Spectral Castle
Spectral Castle is a two person experience created in Unity for a cave virtual environment. This was an individual project with guidance and assistance from my professor. Using existing assets, videos, and textures, I created the layout, lighting, particle effects, control scheme, and trigger control for the experience.
Story
A recent flood has awakened the spirits who reside in the local castle. Villagers are being terrorized by these specters and are desperate for them to go away. The village shaman has blessed you and your raft with spiritual energy to purify the castle so the spirits can find peace.
Physical Location
Spectral Castle was designed for a cave virtual environment located at Carnegie Mellon’s Entertainment Technology Center. This space has 3 projection walls with a motion base floor. The cameras in Unity are positioned and sized specifically for the physical size of this room and resolution of these projectors.
View of the starting room inside the Cave. The Cave consists of three projection walls and a motion floor.
Layout
This experience is designed to take about 6-8 minutes. Beacons are positioned along the guests sight lines to draw them naturally though the space. Hallways between rooms constrict the guests’ view and contrast expansive rooms. The hallways also contain triggers for spirits to appear to either guide or scare the guest. The confined space ensures the guests will pass through the triggers as they advance through the space. Staircases with debris block dead ends. Since guests are on a raft, this dissuades them from continuing down a dead end. When guests purify all the beacons, or if they run out of time for the experience, they are transported to the final room where they see a good or bad ending, respectively.
Layout of the flooded castle. Guests begin at the bottom left and make their way through the castle. Guests enter the final room (center) either after they have purified all beacons or if the timer runs out.
Controls
Each guest uses the joystick of a controller to control the direction they are paddling. Similar to using oars, the pair needs to work together in order to navigate the castle.
Each player controls an oar on their side of the raft.
Beacon transition particle effect.
Lighting and Particle Effects
To evoke the eerie feel of a spectral castle, the space is dimly lit with a mix of blue and red light. Dark green fog reduces guests’ depth perception, prompting guests to use caution while navigating the castle. Dark water allows reflections to be cast from ghouls, beacons, and torches alike, adding ambiance to the scene.
Restless beacons have a wide red aura around them. The purification results in a beacon with a tighter bright blue particle effect to show the spirits have calmed.
Other Considerations
When considering placement of the beacons, it was important to always have a line of sight to the next one. Initially, one beacon was tucked in a room away from the guests with the hope they would explore. Instead, guests would see a beacon in the opposite direction and navigate away. Moving the beacon to a more prominent place and allowing its red light to reach walls guests could see alleviated this issue.
To populate the scene and make it look flooded, I included partially submerged coffins and barrels in the rooms and hallways. The first hallway was filled with these objects so guests would interact with them to discover they were movable. This was critical for a trigger later down the hallway that would activate a skeleton emerging from a coffin to scare the guests. Many guests saw these objects as immovable and would try navigating around them or would turn the other way to look for an alternate route. Rather than placing them in the hallway, placing these objects such that the guests interacted with them first could alleviate perception issues.
Initial position of beacon is out of sight.
Final position of beacon has increased visibility.
A collection of debris in a hallway. Some guests viewed this as a wall rather than movable obstacles.