UrbaNatur

My Role

Video editing, compositing, and project management.

About the project

UrbaNatur is a 360° video experience allowing viewers to explore the contrast between natural and urban environments in downtown Toronto using holographic animations and ambisonic audio. Try looking around in the scene with the mouse.

Have a Google Cardboard? Look around at different angles.

Moodboard

For our inspirations, we looked at a variety of different sources and locations. We all presented different ideas for locations and themes but the common
theme was to incorporate a ‘planet above a planet’ style of experience.

Video Flow

UrbaNatur places the user in a miniature world, and experiments with distinguishing aspects of locations in Toronto (urban and natural) through ambisonic audio, with added holographic projections of both urban and natural elements.

The user is transported through these scenes by manipulating their perspective, creating the perception of distinct “planets”. Over time, these distinct “planets” morph into each other, growing alike.

Video timeline

I created the timeline above to plan out how different scenes transition into others.

We created animations of trees, rocks, and mountains to grow in the “city scenes” (Adelaide, TD tower and Yonge and Dundas) and animations of buildings to grow in our nature scene (Grange Park).

Video production workflow

I created a production workflow to follow for creating this type of immersive video.

User Testing

Standing
Sitting
Leaning

Different types of spaces and furniture are best for different types of VR experiences.

I performed user testing for shorter samples of our 360 video. This was done by having users stand, sit, and lean in different types of chairs. In this particular VR experience, users were most comfortable leaning in a large chair to best ground themselves.