The campground scene was a success! After getting it running on the Vive, the next step was to make it interactive. After doing a little research on colliders and triggers in Unity, we got the marshmallow to light! https://vimeo.com/203404580
Next step might be to experiment with some elements in the background like waves moving or a boat animated against the horizon, but I think we’ll move on for now since we have so much we’d like to accomplish.
We’ve discovered something interesting that should really help with prototyping VR experience! ProntoVR is a browser based wireframing and prototyping tool for VR coming out very soon. We’ve signed up for early access and are awaiting launch.
After seeing what was possible with Medium on the Oculus Rift, we decided to explore the possibility of prototyping 3D assets in VR, and then exporting for the 3D printer. Being that we are working with the HTC Vive, we figured we could find similar pieces of software and make it work. We’ve tried PaintLab, Kodon, and the Google TiltBrush to no avail. TiltBrush is promising in it’s ability to export for VR development in Unity, but nothing has come close to what we’ve seen with Medium on the Oculus in terms of prototyping. Luckily, based on our recommendation, an Oculus Rift is on the way to the school as we speak! Not only will this increase our productivity in the VR lab, but it will broaden what is possible to experiment with during our short time left in the program. (THANKS MARC+ERIK!)
One of the amazing benefits of being involved in studying something so new is constantly discovering new and exciting ways to communicate. Holos is a cool social space we’ve found where VR designers and creators can come together and easily share content with each other, and consumers. We’ve joined their so far tiny Slack group, but it seems to be a growing community and we’re excited to see where it takes us. It’s really interesting to be on the forefront of this emerging field and watched as developers and designers reach out and try to meet like-minded individuals.
A few things are coming up for us in VR land. This week, we have the February Happy Hour at MoPop, which this month is “Virtual Reality and the Creative Industry.” From the FB page: “This month’s special guest, Elizabeth Scallon, will host a panel of leading VR experts. Together they will examine the current and future state of the VR/AR industry, the current opportunities to engage, and why creatives hold the power to revolutionize this technology to bring it to every sector of society.” Should be a good one.
Our next VR meetup is scheduled for March, where we’ll be headed to HBO for The Agony and the Ecstasy of Virtual Reality: the UX of VR w/ Ryan Wilkerson. We are really excited about this one. HBO would obviously be a great place to end up after school and we’re very interested to see what they have to say about VR and it’s place in the world currently.
As far as current projects, we have a few in the works, but have started planning our final deliverable / portfolio piece for the show. Before this whole adventure started, we both listened to the Ready Player One audio book. We absolutely loved it, and even labeled some of the equipment in the VR lab at school after aspects of the story. In the book, a major scene toward the beginning takes place in a VR version of an old D&D module from the 80’s titled the “Chamber of Horrors”. We’ve decided to create this scene from scratch and get it workin in the head set. The idea is for people to be able to experience the entire scene at this year’s portfolio show. This will require creating a materials guide we can both pull from, modelling in C4D, and creating a fully interactive scene in Unity. This also includes figuring out if we can get an old arcade emulator working, because the end of the scene has a joust cabinet we would like to be playable. We’re super stoked about this project and are probably going to get started on it sometime this quarter. It’s a lot of work! First step was to find the actual module online the scene in the book is based on, complete with map of the chamber and sketches for the DM.
Obviously, we’re having a good time. That’s it for now!!!