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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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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Sunday, 26 April 2015

Cool Week in Hong Kong 20.-24.4.2015


View over Hong Kong, from the PolyU Innovation Tower
Hong Kong skyline, near the Space Museum
Between the 20th and 24th of April, two of our Tamk Media and Arts lecturers - Howell Istance and I, Carita Forsgren - went to visit Hong Kong. (Yes, the city, not the Finnish hardware and various items store by the same name.) We were there by the generous invitation of the University of Tampere, Centre for Practice as Research inTheatre. Thank you also for being such nice travel companions, Riku Roihankorpi and Maria Salomaa! What a pity that Jaakko Lenni-Taattola was not able to join us, due to attending another conference.

 Here's what the CPRP has published in their blog.

Howell Istance, Riku Roihankorpi and Maria Salomaa: our first evening in Hong Kong

Riku tries out a student installation work at the
Innovation Tower, HK PolyU
Maria and Howell at the
Happy Valley horse races
So, what did we do in Hong Kong, except going to the Happy Valley horseraces, the Nan Lian gardens & Chi Lin Nunnery, street shopping at the Ladies' Market and other places, hiking on the Dragon's Back and seeing interesting museums? (It was Maria and Howell who went to hike the Dragon's Back, and Riku and I who rather hiked in the History and Space Museums.)
Chi Lin Nunnery

Local meat shop
Well, we did manage to get some work done, no small thanks to Hanna Wirman and her colleagues at the Hong Kong Polytechnic University,PolyU Design.
One of the entrances to the Hong Kong Polytechnic University

Jockey Club Innovation Tower at the HK PolyU, where we had the workshop
Hanna Wirman

Maria, Howell and Hanna, as we were drinking coffee
and tea at the HK Polytechnic University
"Dr Hanna Wirman teaches and coordinates the Game Development stream of MSc in Multimedia & Entertainment Technology and supervises game design projects, often with a focus on social responsibility and innovation. She leads educational game research projects working closely with the local community and NGOs in Hong Kong."
Entrance to the Innovation Tower

One of the student installations

We had some dim sum at the staff restaurant
(and learnt real quickly how to use chopsticks)
Among the interesting people we met were also Ida Kathrine Jørgensen (Hong Kong PolyU), Olli Leino (City University of Hong Kong), Simon Niedenthal (Malmo University), Kaneda Yasuhiro, and many others.
Simon and Yasuhiro

Riku, Maria and Simon
Here's where we met Olli Leino


Virtual cave installation

Mocap lab that Olli showed us
From our meetings grew an idea; it's too early yet to start explaining it here, but we all were pretty excited about the possibilities for mutual collaboration towards one goal. I - and all of us - hope that the seed we planted will grow into a fine tree that stretches its limbs between the continents. Ah, maybe I've already revealed too much... But stay tuned - there will be interesting opportunities for students to do fun projects and workshops!

Hong Kong skyline, seen from the Star Ferry,
as we went back to Kowloon to our hotel


Text & images: Carita Forsgren 2015

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