360 Virtual Tour

Overview

360 virtual tours can be essential assets to a companies brand, especially one that is a physical place that customers wish to view the layout of. They allow for users to fully explore an environment whilst being able to fully immerse themselves due to the 360 nature of them. Visitors can take their time scrolling through the page, zooming in and out and using scene buttons to take them from one room to the next. This tool is most commonly found being utilised for indoor spaces or places with grand landmarks due to the public wishing to see what it looks like upon arrival, however this would be equally as useful for outdoor spaces which is why I wanted to create one for Tale Trek.

Trails and outlined hikes can often have their location misinterpreted on maps by people who aren’t accustomed to them or don’t have a great sense of direction, therefore by providing them with a virtual tour these issues can be avoided by increasing the accessibility. It can also help peace of mind for visitors who are unsure of what to expect and need the added assurance that they’ll enjoy the experience.

This tour will further the storyline aspect of Tale Trek by incorporating the brand mascots into the experience. This will add a fun addition to the tour by having easter eggs in the form of illustrations dotted along for children to point out and find. This tour will also follow along the same narrative that the animation does, reinforcing brand values and the importance of protecting animals.

Taking the 360 Photos

Initially I wanted to use a real 360° camera to take the photos for the nature reserve, however they were very difficult and expensive to get a hold of so I had to find another way to achieve the same effect. I did thorough research into alternative ways and found out I could use 3rd party applications that would effectively create the 360 images. This works by taking individual photos from the same perspective pointed in different directions and then stitching them all together to create a singular image. This is called cube mapping where it uses 6 six square textures that represent the reflections on an environment to form an image.

This worked successfully, however it took an incredibly long time to take one image as it required the photographer to stand completely still in the exact same orientation in order for the final result to not come out blurry or disjointed.

For Tale Trek, I wanted the average walk length to span around 20-30 minutes to complete, however this would require an extensive number of 360 photos to cover this distance which is unnecessary for the product I’m wanting to achieve. Therefore I only took an image around every 300 yards to keep the tour more concise and not overwhelm the user. Similarly to recording videos for the animation it was hard trying to take images without getting other people in the photo as well due to the path being public, this was made even more difficult by the shear time it took to take 1 image which was around 6-7 minutes. I wanted to avoid this by visiting the location earlier in the morning or later at night but then the lighting would be too dark and not consistant enough.

As standalone images they looked incredibly warped and stretched as it is essentially a fully circular image being compressed onto a one-sided slate but once uploaded onto a virtual tour it is able to display it as an interactive image that the user can move around at will.

Illustrative Work

Once I had a good stock of usable 360 photos I then went on to design 2D versions of the Tale Trek cast. I tried to keep these designs as similar to that of the 3D models so that the different characters still look recognisable and Tale Trek’s audience still know who is who. I used a very flat colour palette for the characters, as is commonly done within childrens illustrations which gives them a nice, friendly appeal which would also give higher contrast to the real life background they’d be placed upon.

For the fox, I drew 4 different designs so that any one of them could be situationally placed when the fox needs to be pointed in a different direction.

Fox Designs

I also did this when drawing the deer as there were 2 different scenarios and positions they needed to be placed within the tour.

Deer Designs

I wanted to give the tour a more dynamic feel so that the virtual tour world didn’t just consist of the 2D mascots but also other 2D digitally drawn elements. I drew out a ‘Tale Trek’ sign which is also used throughout the marketing and branding as well as a selection of tree’s that bulk out the background of the 360 images and make it appear more full.

Other Asset Designs

Implementing illustrations within the tour

I then began the process of placing the characters and 2D elements where I saw fit onto the 360 images. I once again referenced my initial storyboarding to make sure that the storyline didn’t differ and remained consistent.

Virtual Tour Software

I then input my 360 images into some virtual tour software which translated the flat images into moveable 360 photos that were interactive. I used buttons to link the scenes together so that the story could be told in order at the same time as presenting the nature reserve trail to the viewer.

I was able to export this tour and upload it onto a private host which I could utilise as an extension of the Tale Trek website.

FInal Tour

https://ella.lovestoblog.com/?i=2