Jingle Ville Virtual Reality
Altspace World-Build 2020-2021
Medium: Tiltbrush VR
Highlight: Over 1000 visits in just three weeks (by word of mouth only). According to the stats, only about a 100 people visit AltspaceVR/day. We were 'influencers' during the xmas season and attracted more people than we ever thought possible.
Super Optimized tiltbrush world: 25 MEG (painted in file-heavy tiltbrush VR)
Creative Direction: Juliana Loh
World Build + Technical Lead: Nicholas Liang
Social VR + Guest Collaborator: Andy Fidel
(Credit: Interactable elements were created by Nera)
SUMMARY: Jingle Ville was created in an unbelievably turnaround of four weeks starting in mid November and going live on December 21 2020. We celebrated the theme: "The spirit of xmas" as a way to help people find a place to "escape" the rainy, gloomy dark skies and shortened days of our pacific northwest coastal city.
ORIGIN: Months ago, I saw an image of a fire fly on my friend's site. I had never seen a firefly in real life before and I was completely in awe of this little creature. It inspired me to share something that would give wonder to the world. In November, I connected with my friend Nick and we designed ambitious plans to create a xmas setting in lieu of the celebrations that were closed due to covid. We wanted Jingle Ville to be a place of refuge, fun and escape. We also wanted to see if we could solve the many technical problems around creating a virtual reality world in tiltbrush.
Creative Technologist Nick Liang and Social VR Expert Andy Fidel helped to bring this project to fruition. Nick wanted very much to show off his 'creative and artistic' design skills so I introduced him to altspaceVR where he learned the UX and technical flow. While I painted the assets and wrote the narrative, he took on the task of building the entire world: ground, water, mountains. He even designed a huge lake on which to go waterskiing thus taking advantage of the 'fly' feature in altspaceVR. I had already collaborated with Andy at her GETSOCIAL CAMP for Burning Man and so she was the perfect fit to help launch Jingle Ville. We received traction and visitors by connecting her world (WinterWonderland) to ours and vice versa.
TECHNICAL SUCCESS:
1) Optimized for viewing on Oculus 1
While tiltbrush assets have been added to altspaceVR, they have never been fully rendered and optimized to fit mobile VR standards and made accessible on the oculus quest 1.
2) Decreased the entire size of the world including ground plane, water and mountains and ALL tiltbrush assets to an astonishing 25 MEG. Nick's talent for optimizing was completely put to the test.
3) Completely eliminated Nausea by increasing refresh rates:
Our refresh rate stayed consistently between 40 fps and higher ensuring a smooth and comfortable experience. The number of people visiting an altspaceVR world increases the likelihood of lower refresh rates and thereby increases the discomfort (dizziness).
While there were many tours made of Jingle Ville, this video created courtesy of my friend Catherine D. Henry is one of the best versions of my world tour I have ever seen. Thank you Catherine!
"Jingle Ville celebrates that resilient spirit that beats within the hearts of every person who has ever believed in magic. It is the gift of joy, optimism, faith and above all, hope that is honored and revered. Jump into the marvelous world of Jingle Ville. Grab a cup of hot chocolate. Make a new friend and then sway to the beat of holiday music. This is the land where festive lights never fade and the conversation bright and joyful. Welcome to Jingle Ville."
Our world featured about a dozen unique creatures and beautifully hand painted buildings all inspired by cotswold cottages and bothy-styled architecture.
Conclusion:
In the three weeks that Jingle Ville was introduced, we were host to over 1000 visits with over 100 'favourites'. We offered several world-building tours along with workshops for educational institutions and/or private groups. It was such a privilege to meet some of the people I admire and have them visit Jingle Ville as it was to see the joy that we brought to the global community.
Q. How did we entice people to return to our world?
A. We offered them photography 'souvenirs'.
We "hung" all the photos that we took of people in Jingle Ville to the giant 100 foot xmas tree within the world. Just like decoration bobbles, our visitors had to fly up and down the tree to view the images. The result was, it created little enclaves of 'communities' where people could point to their visits and share their experiences in a relaxed and playful manner.
You can see images (souvenir photographs) of visitors on the big tree on the outside. Inside is the dancing mice that enticed people to learn how to fly. The concept of learning while doing/playing was a central theme in the design of Jingle Ville. For over four weeks, it made the 'favourite' list in altspaceVR.
Jacki Morie (firefly lady)
“Absolutely beautifully done. Each element of design is thought out. I’d like to bring my students in”
“Absolutely beautifully done. Each element of design is thought out. I’d like to bring my students in”
Greg Edwards (Designer and Pioneer behind Burning Man)
"A very unique aesthetic and very cool world!
Roz: Fashion Innovation Centre
“I am still amazed and thrilled by what i saw. It was such a pleasure to see your artwork in person. It’s hard to explain to the real world. utterly fantastic’.
Charlie Fink: Chapman University
“One of the best worlds I’ve seen in Althspace aside from Burning Man”
“It’s the artists who provide us with a vision of what can be created with the software.”
“You painted this in 3 weeks? You built the entire world and integrated it all in 4 weeks?? WOW Astounding”
"You have a gift for teaching"
Andy (prominent altspaceVR world builder from UK)
“You went from zero to zen! Your work is charming and better than any other tiltbrush world I have seen in altspace. You are the masters of tiltbrush”
Krampus Crew (Deidre Lyons and team)
"Fabulous and beautiful world! You can create an immersive play in here right now!"
THANK YOU so Much for everything!
