Aromatherapy.
A virtual holistic experience.
Aromatherapy is a utopian-inspired world of animated work by Noor Bondogji. This world consists of a natural landscape that leads you to a modern gallery of different animations that deals with varieties of positive energy in an open space. The gallery has a variety of animated scenes that play with vibrant colors, movement, and feels. The project is about the virtual senses that people feel when immersed in the world. It is about taking in positive energy in different forms, such as scenery, colors, and sounds. When you enter the world, you will follow the character to the installation and explore the different animations on the walls.
This project overall took about 3 months to create.
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Date.
Feb. - May 2021
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Role.
The designer of the virtual world and the featured artist for the senior Digital Autonomy BFA show on Newart.city’s platform.
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Deleverables.
All assets were created and designed through Blender , Youtube, and Adobe Premiere. All my assets are organized and imported into Newart.city’s platform were the space is created into a natural scene.
Project Description.
When audiences explore Digital Autonomy, they will come across Dome 2 where my piece is displayed along with my co-artists in the gallery. My installation introduction is of a cube with a video mesh of animation of an animated character used as a guide that will lead the audiences into the utopian world I built in Blender and incorporated into the Newart.City platform. Aromatherapy is defined as a holistic treatment that uses natural plant extracts to promote health, well-being and promotes relaxation and helps relieve stress. The choice of title is to achieve that same result in my world of embodying promotion of health, well-being and relief in a virtual sense.
The research for Aromatherapy was heavily focused on what “defines” our relationship with positive energy in our physical reality and how can we emulate those feelings into our virtual reality? Using my personal experiences of positive flow I created four different scenes of “mini realities” with embedded audios to create different feeling emotions in a virtual open space. The inspiration came from exploring what I do in real time such as, spending time with family/friends, taking a walk, and having me time and getting coffee. We experience so much fragmentation of thoughts and feelings in life that we forget to stop and take a breather. So for me, creating this world ties the definition of “Aromatherapy” back together in a physical sense while building my own actuality on a virtual and digital platform.
Aromatherapy was all constructed in Blender where each animation loop and the installation terrain are created with geometric shapes and plenty of digital manipulation to achieve the desired effect of a virtual natural environment. My artwork plays with vibrancy (of colors) and playfulness (of settings), movement and emotion/relaxation in some cases. I like to create work with open spaces that allows the audience to roam and express any emotion in the negative and positive spaces - with the question in mind, “what can their mind fill in?” Ultimately, I leave this world in the digital reality for others to use and explore their Aromatherapy at the comfort of their screens anywhere they are.
Show Proposal.
Before creating Aromatherapy, I made a proposal about what my idea for the senior show will be about, a gantt chart, materials I’ll be using to create my show, and provide pics of what my past projects were like to give my director insight of what I am capable of doing, and what will come.
After approval, the fun begins! I started to create my scene and objects through Blender. As I was working with Blender, I used Newart City to help test out my scenes and make sure everything fit in place. My work space is different from the lobby space of the Digital Autonomy show for San Jose State graduating seniors.
Digital Autonomy Lobby
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Outside.
Aromatherapy is located in Dome 2 of the DA show.
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Inside.
Once inside Dome 2, you will see Aromatherapy among other artists piece’s featured in the show.
Design Process.
This is the design process where each animation took anywhere between 1-3 weeks to build and test. The time put into each asset are between 3 hrs - 1 days worth of work.
Milestone 1.
Weekly process updates with the creative director of the show. Each pictures shows where I am at in the building of my show and shows the in process work with Blender and NAC (newart city)
Deliverables 3-4 Weeks In.
Half way through the building with the landscape entrance. This is where the tough part comes in with working with a big MB and a slow GPU system.
Final Touches.
With a week before the show, the last weekly update is with everything done and just going back to make sure to fix anything that needs fixing, and/or rendering last scenes for to import into NAC.
Walk Through.
This scene is the entrance from the lobby to the world space. This space shows an animated character that walks through the mountain and leading the audience into the nature landscape. In the cube, there is a loop of the walk through that has sounds of walking on gravel to give a real experience.
Landscape.
The Landscape that carries all the cube spaces. On the left is an HDRI that is put on a sphere and plays as a skybox.
Water Flow.
Water flow is an abstract of the ocean on loop. The colors are blue and purple to show the waves flows and creation of something soothing to our eyes and ears, The sound inside the cube is of soft water waves.
Enchanted Forest.
The Enchanted Forest is about a fairytale scene of a pan through a beautiful forest. The scene is set in pink and purple undertones to show the fantasy like scene. It is put over a sphere so when the audience walks inside, they are immersed into a loop of the enchanted forest.
Open Space.
Open Space is about being in open nature. The scene is of a camera perspective that leads you into a modern open gallery with the view of the water and mountain terrain. This scene comes with sounds of the ocean in the background that is meant to play with a positive flow of energy.
Aromatherapy.
This is the overall scene of Aromatherapy. It consists of four cubes that have different scenes and sounds for the audience to immersive in and experience an open flow of positive energy.
Digital Assets.
The Sphere
This sphere is where the installation takes place inside. It gives a realism to Aromatherapy
Time.
This took me 2 hours to create through Blender.
The Terrain.
The terrain is where the installation pieces are on. It’s meant to serve as “a walk through nature” realism for the audience.
Time.
This landscape took a days worth for me to make.
Challenge.
Once the assets were done, I imported them into Newart City. The challenge was getting the assets to show with color or full scene. The process was done multiple times before I got the right assets imported completely.
Solution.
I asked around for help on how to fix the imports and figured that others may have the same problem as me. I created a discord channel specific for troubleshooting to get feedback from my peers and help one another out.
Walk Through.
This scene consists of a loop animation of a walkthrough in a utopian terrain on a mountain range. This scene comes with sounds of the gravels in the background that is meant to play with positive flow of energy that audiences get to feel, see, and hear. All 4 scenes are created in Blender and then imported into NAC platforms.
The audio in this video is found audio of gravel sounds.
Water Flow.
This scene consists an abstract loop animation of the ocean with sounds of the ocean in the background that plays with a satisfying feeling and brings in positive energy flow.
Enchanted Forest.
This scene consists of a loop animation of an enchanted forest that allows audiences to escape reality and into a fantasy-like reality. This scene comes with sounds of the fantasy audio in the background that is meant to play with a positive flow of energy.
Warm Light-39688 Fesliyan Studios Background Music
Open Space.
This scene consists of a loop animation of the ocean in an open landscape on a mountain range. This scene comes with sounds of the ocean in the background that is meant to play with a positive flow of energy.
