The Rosanna project focuses on creating an interactive game character. We plan to work on blending motion capture in Motion Builder for things like walk cycles, and seamless transitions of unique motions to another as quickly as the player interacts with it. The character will be implemented in the Doom3 game engine within a default level in a third person perspective. Basically you will have a toy box with which to play with the character. Since our character is interactive, the storyboard is replaced with a flowchart of possible movements. We are considering combining this character with the levels we might build in the Online Worlds class but the feasibility of that is currently unknown.

The name Rosanna means the graceful rose in Hebrew origin. It?s fitting when we envision placing our graceful lady in a fantastic rose garden one day.

PROPOSAL :

1. Summary

We are creating a rose garden experienced from a 3rd person perspective observing the users avatar, Rosanna.
Rosanna is a spirit in the garden . a kind of representative of the spirit of the roses. She is a caretaker of the living energies, but not of the physical man-made space. Rosanna is animated using motion capture.
The garden is a display of natural beauty. The time is now, and it exists somewhere in New England but it seems no one has been in there in 20 years. There is a fountain that is left unfinished. It is surrounded by a flower bed. The gardener.s house is left somewhat aged with some mildew. There is a stone tower on the hill in the distance left to its own decomposition. The gate near the statue is rusty, and the door to the garden is water stained. The lampposts are also rusty but still light, and the statue in the rear is still lit. It has been abandoned, but not entirely. The flowers and roses still grow by nature. But the hedges are trimmed, and grass is cut. Does someone still take care of this place? It is unclear, but it is certainly not well kept everywhere. It is reminiscent of Edward Scissorhands and how you are first introduced to him . his garden is sculpted and beautiful, but his mansion is dusty and decaying.
It.s partially a transitional space in that you must walk through 70% of it, until you reach the back where the statue is. It.s not meant to be a smaller part of something larger as if you were to pass into another space, but it is meant to feel like you are part of a larger world that exists outside of the hedge walls. You also feel that something exists here, and that something is going on. As you walk you find others like yourself who dance into existence and fade away as quick as they appeared. They lure you further into the space towards the statue at the back.

2. Geometry/Brushwork

Scale of the level is meant to be small, but Rosanna is human size, in the real world. Since you are Rosanna, the spirit of the roses, you already exist there. You appear near an old door when you enter the space, but it is not certain if the door leads to the old stone tower on the hill, or if you even passed through it. The space is divided into a hedge .maze. with low wisps of fog rolling between the bushes. It.s meant to be a space with an interesting design to experience, not a challenge for the user to find their way out. The design is a rose when viewed from higher ground, like the gazebo. Down within the hedge .maze,. it is not so obvious. Lampposts guide your winding pathway up an incline into a grassy area speckled with fireflies, where the gazebo rests overlooking the hedge .maze. below. Nearby is the gardener.s house, and little further is the fountain. There are two pathways to beyond this grassy space. At the end of those paths is a circular enclosed area which contains a well lit statue placed there for display, with rolling hill sides allowing a viewer to look at the statue from above on the hill, and from below in a depression. The entire space moves from a darker, cooler, lower area to a slightly warmer, slightly brighter, higher space.

3. Texture

Much is organic, with some buildings of human inorganic design. All of the inorganic is aged with time, while the organic is fresh, alive and new. Green and natural colors depict the colors of the foliage, while neutrals, bright but aged colors describe the man-made structures. Twenty years have passed since a living person has been here. But time does not pass in the space as the user traverses it.

4. Lighting

Lighting is lit by the lampposts. Low fog (as a light in the Doom Editor) exists in the hedge .maze.. The time of day is near sunset, but it is not dark yet. It.s the time of day when light sensors outside of your house would turn on, although it.s not quite dark enough to need them yet. Temperature is a cool spring day, where it.s cool enough for fog, and not cold enough for a jacket, but fresh and crisp air.

5. Assets

I think we.ve described the imported assets already. Almost everything is imported, including the terrain itself, except for the hedge walls enclosing the space.