James River
Virtual Reality Experience
An immersive 360 video that chronicles the restoration process of the James River in Richmond, VA.
For the JRA project, I acted as Art Director and Environment Artist at Capitol Interactive. Our team was commissioned by The James River Association to create an educational VR experience that would inspire the community to join the JRA in their effort to keep the environment clean. We worked with experts from the James River Association to accurately represent the waters depth, color, soil type, and living organisms that inhabited the river from the 1600's-present. The VR experience premiered in the Spring of 2020 at a fundraising event in Richmond, VA. This virtual reality experience is still used today as promotional content for the JRA's environmental conservation projects.
Layout planning for the graded slope & location of plants and animals
For this project I started by drawing a 360 degree layout in Photoshop. I worked with scientific information about the condition of the James River from the 1600's to today. With the help of experts at the James River Association, I translated that information into iterative designs for preview on an Oculus Go.
HDRI Skybox Lighting, and animated caustic lighting test
JRAVR - Capture.mp4VR capture of the finished product
On this project I wore many hats, and crafted nearly everything about the 3D environment from scratch.
As the Art Director, I developed the three immersive environments from start to finish.
Giant oyster beds kept the water clean during the 1600's
JRA_AnimationBlocking.mp4Previsualization of composited environments and organisms
I created concept art, and from there I built and assembled 3D models, textures, lights, and environmental animations.
I produced high quality 4k renders of each time period and composited the environment renders with underwater creatures in post production. I edited the final cut with the Adobe Creative Suite.
