Project Titan

Cindy, Jake's Girlfriend
Jake, Cindy’s Boyfriend
Michael, Jake’s Brother
Nathan, a friend of the group
Madeline, a friend of the group

Jake’s Family
Cindy’s Family
Cindy's Professor & Classmate

On August 7th, 2008, Jake Reves was arrested for the murder of his girlfriend, Cindy Malcolm. Cindy was found dead in the forest having sustained a fatal stab wound to the neck, and a twisted ankle. Jake was later found in his house, heavily intoxicated.

Jake and Cindy go into a fight at the local bar the night before.
After the fight, their friend Madeline said she saw them drive off together. The next day, Cindy’s body was found in the woods.
Jake does not have any memory of the night before and therefore can not 100% deny his involvement in it. The murder weapon was never found.

13 years later a knife is found in the lake near the where the crime was committed with a faded initial of "J". It is believe to be the murder weapon, but while Jake has never been able to state for sure if he ever killed Cindy, he declares with total certainty that the knife does not belong to him. So who does the knife belong to?

The narrative is being framed as true events - the information is being presented as a case that actually happened 13 years ago and the information is being released online for users to come across via Twitter. It is meant to pique the interest of users with multiple threads that lead into different directions and pieces of evidence.

We use this to relate to the "Allegory of the Cave" and how we showcase how the information available to someone will change their views, as well as how often people only take the surface information presented to them to make a final opinion on something without digging deeper to see what else could be lying beneath.

The user will be able to move through various platforms and pieces of information. The way we have it laid out, each piece can allow the user to come up with their own understanding and results, but without all the pieces of information coming together, they may not come to the "true" reality that we the designers have concocted.

1. Covid concept, choose the options of what path to take forward 🤮
2. Blair Witch, news shown about an event as documentary or - SHOWN AS FACT. 🧙‍
3. Viral Zombie pathogen. 🧟
4. Murder Mystery, could be something from the past 1960, with vote cast at the end. 🔫
5.News story being represented with user to decide if it is true or not. 📰
‍

This depicts the planned out user flow of interactions done by the user. It is a comprehensive web of information and connections that when fully discovered, will explain the whole story of what happened that night.

Worked on the brainstorming for the project, used miro as a point where we could lay out content easily and see different paths the user could take (the presentation with different ways, like the “blank” wheel etc...) Created a plan and set basic expectations of where to go. Plus the first draft of the story.  

Researched content, and knives. Created the basic model for the knife.

Created content for police reports

Create a basic police report

Helped create the style and mood board for the story and concept. The intention was a murder mystery with a bit of a darker/realistic atmosphere, so I collected imagery that fit this mood.  As the project manager, I also worked on the project management side.

After a brief brainstorming session at the beginning of the project, the group decided to go with my proposed narrative. I was tasked with creating and polishing the overall story, all the characters within it, as well as the location and events that took place.  
Within the team I was consulted for all matters regarding the narrative and had final say on changes to the plot. I outlined the main timeline and worked with teammates to hash out what different events would require and the various plot pieces/clues that needed to be made.  

After the team decided on the direction we will be going. I started collecting images for the mood board and organize information to create the first presentation slide show in Adobe XD.

Created first full version of the police report.

Created logo police, Uxbridge news

Got the UX WordPress site setup, purchased domain

This phase was the team beginning to implement a lot of our content we drafted and planned. This was also where we began to hit some road blocks and where we had to find ways to work around the obstacles to keep the core of the story.

Drafted and created content for the social media posts. The social media platforms decided on were Twitter, Tumblr, YouTube, and Facebook (which later changed to Imgur due to some account verification issues). The first step was creating the main posts for each site. Twitter was to be used as the starting point for the whole narrative – it would directly link to the updated news report which is what “triggers” the whole story itself, of the knife being found and believing it is linked to the original murder of Cindy Lockhart.

Tumblr was to be used as a hub of extra information on the case with the lab report and witness statements, as well as where we house our 3D model of the knife and 3D scene of the crime scene.

YouTube was for leaked audio from an interrogation with Jake’s (the one charged with Cindy’s murder) brother, where he reveals important information that he was the one who last saw Cindy after driving her from the bar, as people mistook him for Jake.

Facebook was original to be used as a location for leaked screenshots of conversations between Cindy and her friend Madeline, and between her and Nathan – the guy she was cheating on Jake with. The intention was for Madeline to be “tagged in these” with more comments to further the web, but due to Facebook's privacy and security, when it came time to create the social media accounts, we were unable to. So it was switched to Imgur.

After all the content/posts were drafted along with all the comments that would go with each that would act as rabbit holes between the platforms, the next step was making the accounts.

Using emails under the WordPress and domain for the news sites, created accounts for all posters and users/commenters. This was where we ran into the issue with Facebook and changed to Imgur.

The other content created alongside this was the crime lab report for the original murder that would be found on the Tumblr page, as well as the comments that would go on the news site articles.

At this stage, I worked to create the content for the news articles regarding the narrative. This task was given to me to maintain continuity between the plot points and ensure the narrative was easy to understand and follow.

This step included creation of three main articles, as well as the comments that would be posted along with them. One of the articles later became a leaked audio clip that was posted to YouTube. I was tasked with creating the script for this, as well as recording and voice acting the lines along with my groupmate Chris.

Lastly, I created the content for the police news reports that Chris would then post on his fictional website. This involved working off of his created templates in excel and generating plot relevant details to be given to the user.

Start working on the 3D crime scene: I first plan out the dimension and settings on illustrator as a blueprint. And after few revisions with other team members, we had a common vision of what it might look like. I started my development process in Blender first because initially we did not plan to put any interaction in, and was going to use 3JS to set it up on the web. I also imported resources from the internet to show other team members the scene in the early development. Unfortunately, I ran into a few problems with the 3JS and made the testing phase difficult. Yet we need to have stable early testing to guarantee the final product performance.

And that is when I decided to transform to Unity. Steve's tutorials on Unity helped a lot and were fast and easy to understand. I had little knowledge of Unity before, which make the onboard process quick. In phase two, I was primarily troubled shooting player movements and camera movements. And also spend some time setting up the scene and apply the material.

Finalized the texture and added the necessary details such as the lettering.
Switched to a new platform with provided Three.js
This is where I was able to switch from using obj and MTL to glb. This allowed the content for the images and such to remain in one file.  
Had issues modifying the code, but got it to be less jerky. The main problem was that object was way too far away or too small, and that the controls were too sensitive. With a quick motion, the entire object would move way too fast. The speed of the object was simple. The spacing of the object was more of an issue. However, after trial and error that was completed.
Voice recorded to help with the YouTube video

The final phase was finishing up final bits of content and launching our project. Again, some issues arose and we one again needed to find some workarounds. But the end project still came out true to the vision we created in the beginning.

Finalized that last bit of content for the social posts. Created the screenshots that were to go on the Imgur site. The next step was to start making posts. The comments on the news site were done right away as we had control to change the timestamps. A timeline was created so we could make sure everything was posted in an order that made sense. I.e. The YouTube and leaked audio would be before the updated news report, so it had to be posted first. After that, it was the Twitter post, and the rest of the content came after. Two issues we ran into were on YouTube and Imgur. For whatever reason, neither post would allow comments. YouTube turned comments off, and Imgur would not allow for a public post, only a hidden one that does not allow comments.  
To get around this, we used the bios to put links to keep the cycle going, but it did reduce the overall web

I assisted Rick in the creation of the final project presentation, going through and explaining what each element of the narrative’s purpose was, and detailing how we achieved the intended goal for each one. This stage was relatively brief, as it involved explaining the relevance of everyone’s previous work in short paragraphs.

Setting up 2D map and refine 3D crime scene:
‍
In phase three. I first started setting up the 2D Map. This process was slow but kind of fun as you get to create your own desire map using Google satellite view and photoshop. I spend a lot of effort in making the map look natural and then build a display website for it that links to the 3D crime scene.
‍
The 3D crime scene was where I spend the most time. I used a terrain tool to draw out the terrain and apply ground material. Then I add details such as rocks, flowers, grass, trees, sunlight, etc. All of them are imported from the assets shop in unity, which some of them don't fit with Unity's current vision. Which I have to spend a lot of time troubleshooting. I then add walls to restrict players explore the area. And under Steve's suggestion, I expanded the viewing area and made unexplorable area details using billboards instead of models to reduce the file size. I also added a skybox to enhance the immersive experience. I was initially going to add fog into the outside environment but after many attempts, it didn't work very well as it both increased the file size a lot and doesn't look right. So I used invisible blocks that active when players touch to trigger a floating UI to tell the player they had hit the wall.