Study of A Commodity: Scene 4

Study of A Commodity: Homeland

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About Study of A Commodity Project

“Study of A Commodity” is an interactive Virtual Reality experience that glimpsed into Pikuni/Blackfeet tribe culture and tradition that reflected in Louis Still Smoking’s painting of the same name. This project was directed by Caroline Running Wolf, who was selected as 2017 Oculus Launchpad Scholarship recipient, with the goal of bringing conversation and awareness to contemporary Native American’s issues.

For this project, I was responsible to create all the environment assets from scratch, integrate them in Unity, and made prototype for each level to showcase to clients and other viewers.

This VR project is divided into three different levels, where each level has its own unique art style.

Platform: Samsung GearVR.

About Homeland Level

For Scene 4, the environment was a representation of Pikuni/Blackfeet’s homeland, inspired by Louis’ Study of A Commodity painting. Based on today’s geography, this homeland takes place in Montana State, US. Several landmarks are created as point of interest, such as Chief Mountain to the North West, Crazy Mountains and Lake Ewell to the North, Sand Hills to the East, Yellowstone Lake and National Park to the South, Rocky Mountains, Flathead Lake and Missouri River on the West side.

All the texture in this environment set is hand-painted, using color palette based off the painting.

Louis Still Smoking’s painting, Study of A Commodity

Screenshots:

Animated Missouri River

View of Pikuni's homeland, looking West towards the Rocky Mountains

View of Pikuni's homeland, looking South towards Yellowstone National Park

View of Pikuni's homeland, looking South East

View of Pikuni's homeland, looking Northwest toward Chief Mountain

Modular Assets:

Animated water on terrain tiles

Animated Water tiles and terrain filler props

Various trees, bushes and rock that are native to the area, such as pine and cotton tree.

Hand-painted skybox, mountains and forests.

Hand-drawn various bushes, grass, wild flowers and tobacco plant.

Various ground covers, sage bush, wild flowers, and bitterroot, which is Montana State's flower.

Check out other Study of A Commodity levels

Billboards of Native American's tourist attraction, with a dry desert background, which typically found in western media to depict the First Nation's homeland — Study of A Commodity – Scene 1

View of an art alley, with street art and a mini-gallery of Louis Still Smoking's artworks. — Study of A Commodity – Scene 2/3

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