Dune VR

This project was to create a Virtual Reality (VR) roller coaster of a film. This was to be done in Unreal Engine which was a new software for us on the course meaning we had 3 weeks to learn and use this software to create and environmenrt and then steer a camera round it in a way to make the effect of a roller coaster. This would in theory allow the user to put on a virtual reality headset and then sit and enjoy a roller coaster like ride from the comfort of there home using a headset like the HTC vive or an Occulus Rift. I decided to base my project on the 2021 film Dune directed by Denis Villeneuve. This film was based off the Frank Herbert book and also the film of that also named Dune by David Lynch in 1982. This was a film that i have enjoyed and have researched so the lore of this would be somethingthat at least I felt I would know well as long as having a clear idea of Villeneuves directing style as i have been a fan of his work for a long time and have looked into and researched a lot of his films previously. Because of the obvious influence i felt there were elements to this that i could not leave out of the project.

MUST HAVE:

• Sense of atmosphere
• Sandworm
• Music
• Desert (Arakkis)
• “Dreams are messages from the deep”
• Spice Harvester
• Sense of scale for landscape
• Carthag (name of city)
• 3 influences ( Villeneuve, Herbert and Lynch)

Inspiration

There are three main areas of influence that I am going to use for this. The main one is the 2021 Movie, Dune directed by Denis Villeneuve, this is the main focus because the focus of the production of this movie was to make a grounded and approachable universe to set the story in. This will also be more recognisable for the user of this VR roller coaster.

   The second is the 1984 Movie by David Lynch, this one I am using because I think that there is far deeper lore in this movie so the original story made by Frank Herbert will be far more closely represented.

  The third and final influence is of course the Frank Herbert book released in 1965. The original novel set up a universe that has been expanded ever since and has hugely influenced pop culture and is argued to have set up Star Wars and a lot of its environments. This influence will be hard to use due to the lack of visualisation in the book however there's over 50 years of research and artwork into what the world that Frank Herbert had created would have looked like.

Concept Art

Unreal Engine Work

The main challenge of this project was less about the actual modelling of objects that we were gonna use but more about the use of Unreal Engine as this wasnt somehting that we had used before. However there were tools in this that i could use my previous skills from my own personal use of game engines, as in my previous school we were challenged to make a 3D model using modelling software, i chose to use a game engine to do mine which had the same basic starting points as this one, there were tools like the scuplting and the painting on of details like the rocks and the shrubbery, this meant that i was able to make use oif these to make as realistic an environment as possible. This was a helpful skill to have carried over as it meant that this felt more approachable for me to take up this engine and to give me as much confidence with this as i could. The other freely available tool that i was able to use was the add on called Quixel Megascan. What this is is a library full of extremely high accuracy scans of 3d objects like rocks and textures that i was able to use to ensure that i could make the environment to look as realistic as i could. Below are a few screen shots of the work that i did on Unrel Engine as it was going.

SketchUp Pro 2021 - Modelling

The wall was inspired by the architecture of Arrakis, there didn’t seem to be a clear shot of a wall that would be actually usable for me as inspiration. This put me in a position however to completely redesign the wall using inspiration from other buildings on Arrakis. This was done in Sketchup Pro 2021. The common theme tended to be the sloped walls that seemed to resemble pyramid shapes, This was the same style that was used on the Arakeen Palace. The goal was to make the wall match the exact style of the palace so that they would not look out of place in a scene together. This ultimately I think was a positive result. The image above shows what the two objects looked like together in the final scene. This was an original design.

Sound and Scoring 

The soundtrack for Dune 2021 was done by Hanz Zimmer, who has done many huge scores such as; Interstellar, Inception, Gladiator, The Dark Knight Trilogy. This score however won Best Original Score at the 2022 Oscars. This was very helpful for the Dune film as there was a need for atmosphere when watching the movie and the score was a huge help to this, this showed me that there was a huge need for the use of music to give the scene the atmosphere.

The introduction to the 2021 film was done by a throat singer saying the words “ Dreams are messages from the deep” in the Sardaukaran (language spoken on one of the planets from Dune lore) language. This is done to set the tone for the rest of the film. The language has a very harsh and aggressive feel to it, you also hear it later in the movie. This harshness means that there is a very clear tone set early on in the movie so this way the viewer knows that they are in for a harsh and atmospheric experience, and this is what I have tried to translate over into my project by doing this as well.

Final Video