View a Demo of the project here:
Motivation.
The driving force behind our project was the desire to bring the inventiveness of Leonardo Da Vinci to life, as well as demonstrate just how far ahead of his time his ideas were. We were inspired by popular video games like Assassin's Creed 2, which placed the player in renaissance italy; we believe we have leveraged the benefits of VR to further impress upon the user how radical the glider was at the time (as opposed to horses and stone buildings), and allow technical impressions of the gliders construction.
Overall we sought to create an engaging, wondrous experience that could present the genius of Da Vinci in a new form.
Description of Project.
The user begins their VR experience in a cozy imagining of Da Vinci's workshop (constructed by Brenton Lin), late at night during Da Vinci's most creative hours. The scene features sketches of Da Vinci's work, objects and tools he might have used and some of his works in progress. Of the sketches, looking at the tank (Erian Vazquez) or parachute (Brenton Lin) sketches will activate animations detailing their respective functions. Looking at the larger, poster sized sketches of the Paddleboat (Erian Vazquez) or Glider (Karl Kniel) will transfer the player into separate scenes demonstrating the wonder of the inventions. We did encounter some difficulty in animating the tank in such a way that it's ability to fire 360 degrees, all at once, was expressed.
The Paddleboat scene features a detailed, moving model of Da Vinci's alternative marine transportation concept (not unlike the riverboats of the mid 19th century U.S.) The player has full control of the vessel and a detailed view of it's workings (animated by Erian Vazquez). The scene takes the player through a re-imagining of the place of Da Vinci's youth, featuring a mostly accurate modeling of the Ponte Della Maddelena (Brenton Lin) near his childhood home, and various fisherman (utilizing simple boats to contrast the complexity of Da Vinci's design.) Most of the issues in this scene involved balancing the fidelity of the scene with performance requirements for VR.
The Glider Scene involved a user controlled flight of fancy, as the soar through the air in Da Vinci's glider allowed a full view of it's intricacies and complexity; all while viewing the typical technology of the time (candle lanterns, stone buildings, transportation by horse) fly by under-wing. This scene was probably the most technically challenging, as Karl Kniel had to create convincing control scripts for flight, a dense (yet manageable from a performance standpoint) scene, that convinced the player that they were flying over a typical city, while acknowledging power limitations of mobile devices.
Learning Experience.
While demonstrating the Da Vinci's Workshop we received a lot different feedback. One of our interviewees was impressed by the machines and while he knew that Da Vinci had created some machines he did not believe they were this complex and advanced. Along with this the first interviewee noticed that the other characters in the world were using inferior technology, like the row boat and horses. The other two interviewees enjoyed the experience and learned about the complexity of the his work and were fascinated by the accuracy of this draws. Being able to turn his drawings to working models with little to no alteration was incredible to them.
A VR Experience created by: Karl Kniel, Brenton Lin, and Erian Vazquez
Sources/Acknowledgments
Contributions from various sources made this project possible-
Houses: http://www.turbosquid.com/3d-models/free-medieval-house-3d-model/727769
Boat: http://tf3dm.com/3d-model/davinci-paddleboat-96330.html http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-Nt0tIBmiYZU/U1bOWngpj3I/AAAAAAAAJBM/qdXGtnN6jAE/s1600/da+vinci+PaddleBoat.jpg (sketch) Glider https://clara.io/library?query=leonardo%20da%20vinci&page=3&perPage=24 http://www.leonardodavincisinventions.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/glider.jpg (sketch)
Tank: http://www.leonardodavincisinventions.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/leonardo-da-vincis-tank-invention1.jpg (sketch)
Water: http://kostiantyn-dvornik.blogspot.com/2013/05/unity-worlds-coolest-tutorial-about.html
Parachute: https://3dwarehouse.sketchup.com/model.html?id=d5d505c7a11f29a65c288fb30cd9ee47 http://leefgroep3vliegt.weebly.com/uploads/4/3/2/5/43253681/394626_orig.jpg (sketch)
Screw Helicopter: https://3dwarehouse.sketchup.com/model.html?id=218813089ecf0fa45c351e299b24e355
Easel: https://www.cgtrader.com/free-3d-models/sport-hobby/equipment/easel--3
Armillary Sphere http://www.turbosquid.com/3d-models/free-fbx-mode-armillary-sphere/606261
Unity assets: Wooden hut by gabro media Medieval Lowploy pack by hit jones 10 low poly medieval models by Bradley Heszelgraves Alchemy Station: by David Stenfors
Audio Sources: Workshop: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U4ke4e8hwGc Boat: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B5Ey1c33iFc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K5uQJqudHv4 Glider: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AWDvme_vuV0