Anthony Tang

Herbal Medicine Lincoln

I recently meet up with Richard Hardy  with 3 years worth of experience in the massage industry and had an interview with him to find out what sort of people he encounters in his massage sessions and ask for his opinion about combining VR into his work. The first question I asked  was whether or not he’s heard of any other therapy outlets that uses VR in their services to which he responded that he hasn’t and that this idea is unique and may offer new ways to relax their customers.  He then went to comment that using VR can help those who does not often have massages and that it can help ease them in as they are usually found constantly tense through out the session making the outcome ineffective leaving them still tense and uncomfortable.

I also asked what sort of people he encounters and he said he usually offers this service to those aged between 25 to 60 and their gender have an equal ratio as males are often to be workers who go through stressful tasks and those who are athletics. He also mentions that 70% of his customers are often in deep relaxation during his sessions making his job easier has he can tell when their customer is tense and 30% of his customers are extremely talkative making the experience less effective. He said that combining VR with massage may not be is effective as his customers are found closing their eyes through out the session making the VR useless and in the way since light is directly shined in their eyes.

However, he did recommend that I should research in reflexology where it focuses on massaging the feet of the customer while they are on a reclining chair. Linking to be previous research, VR is most effective when the user is in a reclining chair so looking further into this would put me get  a better understanding as to how I can implement VR with the relicning chair.

On another note, Richard also told me that using all the senses of the customer can help relax them. For instance, he took me through his selection of oils that he uses to massage with and the fragrances he emits in the room to  help relax his customers. Music is also included with a soothing instrumental so by adding visuals could also further make the experience more relaxing.

He also mentioned that massages are more popular in the southern part of the UK such as London. This is because it’s where major business are set up  so workers are often seeking out ways to relax.

Medical and care compunetics 4

Written by Lodewijk Bos and Bernd Blobel, they analyse how VR therapy can help people overcome specific issues. For instance, VR therapy can be used as a pain management tool where it can distract the person from feeling pain as they are immersed in a VR environment or as an exercise tool, providing a dynamic 3D models to its user. VR therapy can be used in many other ways to improve the effectiveness of any outcome when offering virtual space where the user can immerse themselves in.

It also explains how VR therapy can be used as an relaxation tool. By immersing the user in a comfortable VR environment such as a seaside and putting the user in a reclining chair with the option of listening to music. By focusing on 2 different types of relaxation techniques which are breathing exercises and muscle relaxation, can effectively immerse the user when they are in the virtual environment. When it comes to muscle relaxation it has 3 stages to let go of the tension in the muscles of the face, neck, shoulders, arms, hands and legs.

Unity

Recently I familiarized myself with the software that I will be using to make my VR experience. I started by getting the grasp of the functions the software offers so that I can efficiently work without having to stop and search on the internet for help.

With the help of another who has a moderate amount of experience with Unity, I started to shape the landscape using simple manipulating tools like raising and lowering the terrain. to replicate mountains and hills. I was also able to lower the terrain and add lakes into the scenery. I was particularly impressed with how this looked as it looks realistic and

I then attempted to try and change the colour of the trees so that it looks more stylistic. For instance I pulled the texture file of the trees out from the source and opened it up in photoshop where I was able to change the colour and the look of the tree when it is rendered in Unity.

Before

After

So after changing the colour of the leaves and bark, the result was still has minimal change to the colour because of how complex the tree is in terms of how other textures add depth and shadow into the asset.

Virtual reality software & technology

After reading a the book ‘Virtual reality software & technology’ By Gurminder Singh, Steven K. Feiner, Daniel Thalmann. This source analyses how VR has the potential to relax a subject using physiological terms.  It states that ‘urban workers are exposed to many kinds of stresses such as long commuting time, human relationships in the company, or troubles caused by the job itself.’ It later states that VR is ideal to help the subject feel less fatigued as opposed to relaxing them mentally, what I originally intent to do when I started this project.

They later presented this concept graph that demonstrates how to make the subject feel refreshed by lowering the person’s active status to the point where they just fall asleep. They also refer that using VR technology can achieve this as it can allow the subject to virtually experience something they can’t in reality. For instance, experimented on a handful of people who suffers from a lot of stress and came up with the stages of effectively relaxing the people using VR technology.

1) The first step is to put the body at ease. This is essential to this process so a simple massage on the shoulders, back and the nape of the neck can put the subject in a more relaxed mood.

2) Give a small vibration which has some fluctuation pattern. In essence, the subject’s nervous system senses comfort when some kind of vibration is offered from outside of the body. However over the course of the session, the subject would eventually feel no simulation. Therefore, it is necessary to sway the vibration pattern such as one-fifth so that the vibration will always be stimulation.

3) Relax full body by chair reclining. Again it stimulates the parasympathetic nerve activity and it plays an important role in blood pressure control. It has a positive correlation with body reclining angle and it again, necessary for relaxation.

4) Finally, offer the subject a VR headset with a simple virtual world as it is more desirable than the complicated one which is deeply meaningful  so that the user can feel relaxed.

5)Finally, offer relaxing music. A clam and quiet music should suffice. BGM is recognised for having a psychological masking effect by its comfortable stimulation so that it is effective to immerse the subject through stereo graphics.

Aesthetics and composition

In my workshop, we were given the task to compose a minimalistic landscape using one tone of colour.

I approached this task by picking out warm colours such as orange or yellow tones. So then I decided to choose an light orange colour for the sky, a 3 layers in a form of mountains where the tone gets darker and darker in each layer.

The results I got was impressive in terms of how simplistic it was just by using 3 tones of orange to show the contrasts between the layers of mountains and finally ending with a silhouette of a man running across the landscape. I also had composition in mind, balancing the picture with a large mountain peak on the left hand side of the picture and the small man running across to balance the picture in terms of what it shows. Even though the mountain takes up the majority of the picture, the man is in the forefront making it the center of attention as the colour black has a strong contrast to the orange background. This makes an effective picture as it doesn’t look over crowed or in regards in where to look at, making it simplistic.

I later worked on the picture and added a few aesthetics such as trees to further make it visually appealing without over crowding the picture as it is done subtly and without blocking the main points of interest.

Using the rule of thirds, I deliberately placed the points of interest remotely near where the lines cross. This is because these are areas people look at when faced with a screen or picture starting with the top left corner to the top right then the bottom left to bottom right. As I wanted the man to be the first thing the person to look at first is the reason why I chose a different colour to make it stand out from the mountain.