Kat Vision: Kuching through Virtual Reality
Project Date: 2017
Synopsis: In the City of Cats, the kittens of the Cat Statue are missing, due to an unusual phenomenon of portals popping up out of nowhere. The parents need help to retrieve the kittens from different locations throughout Kuching and are offering several 360 pictures of the places as rewards.
About the Game:
‘Kat’ stands for “Cat + Kuching” and ‘Vision’ for the sight-seeing nature of the game. Our goal was to spread global awareness about Kuching's unique heritage; its places, culture, history and people in the hope of boosting Cultural Tourism in Kuching. The whole in-game environment, storyline and characters were created based on Kuching. Due to time-limitation, we chose to only include a few places only, namely the Fort Margherita, the Friendship Park, and of course the Cat Statue, crucial to our game.
Kat Vision was created by two teammates and I, under the name of Vantablack, during my time studying in Kuching, Sarawak. The 3d Environment modeling, Character Texturing and Animation, User Inferface Design and Sound Work were fully done by my Team mates, while I was in charge of the Character Visualization, 3D Modeling and Rigging, as well as developing the game in Unity, for google Cardboard. We collectively worked on the Research, Conceptualising and Usability Testing.
An Informative, Adventurous, Mission-Solving, Virtual Reality Game about the rich History, Cultures and Landscapes of Kuching.
Kat Vision Trailer
The in-game journey consists of meeting several characters from different eras, exploring Sarawakian culture and playing a series of mini-games to get to the kittens.
The places to be explored are the Cat Statue, The Fort Margherita and the Friendship Park.
Kuching, also known as Cat City, is the place our game is all about.
Cat Statues, the symbol of Kuching City for years, were built in the 90's.
Drawings of the 9 cats. In the game, at the Cat Statue, the player is asked by the father cat to go through portals to different locations in Kuching and get his kittens back safely, in exchange for a 360-degree picture reward of the place.
Cat Model
Full Body Rig
Facial Rig
Weight-Painting
The Fort Margherita, built by Charles Brookes in 1879, was re-opened to the public in 2014, with the incorporation of the Brooke Gallery in 2016, which mainly showcases the history of Sarawak under the Brooke Dynasty’s rule.
Charles Brooke at the Gallery.
Charles Brooke Character Design Sketches.
Character Model.
Full Rig
The "Iban" tribe were considered as the best headhunters among the Dayak Communities. Based on their beliefs, tattoos have protective powers and are a person's link to the spiritual world.
In the game the player meets the headhunter who has just arrived back from the rainforest and has dropped his hunted skulls around. By completing the skulls pick-up game around the Fort, the player gets into the Fort with the help of the Headhunter.
Character Model
Model and Rig
Weight-Painting
The Friendship Park was built in 2005 to symbolize the collaboration between the governments of China and Malaysia.
Every year the Mid-Autumn Festival is organised by the Federation of Kuching and the Samarahan Divisions Chinese Association to preserve and promote the Chinese cultural heritage among people, especially the younger generations.
Zheng He was a Chinese admiral, diplomat, commander, and explorer of the early Ming Dynasty. He significantly contributed to the early expansion of China's political influences and immigration over maritime Asia during that time.
In the game, the player meets Zheng He at the Friendship Park and has to play the mooncake pick-up game to obtain a boat ride from the latter.
Model and Rig
Facial Rig
The Benches at the Friendship park represent the friendship between China and Malaysia. In the game, the Player meets the Orangutan at the Malaysian side of the Friendship Park and the Panda at the Chinese side, to release a Kongming lantern to the sky.
The Orangutan, native to Borneo forests, represents Borneo.
The Panda is a symbol of friendship and peace, due to its non-violent, gentle nature.
Modeling progress
Panda Model
Orangutan Model
Body Rig
Facial Rig
Tail Rig
We initially worked on a prototype under the theme of "Heritage Education" and presented our project at the HackWknd Kch hackathon, organized by Tegas Forum and MaGic, which took place at the Borneo 744.
Pitching Session
Setting up the Cat Statue Scene in Unity.
In-game visuals
In-game visuals
In-game visuals
Collecting Rewards
Collecting Kitten
Selecting a button through Gazing
The Main Menu comprised of the instructions, a Button that leads to the Gallery, another one to exit the game, and a last one that starts the game and loads the Cat Statue Scene.
The Gallery leads to viewing the 360 pictures collected as rewards in-game.
Buttons available during the 360 photo tours.
Brooke's idle cycle, in-game.
Example of conversation animation, close up.
Zheng He shifting from idle to talking cycle.
Cat Animations
At the Friendship Park, the Orangutan follows the player around when the latter agrees to help him. When he reaches the other side, he walks to the Panda to light up a lantern together.
During the Cannon-shooting game, the player aims at taking down the pirate boats before they reach the dock.
During the Skulls pick-Up game, spacial audio was used so that the player gets an idea of the each skull's location, based on direction and intensity of sound.
In-game visuals of the Cat Statue
In-game visuals of Fort Margherita
In-game visuals of the Friendship Park
Thank you MERUKED (https://www.facebook.com/meruked/) for allowing us to use their live-track, entitled "Nabud".
A big thank you to all the people who took the time to undergo our surveys and Usability Testing Sessions and helped us improve our game!
Exhibition Day