Interaction - Bachelors

Signs of Life

The ‘Signs of Life’ concept aims to create a sense of community between the Deaf and hearing societies. Designed for all users, the concept more specifically targets younger children of middle and junior school ages. The design addresses the theme of Auslan education, aiming to creatively engage children into learning beginner Auslan signs.The concept creates a ludic experience that not only forms a visually intriguing installation but sparks an interest into studying Auslan for young Australians.

Tayah Hoekwater

A Playful Introduction to AUSLAN

Design Process

01. Ideation

Ideation for the designs look and feel followed an in depth process of various exploration methods. The machine learning technological capabilities of Dall-E was used to initially generate the possible appearance of the projected animals. Creating the images using buzz words such as, “Butterfly”, “Bee”, “glowing” and “swarming” the Dall-E images allowed for visualisation of the way the animal would visually appear in the glowing blue colour originally desired. These Dall-E images demonstrated how the colour and “swarming” / “schooling” behaviour of the animal projections could create a cohesive visual interaction environment. Furthermore, other visualisation techniques such as moodboards, sketches and digital collages allowed for more detailed exploration into design ideas.

02. Animation

Before programming any of the interactive elements, first the animated animals were created. Using the free 3D animation software ‘Blender’ the Butterfly and Bee animations were brought to life. Each animal was 3D modelled and animated based on online video tutorials. The wings were then animated with a wave form animation so that they ‘fluttered’ uniquely to each individual animal generated. These 3D models were then added as an object to a particle system setup. Applying turbulence to the animation allowed for the animals to move freely and uniquely at different speeds and flight paths towards the camera. A glowing texture was then added to both the bee and butterfly animations.

03. Implementation

The Signs of Life experience makes use of the game development software, Unity, and a motion sensor to accurately detect the hand signs made by a user. For accuracy and ease of development a Leap Motion, Ultraleap sensor was used. By installing the Ultraleap Gemini Unity packages into the Unity 3D project file I was able to experiment with creating the final interactive piece. Initially, a personalised script was written so that the background colour changed according to the hand sign made. This allowed for easy testing. Once the basic functionality of the interaction was working then the previously animated animals were able to be substituted with the background colour to create the final installation.

Video Demonstration

Tayah Hoekwater

Tayah has just completed her Bachelor of Design and Bachelor of Information Technology dual degrees at QUT. Majoring in Interaction Design and Computer Science Tayah is passionate about the way innovative technologies can be effectively integrated into a design space. Tayah hopes to further explore this passion far into her future career as an aspiring front-end developer.