Research:
When building this project, I wanted to focus on the fashion industry. I looked at other experiences built in the space, such as Burberry, Undercover, and other brands that had created experiences in VR. I noticed there were two sides to each, for the businesses, this was a way to advertise their brand and a new way to market their products. For consumers, this was a new way to purchase items and a more immersive way to view things before making decisions.
When looking through these, I identified the things that worked and didn’t work. The immersive aspect was fine, as the 360-degree environment allowed a new and more in-depth view of the clothing, however, there was not enough interactivity, meaning it was difficult for consumers to feel actively involved in the purchasing process. So when creating this, I wanted to ensure that both groups, the brands and consumers, were adequately thought of.
Identify the client
I spoke with a friend who owns a popular fashion brand in London called Dickson.com. He was interested in an experience that would allow the player to see the details of his clothing, as his suits had a lot of interesting angles and colours. He felt this was generally a deciding factor in purchasing, and therefore was imperative to the experience. Additionally, he felt that the user should be able to navigate a curated experience that matched his clothes’ aesthetics. When selling his collections, he often had them at galleries and pop-up stores where customers were able to navigate an entire sensory experience built around his seasonal collection.
This feedback was constructive, showing me how brands viewed VR, and what things were important to them when commissioning experiences. For consumers, I looked at myself as well a lot of my friends who attended fashion shows and events. We identified the things that we enjoyed about the experiences, and what influenced us to purchase. A lot of us said the models walking around with the clothing helped us make the decision, because we were able to see what these clothing would look like should we wear them to an event. There was also an influence of exclusivity, knowing that we were some of the only people at such a beautiful event with exclusive clothing that others might not be able to get.
Examples of Clothing (DicksonLim.com)
-Inspiration by revisiting the PowerPoint, Despoina
Team Formation and Resource Planning (Collaborative work element)
When creating this project, I had an extensive plan based off of research and experiences that I found in the market. I felt a lot of them had done things in VR correctly, but also, that there was a lot of room for improvement. As a developer with previous experience, I well knew my limitations when it came to creating projects. I looked online and saw that following tutorials to reach my ultimate vision would take way to much time and resources. This lead me to figuring out how I could accomplish this in a reasonable amount of time without exerting myself.
In my class, I saw I had access to a wealth of resources – rather they were tutors or students. I ran my ideas past them and they helped me to reign them in and assure I was able to finish in time while creating something meaningful and ambitious. I saw that a lot of people in my class were also busy with their own projects meaning they couldn’t help me with mine. This meant, I had to find alternative resources to help throughout the project.
I formed a team where I focused on the bulk of the development and all of the ideation, I built the base of the experience then left the pieces I couldn’t do for the rest of the team. My other team members were Carlos and Jenny. Jenny helped to create the scripts explaining the environment, and also recorded the voices for each area with instructions on how to interact. She was integral in assuring that the experience didn’t get to complex for non-VR users. Carlos was an additional developer who focused on doing things within Unreal such as cinematics and basic blueprinting. In addition to the team I formed myself, our tutor Natalia was a huge help. She was instrumental in the VR implementation such as the mechanics, as well as helping me put weights on the clothing.
Inspiration Videos