Tuesday, 16 May 2017

Platinum Project Workshop 3


Last week we finished with one of the workshops of the Platinum Project! We had supervising teachers and project team members visiting us from Beijing and Hong Kong. Last time in Hong Kong we had formed four groups, and recently we had also received new team members from an university in Beijing and the university of Tampere. All in all the teams were formed from at least four different study paths! Within the teams we had many roles, and managed to split the work for everyone. The different team roles included programmers, UI designers, web designers, project coordinators, sound designers and of course, 3D artists. 




In all the teams we had made our own plans on how to merge virtual reality and nature elements together in a way that we could improve the player's well being. In total we have now had three different Platinum workshops. Last time in October we focused on designing the game concept while visiting Hong Kong, and this time we had an intense developing workshop here in Tampere, where the aim was to create working demos of our concepts. We can proudly say that all the teams succeeded in this challenge!

Screenshot of VR game project Magic Garden.


During the week, we had a chance to spend a lot of time with the students from Hong Kong and Beijing, and get to know them. The schedule was tight and most of the time was spent on building our game demos at Mediapolis, but the first day was a little bit different… We went to Flowpark! It was a fun challenge and a great way to bond with our new team mates. After the Flowpark adventure, we spent the evening in Varala, where we had sauna reserved. All of our visitors were very brave, and most of them took a swim in the still freezing lake in between sauna rounds. We feel that the workshop was a great success, and hope that our visitors had fun during the workshop and afterwards on their few days off exploring Finland. Our next stop will be Beijing, where we will have our fourth, and final workshop in August.




Text & screenshots: Eve Kyllönen and Tiia Viitanen 2017
Photos: Carita Forsgren 2017

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Tuesday, 25 October 2016

The Platinum project - workshop in Hong Kong

We had an exciting workshop in Hong Kong with the students from Polytechnic University. During the first day we explored the beautiful Chinese garden of Nan Liang and got to see how the local nature feels like compared to Finland's familiar pine forests. 
Thanks to the humid and warm environment the plants were green and bright. The most distinct difference for me, was the smell.

Here are some of my favourite pictures I took:
Bridge, trees and water. Together they make a nice picture.
My favourite Bonsai tree.

Some might find small bonsai trees unnatural and trapped, but I think they are cute and all have different story hidden behind them.

Bright flowers were easy to find in the garden.


In a Finnish forest the smell is fresh and distant, but in this garden it was strong but also soothing. If you closed your eyes and ears and only smelled the garden, you could forget the huge city around you.
Old water mill had a nice atmosphere around it.
We can see the city all around the garden.

On Wednesday we arrived to Dragon's Back. It was nice hiking trail close to our hostel. The weather was quite good. It wasn't too hot and didn't rain so we were lucky. The weather forecast said there could be a typhoon but thankfully it came after we had left Hong Kong.

Before we could start our climb, we had to walk through this peaceful forest path. After the forest we climbed up and down the "Dragon's back". The view was worth all the hard work.
Forest path.
We had to open pokemon Go. ;) All Dragon's Back hiking trail's gyms were full of Dragonates. That was well done.
The view from the top of the Dragon's Back was beautiful even with the cloudy weather.

For me, the greatest part on this trip was to meet new and old friends, and to see how different our cities are. Nature is amazing where ever you go, but it's also so unique. 
Our goal is to find ways how to connect nature with virtual reality games and help people to relax that way. 
This trip expanded my view how different nature can be, and how it affects everyone in various ways.

The theme for this Workshop was Virtual reality and many of us invested it in our game concepts. I can't wait to see what we have produced by next year.

Thank you all from this amazing workshop! :)

Text & Pictures by: Eve Kyllönen

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Thursday, 18 August 2016

The Platinum project


Riku Roihankorpi of UTA explains things for people at Hell's Gate

This project started with planning and team forming at the Tampere University OASIS premises. We went through the Hero's Journey model and talked about character types, but what I think made this project special, was how we were every day somehow connected to the nature. After all, our goal was to create a virtual reality app or game that would advance well-being and relax people with help of a forest-like experience.

Prof. Hanna Wirman from Hong Kong Polytechnic (left), at Lake Halimasjärvi with students
Lake Halimasjärvi in Tampere, climbing towards the Hero's Reward?
Meeting an Archetype: The Lake's Guardian (who measured the water quality)

I think the highlight of this project was the trip to Hell's Gorge, which is located in Helvetinjärvi (Hell's Lake) National park in Finland. 

Using our senses, sensei
Our guests from Hong Kong and Beijing universities were able to experience real Finnish nature and pick up some berries and mushrooms. Our task on that day was to experience nature with our senses and I think that was a nice way to think about the different aspects of the nature. For example, nature wouldn't feel the same if it did smell like a city centre.

Photo: E.Kyllönen

Photo: E.Kyllönen
 
Are these symbols of an ancient culture?

Lots of cute little Hell froggies!


Our whole week was an intense mix of walking in nature and building games and apps prototypes in our teams. 

We had abnormally good weather

A moment of relaxing at Hell's Lake (Helvetinjärvi)

This is NOT why they call this place Hell, but the climb feels like it anyway

The Heroes have returned from Hell, and are now Masters of Two Worlds. A moment of Dao
But it was also a great way to meet new people and work in international team while trying to build something different. I'm excited to see what happens when we go to Hong Kong and have our second Platinum workshop, in October 2016.

Platinum is more than just walking in forests

Text: Eve Kyllönen 2016
Photos: Eve Kyllönen, Carita Forsgren
Edits & Photo captions: CF

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