Interactive Digital Aquarium
For my final master's degree project, we were given the freedom to do anything at all as long as it involved some kind of digital media. My group and I created what we called the Interactive Digital Aquarium, an exhibit that showcased motion-reactive 3D models of imaginary sea creatures, displayed in glass jars in a Pepper's Ghost-style illusion.
From the day of the exhibit: the motion-reactive visuals we created are displayed inside glass jars fitted with clear film placed on top of iPads to create the illusion of a hologram
Project Type
Degree project
Time frame
3 months
Tools Used
Software: Blender, Touchdesigner, 3DS Max, Ableton
Hardware: Leapmotion, Kinect Sensor
Context
When given the brief, all 5 of us in my group decided we'd like our project to be centred around two things: art and motion-reactivity.
James told us about an optical illusion called "Pepper's Ghost", a popular stage technique which involves using a sheet of clear film placed at an angle inside a glass container to create the illusion of a hologram inside the container when it is placed on top of an image.
We spent about 3 weeks talking about how we'd incorporate art, motion-reactivity and Pepper's Ghost. Finally, we came up with the concept of the Interactive Digital Aquarium.
Ideating, Learning, Experimenting
Month 1 was dedicated to coming up with ideas for our imaginary sea creatures, as well as figuring out how to actually execute all of our ideas. We were already familiar with 3D modelling software like Blender and 3DS Max, but we realised we'd need something more powerful to make our models motion-reactive. Some research and experimentation led us to Touchdesigner, which seemed perfect because it allowed us to not only create animated visuals but also connect them to the Leapmotion and Kinect (motion-sensors that the school provided us with).
Made using Touchdesigner, when we were trying to figure out how the software worked.
The first few prototypes
Creating the models + Modifying the jars
Month 2 was spent creating our models and animations using Touchdesigner, Blender and 3DS Max, as well as procuring the jars and film, and attaching the two.
Setting up + Making the background music
By month 3 we were more or less done will all the modelling, so we started setting up our physical space in the Science Gallery at Trinity. We also used Ableton and an M-Audio Oxygen 25 MIDI Keyboard to create the background music for the exhibit (linked below, click to listen!).
Conclusion
This was one of the most fun projects I've ever worked on and I loved every minute of it. I really enjoyed learning how to use Touchdesigner and Ableton, even though the learning curve was quite steep, especially given our time constraints. I'm also grateful for having been given the opportunity to be as creative as possible and make utmost use of the resources available to us.
