Karina Chow | Desert Dream

For our class Hypercinema we had to create an interactive animated experience in AR.

We decided to do a little experimentation and wanted to create a pop-up book of surreal worlds that came to life via AR. Around the time we started this project was when AI image generative tools like Midjourney and DALL-E were released and gaining popularity, so we thought, why not leave the imagery to those tools and use its creations as inspirations for the animation work?

So first we have to decide what type of papercraft best contrasts the new-age technology of AR but is still achievable with our skillsets?

Choosing a form factor

Because we had several options for each of our scenes, we wanted papercraft options that allowed for several scenes. Thus we thought of…

A photograph of a popup book with a castle emerging from two pages A photograph of a 5-sided carousel book with winter scenes A photograph of a tunnel book with a scene of a dragonfly and flower

Pop-up Book. Pop-up books are a childhood favorite. Each scene could be a different spread of two pages. The only problem? They’re very hard to architect and none of us had ever made one before.
Carousel Book. During our search, we ran into carousel books, which we thought looked perfect! Though, after talking to our professor, Marianne, we found out these were also very hard to architect because of the angles involved between each of the points of the star.
Tunnel Book. Marianne suggested a tunnel book. These were getting closer to what we needed, but one thing we were concerned about with tunnel books is because of its accordion like structure, the layers aren’t always a predetermined distance apart. We were worried that this might make it more difficult to “map” the layers in AR.

Winning Idea: Paper Theater

Ding ding ding! We have a winner!

A photograph of a My Neighbor Totoro paper theater

A paper theater has all the simplicity and effect a tunnel book does, but with rigid layers are separated via spacers and are consistently the same distance apart. It makes it less collapsible, but it fit our need nicely.

Scoping down

The original plan included different AI interpretations of 3 surreal landscapes: Forest, Ocean, and Desert.

Given our time constraints, we needed to scope down. We went from 8 scenes to 5, to 3, to 2. We stuck with a day and night vision of a surreal desert biome.

Here are some of the assets for the scenes we descoped. I largely focused on creating backgrounds using Midjourney as a base and DALL-E's outpainting tool, while Jess and Alfonsette focused more on the creatures and props:

A surreal and dreamy forest landscape where the tree canopies become part of the sky Surreal looking jellyfish shaped mushrooms A set of colorful mushrooms

A long landscape of an enchanted forest with magenta foliage An illustration of a glowing blue tree A magestic looking stag with glowing antlers

A landscape of a haunted forest with deep magentas A magical forest octopus A 4-up of several kodama-like mushroom forest spirits

Given just two scenes, we concluded our paper theater would be in the form of a big 12 x 18 inch storybook, with a 12 x 12 inch top square for the day desert, and a 12 x 6 inch bottom rectangle for the night desert.

Generating the assets

We actually chose the one biome we had no assets for yet and decided to make it a truly collaborative process.

Day Desert

The joy of using AI to create assets is that you’ll never know what it’ll produce.

Jess wanted to make flying camels, and assumed the camels would have wings, but instead DALL-E decided to make superhero and helicopter camels. Here are a few favorites. Just look at how delighted they are to fly!

A flying camel with very long helicopter blades, generated and extended using DALL-E A flying Camel A A flying Camel B A flying Camel C

I worked on plant life, so went with succulents and palm trees. Using Midjourney, I ended up with some photorealistic succulents that looked like animals in disguise, and a very neon looking succulent pretending to be a palm tree.

Using DALL-E's outpainting tool, I was able to take my Midjourney palm succulent and extend it further.

This looks like a happy crab This looks like an angry crab Originally we were going for bioluminescent palm trees Top of the succulent tree generated with Midjourney, the trunk extended with DALL-E

Alfonssette was in charge of the background. She tried a few styles before settling on something more realistic. Our final day landscape, followed by two runner-ups

A near photorealistic looking desert with dunes of sand A surreal looking desert landscape with stippled trees and a sunset A surreal desert landscape with porous trees that resemble sponges

Night Desert

We did the same process with the night one. We all really wanted bioluminescent lizards and flowers.

Lizards created with DALL-E, flowers by Midjourney.

We all really wanted bioluminescent lizards and flowers. Lizards created with DALL-E, flowers by Midjourney Alfon_Medina_irregular_glowy_flowers_growing_from_the_ground._M_07c1344f-a34d-493a-89a1-008812b7d364.png

Our final night landscape, followed by two runner ups

Our final landscape desert 3.png

Composition & Layering

We decided we wanted each of the two scenes to be 4 layers deep. The background would be cut into 3-4 layers, and the layers would be:

1st layer has foliage and an animal
2nd layer has an animal
3rd layer is the horizon
4th layer is just sky

Day time desert

Our final day composition and the silhouettes of its layers, image traced in Adobe Illustrator, ready to be laser cut:

Silhouettes of layers Untitled

Night time desert

Our final night composition and the silhouettes of its layers, image traced in Adobe Illustrator, ready to be laser cut:

Silhouettes of layers middle bg .svg

Importing into Adobe Aero

Before fabricating the final paper theater, we wanted to make sure the assets worked well together in Adobe Aero. We did a little test drive of the composition and animations.

Screenshot of moving things in Adobe Aero Screenshot of the view from a camera of a woman holding up a picture in AR space

We used the laser cutter to make a quick prototype of the day desert out of cardboard to make sure the layers would work

original_cd1d57b9-5912-4f27-9909-8860708bbebf_PXL_20221106_015105434.jpg

Final Fabrication

Once we agreed on a proof-of-concept, it was time for fabrication!

I went home to San Francisco for Halloween and grabbed paper at my favorite stationary/paper store: Flax!

They had so many types of papers with different weights! We ended up buying 2 different types of cardstock paper for the "pages". We're no experts at papercraft, so we used both to test out which was more suitable and rigid for a paper theater. The recycled paper they had was affordable with a nice "old" texture to them, so we also purchased 4 different colors of recycled paper for the book covers.

Photograph of drawers full of paper

We set to cut out our layers out of the cardstocks as outlined in Adobe Illustrator files. For both day and night, we were married to the laser cutter.

Photograph of a green haired woman waiting for the laser cutter Photograph of two girls making funny faces while holding up laser cut papers like a picture frame Photograph of a laser cutting cardboard spacers Laying out the layers

We glued cardboard frames to the back of the cardstock to make it more rigid plus added stacked cardboard spacers in between each layer to give that paper theater look.

Gluing the cardboard spacers onto the laser cut sheets Two women discussing the construction of the book while holding up layers Determining proper spacing

At some point we started going delirious at 2:00am and started making the book cover. I realized we mismeasured because a book's cover is actually larger than the pages within it, and my teammates weren't sure it was worth the effort to start over. At this point, we were seriously doubting our ability to make it look like a book at all.

Honestly though? It was worth the extra effort because it really does look like a book!

…I think it looks pretty book-like, no?

Late night success!

Playtesting

We had a playtesting session in our class, through which we got valuable feedback. Of course, we're biased to love the "oo's" and "ahh's" more than the critical feedback!

Because we had several colors of recycled paper, we decided to use the other colors for decoration, including lining the inside and adding a rope to tie it closed.