able to find and click on the artefact. As soon as they click on the interactive object, they will be transported into a new room. The second room will represent a modern gallery with more items retrieved from the Pyramid the last time. The player will get the chance to explore the environment again and find even more information. The models will be again linked with info cards from real life, the majority linking to the British Museum Website.
Production
The production of this experience was slightly limited due to the chosen platform. For the creation of 3D models, I used Blender. Inside Blender, I carefully modelled the meshes keeping count of the polygon count and the complexity of the textures. As the textures for the items could not be high-quality I used a technique called double-framing. Double-Framing is allowing me to use a smaller texture sample and double its capacity by multiplying the frames. In simpler terms it allows me to create a pattern from the same repetitive texture without eating the computer power of creating huge file sizes.
Using Spoke, I assembled the entire scene and prepared it for Mozilla Hubs. The 3D meshes were imported perfectly without any glitches. During the assembly period, I supplemented the scene with some additional items from Sketchfab. During the development of the first room, I encountered some difficulties with the integration of the links. Most of the interactive buttons worked fine, but the most important one did not. Despite my efforts of integrating the jump link into the object itself, I was unable to render the scene without an error. To fix this small problem I placed a link holder inside the vase, hidden away from the rest of the room, allowing you to click on it and get transported into the next space. Inside the first room, the items around you will have an interactive panel that will redirect the viewer to one of the informational pages I created as part of my blog. I chose this approach to mimic the experience of being in a real museum surrounded by informative plates. The whole concept of either getting yourself immersed inside the 3D space or accessing the information around you is always something that excites me within museums.
Putting the second room together was very strongly inspired by the first room showcasing ancient Egypt from the British Museum. In a different order, you can see the huge scarab sculpture in the middle of the room, with very closely the statue of the Menkaure. Around the room, you can find more historical artefacts including the talisman you just found. All of the items presented inside this room are displaying optional information about their real history. One last interactivity screen can lead the player back to the exploration teleporting them to the first room at the beginning of the experience. This acts as a checkpoint for everyone who wants to spend some more time exploring the environment.
Ambience and Lighting
Being an experience developed in Mozilla Hubs, the resources for lighting, particles and sound are limited. However, using other production software such as Adobe Audition, Aspera and ProTools, I managed to create a realistic sound mix that is playing inside the rooms. The first room has a sound mix on 7 channels recreating a day in the desert. Multiple sound layers such as sand, wind, falling glass, leaves, particles dispersing sounds and other small bits of foliage were mixed together to create a 2:45 minute piece of music that will immerse the players into the first room.
The lighting conditions in Mozilla Hubs are also very tight, as the engine will not support complex reflections or shadows. Knowing this I relied on the technique I used for another similar project in VR. Building senses is a small application I developed that allows the players to immerse themselves in a sound and light-driven environment. Similar to that project I used lights to attract players' attention to the items on the display. In the first room, I integrated one of the spotlights with the torch mesh to give it a much more realistic feel. Inside the second room, I prepared the lights in a warm colour to give the player a more comfortable mood. To enhance the achievement of finding the artefact a single spotlight on cool colour is sitting above the item.
Distribution
As explained above, this project serves an educational purpose. To accomplish the goal of the project, I partnered with Hereward College from Coventry to use my project as an innovative tool for introducing virtual reality and exploration to their students. "Hereward College is a national college for people with disabilities and additional needs based in Coventry. It offers learners a varied curriculum that focuses on skills for independent living and employment." (Hereward College, 2022). Their students need all the help we can offer to integrate them more easily into modern technology and immersive arts. Even if this application is simple and limited for the general user, for them this project offers an alternative way of finding and exploring information and accessing a piece of history. If this collaboration will be successful I will further develop the application by integrating more accessibility settings to be even easier to use. Additionally, the head of the college proposed to implement some classes for the interested students to try Mozilla Hubs and to further explore its capabilities.
Finally, The Mysteries of Egypt is a small experience with a huge potential that will eventually reach its target. From a generic application including puzzles and interactivity, it got more streamlined focusing on serving a much narrow target. With the games and immersive market growing, developing different applications for different people is essential for reaching the masses. Mozilla Hubs, with its downsides and limitations, offers a great way of sharing ideas and spaces for every individual. Being an online service is also great for sharing your project with others. Requiring no coding and minimum computer power is a powerful tool for any creative mind without experience or skills. With creativity and Mozilla Hubs the sky is the limit on what you can create.
References
1. Hereward.ac.uk. 2022. Hereward College for young people with disabilities and additional needs | Home. [online] Available at: <https://www.hereward.ac.uk/> [Accessed 29 April 2022].
2. Britishmuseum.org. 2022. British Museum. [online] Available at: <https://www.britishmuseum.org/> [Accessed 29 April 2022].
3. Hubs.mozilla.com. 2022. Hubs by Mozilla. [online] Available at: <https://hubs.mozilla.com/> [Accessed 29 April 2022].
4. Verner, Miroslav (2001). The Pyramids: The Mystery, Culture, and Science of Egypt's Great Monuments
5. Tompkins, Peter (1971). Secrets of the Great Pyramid. New York City: Harper & Row.
6. Romer, John (2007). The Great Pyramid: Ancient Egypt Revisited. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
7. Smith, Philip (1873). A History of the Ancient World. Vol. 1
8. Arnold, Dieter; Strudwick, Nigel; Strudwick, Helen (2002). The encyclopaedia of ancient Egyptian architecture
9. Cole, J.H. (1925). Determination of the Exact Size and Orientation of the Great Pyramid of Giza. Cairo: Government Press. Survey of Egypt Paper No. 39.
10. Vyse, H. (1840b). Operations Carried on at the Pyramids of Gizeh in 1837: With an Account of a Voyage into Upper Egypt