List of Works

I want to sort of half-taxonomize and half-just-do-whatever-I-want to come up with ideas for what will appear on the island. Clear divisions between:

Meta-notes

List started 16 January 2024

Interiors

And then there are movement forms (separately?)

If we treated all these as separate rooms, we would have 22 rooms. It’s possible that that is simply not so bad.

List started 28 December 2023

Even more ruthless? Yes. Please.

UI

Rooms

(Unless specifically needed, every room is the same room with a single cube and a single light source.)

  1. . Window (custom room)
    • A room with a view and a shadow cast thrugh the window on a cube.
    • aka. A directional light on a cube
  2. . Point light
    • The “iconic” room with a standard issue point light cast on a cube
  3. . Spot light
    • A room with a spot-light cast on a cube
  4. . Mesh
    • The shadow of a more complex mesh
  5. . Two lights
    • Probably two point lights
  6. . Casting
    • Two cubes, one casts and the other doesn’t
  7. . Cookie
    • Spot light with a cookie (window frame is a classic?)
  8. (Receiving)
    • Cube that does and cube that doesn’t (and a cube that casts… hmm, could be more of an outdoors thing where more complex arrangements make more sense?)
  9. . Acne
    • Set the bias to fuck things up
  10. . Bias
    • Make it ridiculous (floating)
  11. Normal bias
    • Make it ridiculous (struggling to do so)
  12. . Shadow only
    • An invisible cube casting a shadow
  13. . Movement
    • A point light orbiting a cube
  14. . Gold
    • Glimmer in an alcove, the tribute (this is a specific setup of the vase)
  15. . On and off
    • A light going on and off
  16. . Near Plane
    • Decrease it so that the shadow gets chopped in a weird way
  17. . Low Quality
  18. . Hard
  19. . None
  20. . Area light
    • Can I bake? (looks like it)
  21. . In and out
  22. . Shadow strength (animate)
  23. x? Translation (of the object)
  24. . Rotation (of the object)
  25. . Up and down

Things to figure out: Can you dynamically change quality? Can you have different quality shadows? Hard, soft, none What would be a fun “standard” mesh I could use. Something simple from v r 4.99 that I could reuse? No texture.

Sculptures

Do I actually want the sculptural stuff to illustrate specific things or not?

Dynamic light trigger areas…

Diases

List started 6 November 2023

(Note there is another list below this one for reference.)

I’m going to be a bit more ruthless on this one having done a good amount of work in the previous list, so it’ll just be an enumerated list in this case, informed by my “learnings” around Blender, pixel lights, and other elements.

Words to live by

Questions

Abilities

Exhibits

  1. Gaps and holes
    • One or more outdoor structures that show light passing between gaps and holes to create shadow patterns. Probably just the existing diminishing gaps and also a surface I will subdivide repeatedly to create smaller and smaller holes
  2. Windows
    • One or more rooms with windows in them, the windows letting in light, the light probably falling on a cube in the room.
    • Possibly the idea of changing the directional light when the user enters to create different light qualities inside the room (dawn, dusk, moonlight, red light, …)
  3. Light types
    • Point light on a cube
    • Spot light on a cube
    • Directional light on a cube (see Windows above) This raises the question of how to categorise (or not) different sets of rooms, and of course gets back to the whole questions of signage (or not)
    • Area light on a cube (do I want to look at baking this thing? I mean I should at least try it out, though I bet it ups the size of the project significantly?)
  4. Hard/Soft/None
    • The three shadow types. It would be nice to figure out a light style and mesh style that actually distinguishes hard and soft
    • Not that with three types you can’t have all three active (unless I up the maximum pixel lights in quality settings? Which I could) Should I increase the maximum pixel lights to 3? Would that magically be “enough”?
    • Could introduce the idea of a light that cycles through different effects - a script that could do this, it turns on and off and each time it goes back on it’s a different light with different parameters, a bit like the Martin Creed but meta I do quite like this and I should try it out. Slow enough not to count as a strobe/visual problem.
  5. Multiple lights
    • Just have two lights on one objects (a cube?)
  6. Casting and not
    • Have an object that does cast shadows and one that doesn’t, illuminated by the same light
  7. Receiving and not
    • Have an object that does receive and another that doesn’t, with a third object that casts a shadow onto both of them (or would)
  8. Acne
    • A room that has a light that causes acne (either just on the walls of the room or on a shape in the room as well…)
  9. High Bias
    • A room that has a light with very high shadow bias
    • OR possibly that lerps through a range to show the bias move?
  10. Shadow only
    • Objects that are only visible by their shadows.
    • Probably nice as an outside thing, but would also look kind of cool and weird inside. Probably keep the colliders so there’s the sense of something solid and shadow casting that you simply cannot see.
  11. Me and my shadow
    • Diases that change the player’s shadow to a specific mesh
    • Most obviously just the default meshes, but maybe also one complex mesh?
    • Could put an example of the mesh next to the dias to indicate what it will switch your shadow too
    • Maybe you start the game with no shadow and only get one later?
    • Should there be a dias that removes your shadow?
  12. Motion
    • A room where a light orbits a shape or similar ideas of the light in motion
  13. Quality
    • Maybe one of those sequence affairs where the quality goes up and wraps
  14. Cookie
    • Have a shadow cookie, maybe an opportunity to have the shadow of something kind of complex?
  15. Strength
    • Maybe an on off light that randomly chooses a shadow strength? Or climbs and falls like the other ones… so that you see the shadow weak and then stronger and stronger… Starting to build a picture of maybe being able to illustrate some of the ideas rather than needing to say something about them. And in all honesty if I can’t make something VISIBLE it’s not worth exhibiting…
  16. Dias lights
    • Diases that turn on a specific light Note that this will depend on the time of day, so we may want to think about either setting the time of day with the dias itself, OR having the idea that it’s different times of day in different locations on the island?? That sounds amazing, though insta-fucks baking? ALTHOUGH could I bake a single room?
  17. Gold
    • The dim glow of gold in an alcove
    • Lest we forget
  18. Tunnel

List started 26 September 2023

Gaps / Passing through

i.e. the idea of light passing through a defined gap/window to illuminate what is on the other side but also to create defined shadows in the negative space.

  1. Mind the Gaps Exterior
    • A series of vertical structures with decreasing space between them to the point where light no longer passes through and the shadow takes over.
  2. A Windowed Room Interior
    • A room with one or more windows
  3. A perforated wall Exterior
    • A wall with different sized holes in it…

Basic Shadowplay by light type

i.e. Just a causing an object to cast a shadow. What counts as basic though?

  1. Cube and Point Light Interior
    • A room with a single cube and a single point light casting a shadow (soft)
  2. Shape and Spotlight Interior
    • A room with a single shape and a single spotlight casting a shadow
  3. Shape and directional light Interior
    • I like the idea of completing this set with a window that casts the directional light into the room that then casts a shadow from an object in the room (need to line that up properly)

Are these all individual rooms or one room with the three things being demonstrated (will clearly have “interference” in terms of the multiple lights, but perhaps that’s okay). Also probably should all be cubes.

Hard and Soft and None

i.e. Demonstrating the difference between hard shadows, soft shadows, and no shadows. How to do this? A single room? What about interference between the lights? Maybe that’s nice? Note the difference between casting and receiving too… separate concern?

  1. Hard and Soft and None Interior
    • First approximation is just three lights (spots? points?) with each of the qualities maybe aimed at different objects but inevitably causing shadows on the others? Or I suppose spots would be able to completely separate which might be nice.

Casting and Receiving

i.e. The difference between whether an object casts shadows or not and whether an object receives shadows or not.

  1. Reception Interior
    • Two objects with one light, one of the objects does not receive shadows and the other does. Or three objects to include the cast of receives but doesn’t cast. It’s kind of oddly complex. Might need separate kind of combinatorial examples?
  2. Reception Exterior
    • Maybe this can be an exterior thing with multiple objects grouped together that do/don’t cast/receive shadows.

Multiple Sources

i.e. The idea of multiple lights and therefore multiple shadows

  1. From All Sides Interior
    • Maybe the idea of a single object with N point/spot lights around it causing it to cast shadows in multiple directions. This may look quite nice.

Bias / Acne

i.e. The idea of playing with the bias settings in a controlled environment (maybe an elongated room for a bunch of examples) including shadow acne being induced through low bias.

  1. Acne Interior
    • Maybe an acne room all on its own?
  2. Bias Interior
    • Maybe a longer room where a series of lights cast shadows at different bias values on individual objects. This could involve acne too of course. Might have to be spots for it to work? Do spots cause acne?? ahahahahahaha

Invisible shadow-casting

One or more objects that are invisible but also cast shadows (this can be Exterior I think)

The Shape of You

i.e. The shadow cast by the player, some opportunity to switch it somewhere? Another interactive dias? Or a room where your shadow changes when you go in?

  1. The Shape of You Interior
    • If a room, then one where in different areas your controller’s mesh/geometry switches around to cast different shadows or no shadows at all. Ideally capsule, the other basic primitives, and maybe one or more fun meshes?
  2. The Shape of You Exterior
    • If an exterior thing, then maybe a dias where if you stand on it you switch shadows to a random new shadow. Less controlled and maybe less legible? But would allow you to experience new shadows longer term in a variety of environments. Maybe different diases where you can “collect” different shadows? Maybe they have a little model exemplar of the shadow they provide?

More generally I like the idea that we’re only casting the shadow… so the visibility of the mesh/primitive itself isn’t there, just the shape. That would allow for more diverse shapes that wouldn’t occlude the camera or other things.

The light within

(Exterior)

A dias where you can cast a light? Or I suppose just the general idea of having a torch or something along those lines? I.e. casting shadows by pointing a light at them. F for flashlight?

Accumulations

(Exterior)

i.e. the idea of just having one or more installations outside that involve multiple shadows combinining in fun ways? Archways? Lattices? More organic shapes? A chance to mess around a bit and not care too much about formality, just to try out shapes.

Motion / Animation

i.e. the idea of a moving light source (again probably interior) or a moving object (could be exterior). Lots of potential motions here including orbits or linear motion or weirder motion. But also the question of scale of object, rotation, and also area of effect of the light.

  1. Moving light (Interior)
    • A point/spot light that moves - could orbit, could linear, could rotate (spot)
  2. Moving object (Could be exterior or it could be oddly distracting outside…)
    • An object (cube?) that moves and casts a shadow that will inevitably change? Could even animate a pole that goes up and down out of a peak to show a lengthening shadow effect?

Color

Interior and exterior

i.e. Changing colors of light presumably changes the color of the shadows? Would want to test that. This could apply to a room (Olafur time, Turrell time) or to the sun itself.

On and off

Interior and Exterior

i.e. the idea of a light source (or object?) turning on and off, so there are shadows and then no shadows or different shadows. No need to go quickly and give anyone a seizure though. Maybe a small sound effect (a click) to indicate it happening? If lights go on and off should connect this to the physical instantiation of the light (switch materials I suppose? Or switch of emission? Or something.) Could do this with the sun too, a dias that simply switches it off while you’re on it. (Also: that guy… Martin Creed)

Quality

(Interior)

i.e. the … wait can you do this per light? Yes. So lights with the different levels of shadow quality in a single room.

Cookies

Sounds interior

i.e. Lights can take cookies and it might be interesting to create a specific shadow cookie (how to represent that on the physical light if at all?)

Strength

Sound interior

i.e. Lights can cast shadows at different strengths. So create a room with lights that accomplish that. Spots are going to be the main kind of light for a bunch of these demos I kind of feel because they won’t create as much interference – though again I should test this out with point too because that interference/combination could be quite lovely?

Realtime shadow color

Could be exterior on a dias.

This is an environment setting on the Lighting panel and I’m not sure if it can be changes. Maybe via code? In which case it could be a dias, but it somehow sounds a bit annoying? But if I don’t include it I’m in a situation where I’m not demonstrating one of the core proprties of Unity’s shadows

Dynamics

Oh god, what about dynamically changing properties (like bias) rather than demonstrating separate things? Or both conceivably? Starting to feel like a shitload of rooms. On the other hand it’s a way to have a single light-source that changes dynamically…

This is a relatively major one. Is it better to see change over time or change over space.

Outdoor Lights

(Exterior)

Some variety of maybe toggling lights outside - a huge spot that illuminates the world, a point light in the context of the outside, etc. More diases.

The sun

(Exterior)

Some ways of seeing the impact of the sun on the world. Most obviously its rotation through a day/night cycle, but also other thoughts like colour, brightness, etc. that should be changeable (again have to think about permanent changes versus “while you’re on the dias” changes) On/off.

I’m leaning now to thinking that all changes are just “on the dias” and that when you step off it animates or simply snaps back to the default setting. I think I like that more and it allows me to be totally intentional with the default position of the sun. Even though it necessarily means that you couldn’t do an “interior at night”? But maybe…

Interior at night

A room where on walking in a trigger makes it nighttime outside and you have a window that it’s therefor moonlit or similar, plus the exerience of looking through the door and window and seeing the night. If there’s a moon it should be visible from the window of this room. That sounds quite lovely. Clearly interior

Gold

I keep forgetting I need a gold material to demonstrate the idea of that in combination with a dark and shadowy room, the alcove (maybe make an alcove). Will have to be interior

Materials

Do shadows look different case onto different materials? Like how do they respond to normal maps? Something to look at and perhaps experiment with. Could be exterior

Objects

Demonstrate the shadow of the primitives and of a mesh or two. But also what happens when a shadow is cast onto these different shapes. (This could be exterior)

O, Cloudy Day

What if there were clouds moving slowly up in the sky?