In this semester-end project, we want to recall everyone’s childhood memories through unreal scene remodeling by combining ambisonic sounds and 360-degree scenes.
 
As Hong Kong is a prosperous city, we always live under high pressure and almost don’t have leisure time to breathe and let our brains rest. This made us think about the most relaxing time in our life until now, and the answer was childhood. When we were still a child, we didn’t have many worries; we didn’t know what GPA was; we just knew we wanted to play in the playground. Therefore, we want to mainly use the sounds and the auxiliary 360-degree scenes to rebuild the memorable playground.
Using the H3 recorder and 360 camera to rebuild the scene is necessary, but it may not be that interesting and interactive enough to produce an echo of the audience and us. Thus, we found a method to break this problem, that is, using the unreal engine to rebuild a scene that is highly close to reality and, at the same time, adding the ambisonic sounds in it to model a real-time 3D creation. Although it does not record the actual reality, it is close to reality. It produces interaction between the audience and the creator, which is the most important part of recalling someone’s memories.
 
On the other hand, this course is mainly about ambisonic sound and audio, which is something about the surrounding environment. So, we made some immersive artwork to let the audience feel and enjoy the message behind the artwork.
As the theme of this project is about memories, we chose a park that has deep meaning for us. The Cheung Wah Street Playground is going to be relocated, and it is right next to the creator’s alma mater; besides, the Tsz Wan Shan Estate Central Playground is a place that accompanies the creator to grow.
Last but not least, the technology used in this project: Luma AI(to help with the 3D scene screening and recreate it in Unreal Engine), Zoom H3 VR recorder, and FuMa format. After recording, we put the four-channel audio into the unreal engine, which fully supports this format. It will decoded into binaural by the engine.
References
Urban Renewal Authority (n.d.). Cheung Wah Street / Cheung Sha Wan Road. Development Scheme (SSP-018). Ura.org.hk. https://www.ura.org.hk/en/project/redevelopment/cheung-wah-street-cheung-sha-wan-road-development-scheme-ssp-018
Unreal Engine (n.d.). Native Soundfield Ambisonics Rendering. Docs.Unrealengine.com. https://docs.unrealengine.com/5.3/en-US/native-soundfield-ambisonics-rendering-in-unreal-engine/
luma labs (n.d.). Luma AI. Lumalabs.ai. https://lumalabs.ai/