Let’s make SangSang PangPang Forest!

Rebel9 has created a new experiential media, “Let’s make! SangSang PangPang Forest,” for the Dinosaur Zone at the North Gyeonggi Children’s Museum.

Korea is home to the world’s largest fossilized collection of Cretaceous vertebrate footprints. The Korean Peninsula is known to have been home to a wide variety of creatures, including dinosaurs, pterosaurs, lizards, crocodiles, and mammals. “Let’s make! SangSang PangPang Forest,” is set in the vibrant Cretaceous ecosystem of the Korean Peninsula 100 million years ago, and the plants and insects that have survived from the Cretaceous period to the present day come to life in the forest.

View of the SangSang PangPang Forest

The project utilizes the “egg” as a key metaphor to symbolize birth. The morphological design of the interface is inspired by the linear forms found in fossils.

Identity design for the SangSang PangPang Forest

Promotion design for the SangSang PangPang Forest

Exhibition introduction media panel

Experiential Media

The SangSang PangPang Forest artwork features colorful and unique characters to help children use their creative imaginations.

The uniquely shaped imaginary animal characters symbolize a society where diversity is celebrated, with different looks and personalities. These unique animals go beyond traditional notions of animals and allow children’s imaginations to run wild.

The background artwork, which features plants and insects reminiscent of the Cretaceous period, was created using artificial intelligence.

Projection

The media kiosk allows visitors to the North Gyeonggi Children’s Museum to create imaginary animals by touching the screen. The kiosk features a 24-inch touch monitor and built-in speakers for intuitive interaction. It is designed at the right height for easy access for both children and adults, and has rounded corners for safety.

Media Kiosk

Concepts in user experience design

The project utilizes the “egg” as a key metaphor to symbolize birth. The morphological design of the interface is inspired by the linear forms found in fossils.

The user experience design is characterized by the unique manipulation of the animal’s form in three-dimensional space. Considering that interfacing in a three-dimensional environment can be unfamiliar to the user, we enhanced intuitiveness by providing an experience similar to playing with real clay. The novel interaction through the act of ‘attaching and detaching’ engages the user and enables intuitive manipulation. To support this, we carefully designed visual and auditory feedback systems.

Technologies utilized

We used Signed Distance Function (SDF) rendering to represent the dinosaur’s body and individual parts. The blending between the rendering elements is calculated so that the joined parts look seamless. The rendering is done in real-time and is visible while the user repositions the elements through touch.

The process of moving each element with a touch utilizes a physics engine to calculate acceleration, collision, and rotation.

The finished imaginary animal is serialized and sent to a projection over the network for immediate viewing, or to a personal smartphone via a QR code.

Touchable monitor interface

Send imaginary animals completed on a kiosk to a projection

The process of creating an imaginary animal begins with choosing an animal body. We chose four different types of Cretaceous dinosaurs (sauropods, sauropods, theropods, and plesiosaurs) to create the body, which is linked to the name of your imaginary animal.

Once you’ve chosen a body, you’ll move on to the decorating phase. Decorative elements include dinosaur tail wings, bones, bumps, and crests, as well as eyes and limbs. Once you’ve completed the shape of your imaginary animal by moving the body around and adding items, you can move on to coloring. Add colored beads that fall from the sky to the body to create a colorful imaginary animal.

Next, choose the sounds your animal can make. Name your animal and send it to the SangSang PangPang Forest. Your imaginary animal will appear in the SangSang PangPang Forest and become part of a new ecosystem. Children can use their imagination and creativity while understanding the Cretaceous ecosystem by creating their own imaginary animals.