Phygital Shopping Cart

Phygital = Physical × Digital

Phygital Shopping Cart is the second episode of the Phygital Supermarket Trilogy.

Shopping Cart Miniature Senarios

The main character of the story is a shopping cart (or a trolley). In a shopping cart in a supermarket, we designed six miniature model scenarios, which can be organically combined in a shopping cart. Each miniature scene contains a miniature version shopping cart to tell a short story, and each scene embodies a technology or design method which we explored with Cinema 4D and Redshift Renderer. We selected the most familiar, unremarkable, and most overlooked object in life (that is, common daily necessities in supermarkets), and explored these familiar objects through a unique workflow we developed with Cinema 4D and Redshift rendering technology. Things were explored on the playful side, either enlarge the size or manipulate it with Effectors in order to take a look at what magical effects will burst out. Therefore, in each mini-model scene, in addition to the narrative of the story, a technique is also expressed. As title sequence is used as the format of this film, we use the text on the screen to introduce the story and design techniques of each scene.

The following is a brief introduction to the content of each miniature scene:

1. Farm / Boolean

In a farm covered with LEGO blocks, apples are bitten off by blueberries.

2. 3D Cinema / Displacement

The iPhone becomes a theater in a small world. Video and flying texts on the screen are extruded out based on moving displacement maps to play “Real”3D movies to the audience which are mini shopping carts.

3. Playground / Painting Brush Strokes

Floating painting brush strokes are smeared into various slope ramps to create a playground for small shopping carts. Those brush strokes also smeared on gloves, and the bumpy surface becomes a rock wall for climbing. These paint materials are materials that we first test the shape and pattern in reality with real acrylic paint, and then scan, import, and manipulate in the digital world.

4. Restaurant / Voronoi Fracturing

Lay's potato chips bag becomes a building, where the inside is a cafe, and the big potato chips become a table for mini shopping carts.

5. Viewpoint / Anamorphic Optical Illusion

When the twisted patterns on the bottles are viewed at a specific point of view, they can be recognized as a meaningful texture or a perfect pattern.

6. Disorder / Mograph Cloner

The shelves in the miniature supermarket are disrupted by a mini shopping cart!

Title Design

Instead of directly overlapping texts on the screen, like what most title sequence designers did, we let the text become a real thing and an original part of each scene. For example, text is part of the package box design; or use masks to overlay the photorealistic rendering and non-photorealistic rendering or AOV maps generated during rendering at the same time.

Inspiration and References

THE BIG FLAT NOW: Power, Flatness, and Nowness in the Third Millennium

Zeitguised / Foam Studio

Honey, I Shrunk the Kids (1989)

Tools

Cinema 4D

Redshift

Credit

Designer, Director: Xin Liu, Yuting Zhu

Sound Design: Yuting Zhu

Special Thanks

Thesis Advisors: Peter Testa, Devyn Weiser

Theory Consultants: Marrikka Trotter, John Cooper

and zaoeyo (Xiaolin Zeng)!

Summer 2020

奇异购物车

这个作品是个人最近的探索研究项目《奇异超市 / Phygital Supermarket》系列三部曲之二。

购物车微缩场景

这个故事的主角是一个购物车。在一个超市里的购物车上，我们设计了六个微缩场景模型，这些场景能够有机地在一个购物车上组合起来。每个微缩场景里又包含了缩小版购物车，来讲述一个个小故事，同时每个场景体现了一种我们用C4D探索的技术或者设计手法。这里来解释一下为什么探索这些手法。这种叫做“BIG FLAT NOW”的新潮思想，从2015年起先在时尚界出现，而后蔓延到各个设计领域。通俗地说，这种思想认为设计师在设计或创作的时候不需要创造新的原素材，而把关注点集中在如何挑选、处理、操作已有素材。因为在现在的世界里，素材已经多到包罗万象，我们在“BIG FALT NOW”的指引下，组合历史的模型素材和未来的材料质感而不感到违和。例如GUCCI 2015年开始设计的衣服鞋子上同时包含各种互相缺乏联系的元素（运动鞋上放一个复古编织的花，等等）。回到这个作品，于是我们选取了生活中人们最熟悉，最不起眼，最容易被忽视的东西（也就是超市里常见的日用品），通过用C4D和渲染器的技术来探索这些熟悉的东西怪趣的一面，或放大尺寸，或经效果器处理，让我们来看看会迸发什么神奇的效果。于是每个微缩模型小场景里，在故事叙事之外，还表达了一种技术手法。正好这次用了title design的影片形式，于是可以采用画面中的文字来介绍每个场景的主题和设计手法。下面简短地介绍一下每个微缩场景的内容：

1. 农场 / 布尔运算

在铺满乐高玩具的农场里，苹果被蓝莓咬掉了几块。

2. 3D影院 / 置换贴图

iPhone变成了小世界里的影院，屏幕上播的视频和弹幕用置换贴图挤了出来，正在给小购物车观众们播放“真正”的3D电影。

3. 游乐场 / 油画笔划

漂浮的油画颜料笔涂抹成了小购物车们玩耍的游乐场，涂抹在手套上的笔触，坑坑洼洼的表面成了可以攀岩的岩壁。这些颜料素材是我们先在现实中测试形状，然后扫描导入软件做成的材质。

4. 餐厅 / Voronoi

乐事薯片袋子变成了建筑，里边是餐厅，大薯片成了餐厅里的桌子。

5. 观景点 / 视错觉

一个个瓶子上扭曲的图案在特定角度看的时候，恰好组成了完整的文字，正是奇异超市里的网红打卡拍照点。

6. 无序 / Mograph 效果器

微缩超市里的货架被效果器打乱了！