So after trying to settle on the exact story before making the scenes, I was getting so caught up that I decided to take a break from it and start building assets for one location that will definitely be present, which is the compound in which I lived in Togo for the second year I was there. I tried finding assets but unsurprisingly there aren’t many good assets to depict a contemporary small African village, and I want to be true to the story. I looked at some pictures I have from my time and began crafting the structures in Blender. As I’m new to the program it has taken longer than I had hoped, but I’m getting the hang of it and it’s going faster. Next steps are to put actual textures on these buildings and put them into Unreal so I can start playing with different storytelling techniques. Some ideas:

• An ongoing narration as you walk around the scene
• Using gaze or picking up items to tell short stories about the objects
• Narration that begins through event triggers and when the user walks to a certain location

There are many unknowns which is why I want to get these buildings done ASAP and start testing. Next week’s Quick and Dirty show will hopefully offer some insight. Here are the models:

Here are a few of the reference pictures for comparison: