Technical Effects

TEAM-DETERMINED EFFECT

Technical
EFFEcts

INSPIRATION

We drew inspiration initially from the design of a booby-trapped coins where a sword stuck into the side of the coin pushed a set of sliding doors together.

MODIFICATIONS

Instead of horizontally opening flaps, we decided to adopt the idea of sticking an object into the set to push open one vertical door. We also changed the working mechanism, but retained the original idea and inspiration.

CONTEXT

This is our team-determined technical effect.

In the context of our script, this door is the entrance to the bug’s (antagonist’s) lair, which the protagonists had to find a way to enter. Eventually, they figure out to use a stalagmite to activate the door and enter the bug's lair.

CREATION

Materials:

2-ply cardboard
- Used for the front and back of the sets, as well as the mechanism inside the set
- Chosen for its versatility
- Relatively lightweight and easy to procure
Double-sided tape
- To create a smooth surface for the mechanism to work
Raffia + a weight (filled water bottle)
- To weight the door down when mechanism is not activated
Hot glue
- To bind the different parts together

Aesthetics:

To better fit the context of the sets in the script, the set was cut into the shape of a cave, and later painted using acrylic paint to reinforce the aesthetics of a cave.
To better reinforce the effect of a waterfall cave, polyester fabric and tulle were layered to mimic a waterfall across the set.
To maximise use of the sets, the back of the set was painted to form the museum scene.

Working Mechanism:

As can be seen from the sketches on the right, the cave sets work via a modified pulley system, where the vertically sliding door is raised by pushing down the object to which is connected the door and another weight (filled water bottle).
When the stalagmite (made and shaped using cardboard and twined newspaper rope, then painted to better suit the "cave" theme) was inserted into the set, it pushes the object down, subsequently causing both the door and water bottle to be lifted. Here, the purpose of the water bottle is to ensure an even force exerted on both sides of the object, and to ensure the door is weighed back down once the force exerted on the "stalagmite" is released.
As such, the effect of a vertically sliding door is achieved when the "stalagmite" is stuck into a specific opening near the top of the set.
The working mechanism has been slotted in between the front and back panels of the sets, which are used for different scenes in the performance.

Before

After

Sketches of sets: front & back, + details

2D-3D EFFECT

Penguin origami gif

Squish.

The original paper

catch mechanism

Screenshot_20210730-212026_Video Player.jpg

The chad p2d3

catch mechanism

Double layered prototype. Sadly, it had too much drag; a (literal) flop

THE PROCESS

Sketches

The working sketches are messy at best and indecipherable at worst; but here are some that may be of interest. Most calculations were done on the fly, because our set parameters shifted really often and if 50cm was suddenly too long, we'd just need to chop it down and everything else had to be adjusted accordingly.

The spikening: a spontaneous liveblog

I almost forgot about this video, but it seems that I had decided to liveblog the process of making a spike in parts while delirious with sleep deprivation. It is coming in handy now, though, so I'm certainly not complaining.

You can sort of see the outline of the spikes and how each panel would fit into the mechanism. The left page showcases how it would lay flat against the floor and all other sketches are non-scale drawings of how they would look standing up. The square bases were all a uniform 10cm/5cm in width but the height was decided on by the set team. Everything else was calculated from there using a mixture of math and guesswork.

FINAL

A video; the making of a spike

The final spikes.

CONTEXT

The 2d-3d effect was a requirement in the problem; we used it as a set of three spikes that popped up to trap the detective during the final battle scene in the cave setting.

INSPIRATION

We came across this gif of a little origami penguin that popped up by itself from a flattened disc when thrown on a hard surface online - this was the inspiration for our final effect. Fortunately, we were able to find a tutorial video that showed us the inner workings of the penguin.

MODIFICATIONS

The Catch

The original penguin has rubber bands attached to its inner sides and an internal fold on the underside of its top piece that holds it flat. The fold gets released from its position when jolted with enough force. However, because our 2d-3d effect would be on a much larger scale, we needed to use stronger materials than paper to make the mechanism. This meant that we could not rely on a force activated catch because there was an off chance it wouldn’t trigger - it only worked with paper because paper can bend, and styrofoam boards, our chosen material, cannot bend. As such, we created a mechanism that would slide open and release a catch when we pulled a string. We glued straws to the underside and then put skewers through the straw holes, allowing the mechanism to slide freely.

Panels/Layers

Creating six panels for each spike would be superfluous and overly time-consuming, so we decreased the number of panels to the minimum four. In addition, we decided to not have two layers of popup but only have one, because a prototype was made that did have two layers, and it was so heavy that it couldn't pop up on its own without buckling.

Base plate

A base plate was created to link the three spikes we made together so that they would be stable when we activated them in the performance, since during the performance we're likely to use more force than normal in the heat of the moment. This assumption was later proved correct; the spikes were bent and on the verge of snapping in multiple places after internal nationals and had to immediately undergo emergency surgery with copious amounts of hot glue and supporting skewers.

CREDIT-SIGNALLING EFFECT

CONTEXT

The credit signalling effect signals when the credits are obtained throughout the performance. It’s mounted on the mem sign, which is a door, and slowly rolls down layers of crushed plastic sheets over the opening to simulate glass cracking.

INSPIRATION

We wanted the credit signalling effect to be a sort of ‘meter’ for the detective’s progression in getting out of the VR world, so we decided to have something related to the door that the detective would get out from. As for the mechanism itself, it came to us in a burst of inspiration; quote unquote "glue plastic stick plastic."

CREATION

Materials:

Motors
Wood frame
Plastic cylinder
Crushed plastic sheet

The effect involves two motors attached to the sides of the mem sign and hooked up to a big plastic cylinder, as well as a sheet of crushed plastic that is hot glued to the cylinder. When a button is pressed, the motors turn the cylinder and unroll the plastic sheet down over the mem sign.

The design of the mem sign was meant to mimic white bricks in order to better blend in with our real world setting and juxtapose with our VR setting. The plastic sheet mimics crushed glass and symbolises the door to the real world breaking open as the detective collects the credits.

TEAM-DETERMINED EFFECT