PATTERNS
Lovecraft Meets Immersive Media
PATTERNS
For Dome and 6DOF Virtual Reality
The first VR Experience to combine photgrammetry, videogrammtery and live-action.
Official Selections at Cannes Next, World VR Forum, Geneva International Film Festival & Festival du Noveau Cinema
Freely adapted from H.P. Lovecraft’s universe, Patterns is a supernatural horror-psychedelic experience narrating the reemergence of a repressed past. Walter plunges into a hypnosis session to investigate why he feels dispossessed from his own body. Through memories, imagination and a recurring nightmare he travels on a mental journey to decipher bizarre signals from his own repressed memories. What Walter encounters is a family secret in the form of a monster that goes on a rampage in the sewage system of his ancestral house. As a VR user, you begin in a hyposis chair, and then venture into the labyrinth of Walter’s mind, puzzling your way around to see what lurks within those dark depths.
Production Process
Patterns combined CGI, 360 footage, photogrammetry (courtesy Matterport 3D capture system), videogrammtery (captured using the DepthKit system) to build the world within Walter’s mind. Macro footage of chemical reactions and fluid ferromagnetics formed the basis of the abstract patterns used throughout the experience, symbols of the chaos of the protagonist’s mind.
Ando + Pyare first designed the experience for a full-dome theatre, as part of a summer residency at the Society for Arts and Technology in 2016, and was showcased there over the entire summer. It was then converted into an interactive VR experience designed for venues. It is one of the first uses of redirected walking and speedup of motion, to build the illusion of a complex maze in a physically rectangular space.
Early storyboards
Patterns photogrammetry of the victorian house
Green screen seance take
Patterns macro video shoot setup
Green screen child sequence
Transition from live action to 3D
Patterns at the SAT Dome in Montreal
Patterns photogrammetry of the victorian house
Viewers on bean bags
Viewers getting cozy for the horror show
Dome projection controls for Patterns
Patterns at the SAT Dome in Montreal
“This film is not only a work of personal healing, but an explosive experience for anyone who enters it.”
— Caroline Grégoire, VICE MEDIA
HTC Vive Gameplay Demo
We used the notions of redirected walking to make the virtual space seem much larger, giving it the feel of a real labyrinth, of the mind of Walter. The gameplay takes users to different memories, which were captured as photogrammetry assets of a creepy old victorian house.
In some of these memories ghosts of events are triggered by certain interactions that the user needs to undertake. These ‘real’ spaces alternate with limbo corridors from hell. Here’s a peek of a what the experience is like in VR.
Film Festival Selections
Best immersive experience award 2016
Official Selection 2017
Official Selection 2016
Media Coverage
Mettle Blog (Now Adobe)