An immersive 3D virtual exhibition exploring the beauty and fragility of ocean ecosystems. Created with Unity, the project features interactive underwater environments, educational content, and a dynamic art installation that responds to user interactions.
If most of the ocean has never been explored, is it any surprise that people imagine it full of giant, mysterious creatures and ancient monsters? This project, named "Monsters of the Ocean”, is an interactive and unique visual exhibition designed to show visitors a mythical world full of prehistoric animals, dinosaurs, and fantastical creatures. The exhibition aims to make visitors feel adrenaline and curiosity. The high-quality visual images and movie clips are guided through audio and adventurous instrumental music. The guide of the exhibition is a monster-looking friendly guide called Jimmy. The exhibition's low-intensity blue lighting is to picture the movie-famous underwater feel.
The interior contains four points of interest (Figure 1) where players can experience the visuality of interesting pictures, movie clips from famous action scenes, and 3D rendering models of different objects, including terrain coast texture on the floor. The four points of interest are composed of images of "monsters", movie clips from famous action scenes, "real-life" 3D monster crab, and an ancient 3D sculpture of Basilosurus with a guide named Jimmy (an animated 3D character) that is also the leading voice of the exhibition. The visitor can also experience interactivity through the animated objects programmed to start the animation and play audio clips when clicking on the collided object. The exhibition intends to grow visitors' curiosity about the underwater world and paleontology. It might also be an educational addition to visitors who have never heard about these creatures and dinosaurs, and it encourages them to research more information or watch displayed movies.
The exhibition brings together prehistoric creatures and mythical sea monsters in a way that is unique. A mix of two worlds of mythical marine creatures and a segment of palaeontologic history is chosen as it could be familiar to a wide range of people. Some mythical creatures are also based on past beliefs and have been shared through stories, folklore, and present in books. As more than 80% of the ocean has not been mapped, explored, or ever seen by humans (National Geographic, n.d.), there is still a lot unknown about what is in the ocean and what was there before. The subject blends factual history, such as prehistoric dinosaurs, folklore creatures (such as Kraken* or Moby dick**), and captive curiosity across different interest groups. The exhibition focuses on the engagement of players to participate actively through the interactive clicking points, which are placed at stations of each point of interest. Each time the player clicks on the touchable point, it triggers audio to play (sound effects and guide recordings) and animation to reveal part of the exhibition. The graduate revealing of components should raise the curiosity in players. Jimmy's voice is supposed to be friendly, and even the focus of the theme is dark and serious; the voice should be comforting and add a feeling that the player is stepping into a fictional world. The experience plays instrumental, adventurous music, which is chosen to make the player feel specific emotions and have a sense of journey. The atmosphere emphasizes the elements of wonder by bringing the creatures alive and sparking the audience's imagination. The dark and blue lighting setting delivers an expansive feeling and provides a logical connection to the element of water. (Besserdich, n.d.) The primary audience at the exhibition is expected to be curious and adventurous individuals and families with older children. The entrance has a minimal age limit of 12 and above, as some of the scenes might be too explicit in picturing fights or the aggressive behavior of characters that might be scary for younger children. The exhibit is accessible to a wide range of audiences as simple language is used to guide the player in engaging in Jimmy's dialogues, using bright and sympathetic tones to ensure that the language is non-intimidating. Easy navigation through the settings and live scene is included for non-technical advanced users.
The subject was mainly inspired by the American 3D IMAX movie Sea Monsters: A Prehistoric Adventure, which was made in 2007 and about prehistoric marine reptiles. It has also been tie-in to the same video game. The idea of placing the audience deep into the ocean to experience reptiles from a short distance was the primary inspiration for the project. 3D animation can simulate complex phenomena, leaving visitors with lasting impressions and a more profound understanding (Immersive Studio, n.d.). The other inspiration is based on folklore stories such as Kraken (pictured on the title page Twenty Thousand Leagues Under The Sea by Julies Verne) and Moby dick (giant whale). Although the creatures have different visual looks depending on Regine of the folklore, the pictures of the monsters in the exhibition are taken from modern Hollywood movies. Additionally, the idea of the Karkinos (Carcinus) giant crab from Greek mythology, pictured in The Ocean Hunter game in 1998, was a suitable match to the theme. Another artistic influence comes from movies such as Pirates of the Caribbean, Dead Man's Chest (picturing life close to the ocean and its mystical creature), and Jurrasic World (picturing Mossasourus being so close to the audience that there is the feeling of danger).
The exhibit begins by placing plays in dark and ambient environments that simulate the underwater experience. The player faces three objects; one indicates navigating through the exhibit, and the second suggests clicking on touching points (the third object is - a sphere on the top of the cylinder). Once the player interacts - all three objects change their position out of the scene through the animation, and audio plays sound effects such as a click and audio recording of Jimmy's voice that explains the first point of interest in the exhibition. The first point of interest is the corridor with pictures of "monsters" and 3D models of coastal terrain. The player moves forward as the arrow indicates to face the fist move clip with another touching point. As a second point of interest, the player can watch movie clips from scenes of popular movies (such as Pirates of Caribbean, Jurassic World, Godzilla Minus One, etc.) that are themed into the subject - mainly displaying creatures in water or scarily interacting with humans. The player is indicated to follow the path where they can see another 3D object to create a sea feel. Both of these displays should bring a sense of curiosity and natural fear of something unusual that is supposed to be dangerous to humans if they meet.
When the player meets the third point of interest, a touchable element again plays, records, and introduces a 3D model of a monster crab; the touch triggers the animation of a rotating stand and allows the player to see the model from all angles. The guide recording also indicates the direction to the user with another arrow triggered by touching the third touchable point. (Figure 3) Once the players see the exhibition's last part, they stand in front of a wall that would be open by clicking on the touching point. The fourth point of interest reveals an animated humanoid character - Jimmy, and a 3D model of the sculpture. (Figure 4) This part should also bring a personal feel as the voice is attached to the character. The look of the guide suits the theme monster. The clickable points should add interactivity and keep the audience's attention. The interior of the exhibition should evoke the underwater experience and terrain near the water.
Inside Unity are multiple 3D model assets downloaded from third-party sources such as the Unity Assets store, Polyhavean, OpenGameArt, or Maximo. The Maximo - a humanoid character, is animated in Animator for a specific "talking" movement that is looped through the running scene. The 3D models were minimally modified - especially materials settings and color schemes to suit the theme. An essential part of the technology used is the interactive part of scripting, which consists of triggering animation and playing audio. (Figure 5.1, Figure 5.2) When used, clicking with the mouse to a "touching point" triggers the object/s to move from position A to B, rotating the object with a loop and playing audio in all cases. The audio sound is an AI voice-recorded script with downloaded sound effects at the beginning. The project was tested and debugged to ensure the transition worked smoothly. The challenge of implementing the right assets for the theme of exhibition was based on this project's budget and lighting setting to make assets stand out.
The project successfully brings interesting visual effects and designs that give the audience a sense of a journey underwater. The 3D models are a great addition to engaging interactivity that builds the curiosity of what is happening next. The room for improvement would be to make the interaction more varied and add 3D models that are suitable for a topic, which could be solved by increasing the budget.