For this project, I’m working with Mari and Steven. After a few in-class discussions, we met again for a brainstorming session. We started with coming up with different environments, then moved to thinking of different everyday actions. Throughout the process, we continuously returned to the question, “Why VR?” We considered what VR could do, and what everyday means. As we navigated the balance between compelling and feasible, we realized our ideas revolved around the themes of playing with known roles, perception of scale, and customization.
As usual, guiding our thinking with even this messy mind map helped us find our way to a good idea. In the end, we landed on what it would be like to be a firefighter on a fiery planet. Compelled by a nice balance between feasibility and compelling, we developed a few versions of the narrative and started to storyboard.
In this experience, the user finds themselves on a fiery planet. In front of them, a tall fire burns. Sprinklers in the near foreground keep them at bay, but a small asteroid has landed on one of the sprinklers, pushing it into the ground. Because of this, the fire is slowly creeping through the gap towards the user. Behind them, a dome extends to the left and the right horizons and soars into the sky. Beyond the barrier, a city rises up. A voice tells the user, who holds a fan in one hand, to try and reach the broken sprinklers and repair them. The user has to wave the fan to push the flames back, and, when they reach the sprinkler, reach down, remove the rock, and pull the sprinkler out.
So far, the idea is fairly well developed. However, we still have to work out the specifics of the interactions and the cues which direct the user’s attention.
March 14 | Update
After the assignment changed from VR to computer-based, we decided to focus on the interaction of the user putting out the fire with a tool in their hand. Because of the medium change, we changed this tool from a fan to a sort of water spell. From there, we split up the components of the interaction and started to work. Steven put together the character and the first-person animation of the arm throwing the balloons. Mari developed a raycast system that would move the spell from the users hand to where they were aiming in the distance. I developed the water-fire interaction.
For my tasks, I ended up writing two simple scripts. We wanted the fire
to burn continuously but to disappear when the water touched it. We also
wanted it to reignite after a time so the user would constantly have to
be putting the fires out. One script allows a particle system to
disable the fire particle system upon collision. The other script
re-enables the disabled fire after a delay. This latter script manages
all the fires in the scene.
Two fires burn. 
Water puts out the first fire. 
Fire moves to put out second fire,. The first fire is still extinguished. 
Water puts out the second fire. 
The first fire reignites.