Proposal Document Rough Draft

Note, this is a rough draft of the final year document. Sections, graphs and citations will be added in before the deadline.

Final Year Project Proposal Document

Abstract – 150 Words

WIP

Section 1 -Introduction (250 words)

For my final year project, I will create an interactive multimedia 3D visual adaptation of Gerald Manley Hopkin’s poem, “Spring”. This 3D experience will transform the poem into a 3D environment that the user can walk through and experience. The landscape will both represent the poems visual imagery and metaphorical messages. The experience will start in a winter forest, the landscape dead and cold. As the user slowly walks forward, a disembodied voice will narrate the poem. The words spoken will have a direct effect on the environment around the user, bringing life into the forest, through animations and visual effects. However, since one of the key themes of the poem is the passage of time and the loss of innocence, the environment will slowly revert to Winter, creating a loop.

Section 2- Business Context (600 words)

For my project’s business context, I envisage it as a prototype piece to be used as part of a wider exhibition in a gallery or museum. This exhibit would include VR technology to add a heightened sense of immersion, and act as an interactive tool for people to experience the poet’s work through a multimedia experience. By no means will this exhibit act as a standalone piece, but will function within a much wider exhibition, either dedicated to one, or a collection of famous Irish poets, such as W.B Yeats or Seamus Heaney. While the focus poem for this project is Gerard Manly Hopkins’s “Spring”, this multimedia experience could theoretically apply to most poems, especially those that feature a range of visual imagery.

To make this exhibit commercially viable, I would either try to sell this project to, or collaborate with, a museum that focusses on educating/displaying Irish literature or culture. Examples would include the Irish Museum of Literature or The Irish Museum of Immigrants, as they have a heavy emphasis in promoting Ireland’s heritage and culture.

Creating these experiences tied to Ireland is already a major priority for the country, as it contributes to Ireland’s growing Experience economy. Governmental bodies, such as Culture Ireland, a division of Department of Tourism, Culture, Arts, Gaeltacht, Sport, and Media can act as a source of funding for this project, as they provide grants to Irish artists and companies, to promote their work at strategic international events and venues. An example of this occurring in 2022 alone, Catherine Martin, head of the department, approved over €170,000 in funding for local and regional museums around the country. Corporate sponsorships to technology companies that specialise in VR technology, such as Sony, could potentially aid in the funding for this project as a form of advertisement.

The exhibit itself would be marketed as a fun and immersive way to experience famous Irish poems through a multimedia experience. Instead of just reading/interpreting the poem from an information stand, or from a book, the user can be transported to the world of the poem and experience the imagery and the emotions of the poem first hand. This could help the user’s interpret poetry’s use of difficult/cryptic language and writing, (depending on the poem of course), whilst establishing a greater appreciation for the medium.

While anybody can use the exhibit, the product will be specifically marketed towards third/second level students, literary enthusiasts, or tourists. To further target this market, tour groups and workshops can be organised with local school groups to help them learn, appreciate, and form their own opinions on Irish poetry.

Revenue generated from this exhibit will by primarily made through earned income. This includes ticket sales, visitor donations, exhibition/tour guide fees and gift/book shop sales.

Promotion/advertising could be done through a multitude of methods, depending on the project’s budget. One of the simpler and low-cost methods would be to launch an online social media campaign across popular platforms, such as Instagram, Facebook or TikTok. This method would not only be easily accessible for multiple demographics, but would also appeal to younger consumers, as they use these platforms frequently.

A potential issue for this project could include creative differences between myself and the copyright holder. Fortunately for this project, most of Hopkins published work has been in the public domain since 2001.

Cost could also pose as another potential issue for the exhibit. According to World Viz, the average cost of a singular VR installation could range from “$2,000 - $10,000” dollars, which if exchanged into euros, would roughly equal €1,898- 9,490. This, along with maintenance costs, staff training could impact the quality of the installation/experience if the museum lacks the optimal budget. This in turn, can affect the installation’s overall competitiveness among other sources of information, especially online.

Section 3- Cultural and societal reference (600 words)

While it is common to assume, especially amongst young people, that poetry is a form of literature best reserved for academics or exam halls, I believe that with the use of digital media and modern technology, I could change the attitude to what is seen as a “difficult” subject, and hopefully invoke an interest in the medium. Rather than approaching poetry from an academic standpoint initially, through the medium of animation, visual imagery, and interactivity, the student will be encouraged to enjoy the poem and draw upon their own imagination and opinion.

Poetry, by its very nature, is s a spare form of expression that forces the reader to interpret/understand what is being said. In the same way that a painter expresses their emotions and feelings onto a canvas, poets use literature in a similar manner, each with their own unique voice, expressions and identity.

Furthermore, due to the multifaceted nature of poetry, everyone has their own way of relating to a poem, which gives way to a wide range of different interpretations and meanings of a poet’s work.

For this reason, we should expect young people to respond positively to the medium, especially at the age where short forms of expressions and opinions are shared across social media. Whilst poetry has risen in popularity in Ireland, especially with Covid and lockdown, there is still the common notion that poetry is too hard to understand and approach.

While poetry can aid both students and adults to find and express their emotions, the examination system only measures the success of the student, not by their deeper understanding of poetry, but by their ability to analyze the medium on a technical level. This usually results in a set of formulaic interpretations being taught to students, that they must learn in order to pass successfully, “What my students’ anxieties boil down to is a sense of disenfranchisement: poetry is not theirs” (Amelia, 2014).

As a former secondary school student, I can relate to these sentiments. To truly find out if these experiences were universal with other people, I conducted a small survey asking current and former secondary schools’ students if they had struggled with poetry themselves. From those who replied, over 75% expressed that they had struggled with the subject. Reasons ranged from “memorizing poems word for word” or that “secondary school methods did not encourage deep reading”. (Harty, 2022)

It is for these reasons that the main aim of this project, is not for people to use this virtual experience as a tool for academic study, quite the opposite. By attempting to visualize my idea of Hopkin’s poem through animation and sound, I hope it will allow people to separate the mechanistic/academic side of poetry taught in schools and see the emotions and beauty that the medium has to offer.

Furthermore, this application of media has been proved successful in garnering visitors to museums, as they allow users a hand on and personalized learning experience with the material. This both encourages them to be more receptive to new ideas/topics, and it could potentially aid in retaining information more effectively.

I believe the same logic could be applied for this project, as having immersive animation and audio could aid users to interpret/visualize the difficult language and phrasing used in poetry.

Even if people do not agree with my adaptation of “Spring”, I consider that still to be a positive outcome. It proves that the experience has impacted the user to the extent that they have formed their own vision and ideas of the poem’s meaning.

Section 4- Description of Proposed Application or Media (600 words)

To implement this project, the main pieces of software I will utilize will be primarily Blender to create the environment’s main assets and, Unreal Engine 4 to program the environment’s game mechanics, create the landscape that the experience is set in, and to texture and add visual effects to all my assets.

Before moving on to the technical aspect of the project, I will draw and design a few concepts of the area map, in order to have the solid work plan to follow during my creation process. This includes taking reference photos, drawing dioramas of the map, making assets lists etc.

For 3D asset creation, I will go over what experimentation I have done over the semester that would aid me in the development for this project, the methods, and tools I will apply and what my general plan for what how I will use them.

One of the first and primary pieces of software I will use to create this project is Blender, a free 3D software modelling program. I plan to use this program as the primary method of creating my environments basic assets, such as trees, boulders, mountain faces, small pieces of foliage etc. Throughout this semester, I practiced using the software by experimenting and familiarizing myself the programs basic tools and methods for sculpting objects. The first object and probably most important was the doughnut pictured below, which was made using a mixture of the grab and transform tool in edit mode, and some of the sculpting mode’s tools, such as inflate and deflate.

Sculpting in Blender

From there, I also experimented with the programs texturing, texture paint, geometry node modes to fully bring my doughnut from a blank mesh to something that looked realistic and highly textured. While I understand that textures made in blender don’t translate easily over Unreal Engine 4, it still gave me a core introduction to the principles of node coding textures over meshes.

Texturing in Blender

After completing this first project, I continued to practice using Blender to create all the meshes for my 3D environment for the Virtual Reality Environments module this semester. This helped me to get more familiar using the program, helped me practice more with the program’s other sculpting tools, while also encouraging me to experiment without the use of tutorials.

For my projects landscape creation, asset texturing and level design, I will use the Unreal 4 game engine. Based on my research, the main reason why I’m using this program is because it’s good for beginners in C++ coding and game design with Unreal’s Blueprint coding system. I have also begun using Unreal in the Virtual Reality Environment Module, which has taught me the basics of importing and texturing models from blender and level design.

The project’s overall environment and landscape will be made using UE4’s landscape editor. Similar to the sculpt tools in blender, the program allows the user to create raised, organic looking surfaces. After setting the base foundation for the landscape, I will start texturing different sections of the map, while importing and placing my assets. The assets themselves will be unwrapped in Blender and textured within UE4 using blueprints. Textures will be either sourced within the program, downloaded from credible third-party sources such as Polygon, or be made in photoshop by myself.

It’s at this point where I will also start implementing interaction points using blueprints. These areas are invisible to the user and will trigger once the player walks into them. These events can range from text appearing on screen, assets in the environment moving (E.g., Plants growing) or audio being played. These triggers/points of interactions will act as key markers in the environment that would represent different lines of the poem.

Further features that will be programmed into the experience are a menu screen that the user can access any time while playing, light and fog effects or barrier zones so players will not stray away from the path.

Audio for the environment will either be sourced online or recorded by me. The poem will be narrated by one of my fellow colleagues after a trial period. If unsuccessful, I will consider hiring out a professional voice actor.

Section 5- Proposed Plan (your own word count)

WIP

Section 6-Summary (100 words)

WIP

Section 7- References (6 references for each section)

References will be properly cited

Section 2 References

https://www.worldviz.com/post/2023-worldviz-budgeting-guidelines-for-scientific-vr-labs#:~:text=Cost%20for%20installation%3A%20Typical%20cost,requirements%20for%20the%20system%20scope.

https://www.lyfemarketing.com/blog/cheap-social-media-marketing/#:~:text=Marketing%20through%20social%20media%20can,ways%20to%20market%20their%20businesses.

https://www.gov.ie/en/press-release/58f62-minister-martin-approves-over-170k-in-funding-for-local-and-regional-museums/

https://businessplus.ie/economy/budget-2023/experience-economy-ibec/

https://www.sothebysinstitute.com/news-and-events/news/the-business-model-of-the-nonprofit-museum