Porosity Lens Brief

The concept behind my Porosity lens machinima is to demonstrate and observe people's movements through spaces which form an interaction between their surroundings and actions. Using the original train station model I have modified it by removing most of the train tracks platforms and simply mirrored a section of the railings to form a continuous structure. Half the structure railings have been stretched down and attached to a solid platform which will serve as the basis for the people's movement.

This was then mirrored and attached to create an identical structure forming a symmetrical space. The spaces shown highlighted in my sketch installation serve as the multiple different sections that the structure is divided into, using simple panels created in sketchup, the gaps in each section hanging overhead were covered using these panels and would appear using the ProximityTriggerOpacity flowgraph for my AI characters moving through it. The proximity triggers were each individually placed in the spaces of each section so when an AI character was present within that area, the panels would appear overhead.

The proximity triggers were tweaked to only recieve AI presence by ticking 'OnlyAI' to be true and 'OnlyPlayer' property to be false. This was done in order to only allow the AI movements to interact with the space and not be inteferred by the player. The structure itself was given a 4.8 value of glow in order to highlight the panels which had a dark material.

This effectively allows us to observe which sections of the structure are currently inhabitated by an AI character moving around the space. ALl movements and actions of the AI characters have been individually customize so that they continuously move around the structure in a looped pattern at different speeds and different positions.

When observing overhead or simply by viewing which panels appear, one can get a sense of the patterns and amount of time people spend in each space. The final result I believe portrayed this quite clearly, as the viewer is able to see the AI characters move around within the space and when entering different sections of the structure, trigger the opacity panel relative to that section.

Since this was quite clear and an easy to understand concept, I purposely did not add in text explaining my hypothesis because this would only distract the viewer from observing the actual interactions and movements shown in the video. Furthermore, with the added glow to the structure and dark panels I used a time lapse to display the movements of people and what interactions they had with the building as time passed by. Along with an overhead view of the structure, I believe this was an effective way to present how people move through space and how they interact.