In this post, I will be exploring the concept of Digital affordance within my story and how it can be useful in certain scenes throughout the video.
What is Digital Affordance?
An Affordance is a feature or quality of an object that is defined clearly on how it can or should be used. It has a perceivable element that can direct a person thinking towards a certain action. Digital affordance is similar to this concept but translated into the virtual world, I want to be able to use assets within my story to indicate where to look and what’s going on more clearly.
How shall I apply it?
Within my story, I shall be mainly using sounds and light patterns to navigate the user through the experience, making their senses adapt to the environment around them while being in a stationary position. Since I want the experience to be within the eyes of a child (who’s afraid of the dark) I want to play on the mind’s curiosity when one of its senses is taken away, syncing the viewer’s perspective with the embodied character. Using travelling sounds around the environment I am hoping to conjure imagery in the mind when it’s dark, focusing on that sense throughout the video.
Elements of light will be used in this sequence to impact different emotions in the viewer, restricting them to what they can see. There will be 2 light sources within the scene, natural window light and ceiling light, these shall be differentiated by colour and brightness to create changes in moods. For example, at the beginning of the story, the ceiling light is switched on to brighten up the room, this shall be a warm yellow colour to show safety and joy letting the viewer be aware of their surroundings. As for the natural window light, it will be used when the curtains are blowing and the storm picks up, its main purpose is to give a flicker into the unknown and reveal things to the user. Assets such as toys from the wardrobe will be revealed as the storm gets stronger, slowly creeping forward to the bed while being warped into the darkness. As soon as they get to a certain point the scene goes black, cutting all sound effects and leading to a false build-up. The user then gets awakened by the sounds of birds chirping towards the wind and light fills the room, this should then give the viewer a sense of relief.
Notes:
When the objects are creeping forward or are exposed to light, a soft glow could be added to attract the attention of the user to increase the navigation process more efficiently. Also, light could be used not only for the scenery but within the camera lens of the character to create a sense of blinking.
In the next post, I shall explain how the Navigation process will appear within my video and how I will be tackling motion sickness with some form of grounding for the character.