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Pressure Project #1 – A Walk In Nature

Posted: February 9, 2026 | Author: | Filed under: Uncategorized |Leave a comment »

Description: “A Walk In Nature” is a self-generating experience that documents two individuals’ time together deep in the woods.

The Meat and Bones (view captions for descriptions):

Photos I took before production (I had no real clue what I was going to do)

I set up a “waiting room” to make sure everything was working properly, since a lot hinged on the audio working. This rotating image of me was made during an attempt to make myself “do a cartwheel.” I haven’t quite figured it out yet.
A screenshot of the intro scene. It’s a forest that distorts at random. The title text reads in Comic Sans “A Walk In Nature”.
How I generated the title, I am notorious for choosing horrible fonts in my projects, so this time I wanted to do it… but on purpose, for healing.
Horrible photo (sorry), but this is the setup to initiate Kaleidoscope CC on the forest background randomly. I may have overdone it. This also contains Jump++ to transition scenes.
The setup for the intro voices (I will expand upon this process in the next scene).
A screenshot of the main scene: three deer appear on screen, one has a human face superimposed onto it, and another has eight legs and no head. (Beautiful).
Similar to the Kaliedoscope CC, I used TT Pixellate to make the background feel more 64-bit, as the deer images are pixel art.
The setup to superimpose a live camera feed on a deer.
My group of User Actors mainly contains deer, but one contains the conversations of the disembodied voices.
My setup for the deer actors, the messed-up one is the same, but with Reflector.
The setup for the conversation.
A screenshot of the secret end scene that is a failed attempt of handtracking, the idea was for the viewers to get to pet a deer.
My setup trying to simulate hand tracking.

The Reactions:

Zarmeen at the beginning (she looks confused)
Luke at the beginning (also confused)
Zarmeen looks like she’s questioning how I got here.
Despite everything, Zarmeen laughs.

I am very thankful for Zarmeen’s presence, as I don’t know if I would’ve achieved all the bonus points without her. While I received relatively affirming verbal feedback at the end, without her talent of reacting physically, I would have felt way more awkward showing this messed-up video.

Reflections:

I was actually extremely relieved to have a time limit on the project, as I am very limited on time as a grad student with a GTA and part-time job (it’s rough out here). I loved the idea of throwing something at the wall and seeing what sticks. I chose to do the majority of the work in one setting, figuratively locking oneself in a room for five hours and leaving with a thing felt correct. I did note ideas that popped up throughout the week, but I didn’t end up doing any of them anyway.
I was far too hung up on the idea of making sure people pay attention; original ideas had the machine barking orders at the viewers to “not look away”, but that felt mean. So I went with the idea of making everyone so uncomfortable that they forget to look away, like how I feel watching Fantastic Planet. Towards the last hour, I realized that aside from robots talking, I needed user interaction to make this feel whole. However, the cartwheel and petting action didn’t work out as pictured above. So what if the audience could be the deer?
The last hour was me messing with an app to use my camera as the webcam (Eduroam ruined my dreams there). So I grabbed a webcam from the computer lab the day of. (sorry Michael) I knew I was going to choose one lucky viewer to hold the camera, and choosing Alex was improvised I just thought he would be most excited to hold it. I was pleasantly surprised that there were expressions of joy while watching, as when I showed my partner, she was scared and mad at me. I am glad my stupid sense of humor worked out. 🙂

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