A tailored XR-program that pulls joint military planners and military officers closer to war, letting them experience full-spectrum war through the eyes and virtual bodies of different actors. The project included everything from real-time 3D-scenes, to immersive 360 videos, to detective work in a war room-type scenario to try to piece together what threats the civilian population of a fictional region were facing.
Generalist designer and creative technologist. Responsible for developing characters, 2D and 3D assets and environments, from sketches and concept art to modelling and technical implementation. I was also the creative lead and technical advisor for the novel 360 degree immersive videos that utilised 3D scanned furniture to vastly improve the spatial qualities and immersiveness of the experience.
I also helped facilitate user tests, and contributed extensive technical descriptions to the peer reviewed research papers that the project spawned. As the 360 videos included never before seen innovations, much work was put into various smaller prototypes to ensure that the solution was sound.
The XR-project explores immersive technologies and new pedagogical approaches to improve teaching and learning at the master’s degree level at NDUC on the role, utility, and limitations of force in protecting civilians from violence in contemporary armed conflict. The XR-project builds on more than a decade of research on protection of civilians and the military role, synthesized and conceptualized for military planners (and master’s degree students) as a Threat-based approach to protection of civilians.
The XR-project studies whether and how a combination of immersive technologies including, but not limited to, 360°-videos and interactive Virtual Reality-applications can provide teachers with powerful educational tools. The aim is to increase students’ immediate interest in a new topic for military planners and influence life-long learning about the ideas underpinning the threat-based approach to protection of civilians. The project employs cutting edge pedagogical theories, exemplified through embodiment, where students virtually experience armed conflict situations through other’s eyes and virtual bodies, including as victims of violence, perpetrators of violence, and as military protectors.
Of particuiar note is the novel approach to the immersive 360 videos where participants take on the role of both victim and perpetrator in a fictional conflict.
The videos incorporate seamlessly integrated 3D models, in the form of 3D-scanned furniture. To achieve consistent lighting, the scenes were first shot without the pieces of furniture - the actors had to pretend they were there, and act around them. Once we had a good take, we froze the set and lighting, places the furniture in the exact corresponding spot they were going to be in the immersive videos, and finally made high quality scans. When the scans were reinserted back into the dome-projected 360 videos, they gave an unmatched sense of depth, and their integration was so seamless that no participants even commented on them being there.
