For this project, me, Mari and Will wanted to create an enjoyable, short and repeatable experience that prompted the user to be engaged in a compelling experience unique to VR. We brainstormed many ideas, including flinging orbs at the environment to bring about setting changes, furnishing a home, and experiences revolving around interacting with the environment as an omniscient, floating, god-like character. The idea that led us to this final concept was our discussions of setting the project in a home and how we could create trials and puzzles to achieve a certain outcome. We discussed how a greater urgency could be instilled in the user to not mess up and mindlessly wander around the house searching for various objects. Among one of those ideas was fighting a fire with a fan if the user was not able to perform set actions correctly. From this we attempted to elaborate on how this could be considered an alternate reality and how this action of using a fan to repel a fire can be an experience in itself.
From this we developed the idea of having to protect something and yourself from the fire and how fire could be a realistic feature of the environment. After some brainstorming we developed the idea of having to protect a city on an alien planet, characterized by its continually burning fires, from the fires that are creeping up on the city.
The concept is that the city has been forced to install sprinklers that shoot water to keep the encroaching fires from getting to the city. The user takes the role of a “firefighter,” as they are forced to put out these fires. However, one of the sprinklers has been hit by an asteroid, causing it to be crushed and wedged into the ground. The user has a giant hand fan which they are supposed to swing to generate wind to push the fire back enough so they can get to the sprinkler, push off the asteroid, and pull the sprinkler out of the ground. This is all explained to the user through a radio voiceover that plays at the beginning of the game.
What we want to do next is research assets and particle systems. We believe that the characteristics of the fire we are able to create will determine how the rest of the environment is styled. We will also do research on particle systems and how best to create the interactions between the wind from the fan and the fire.
Updated: March 11
I was able to add a simple animation with hands attached to the first person controller. What this does is create a short animation of the hand going forward and opening the fist. I intend for the “spell” (orb of water) to be emitted from the hand at the peak of this animation.
I was able to use the hands from Oculus along with the SteamVR package to get these hands. I simply followed this tutorial for adding a simple close fist/open fist to the animated hand. I modified the script he wrote to work with a key to trigger the changes. I also added a simple script to animate the right hand to move out as the fist opens and closes.
This was quite challenging as I initially looked at using 3D animated models but found it hard to coordinate with the keys. I also found it difficult to get the camera position just right for these models, as the head or torso would sometimes come into view of the camera.
Here is a video of the hand animation in action:
Update: March 13
I have been working on the scene design of the fire planet. In order to create this, yesterday I used the terrain tool to create a rocky, hilly terrain of a planet. I also created a fog particle system in order to demonstrate constant smoke that is on the planet. I also created a dome with a few buildings in it that is located behind the player as they enter into the scene. This was done so that the user feels like they have to defend the city from the moving fires. The dome is shining white, while there is a red spotlight that emits from the base of the city onto the rest of the scene. I did this in order to add to the fiery environment and a sense of emergency as the user is required to put out the fires. Lastly, I created water sprinklers using this tutorial as well as fires pulled from the Unity Particle Pack.
A few things that I want to do with the scene:
- Make the lighting around the dome and the city more realistic. I am not really sure how to do this without creating a design for a, live, dynamic city.
- Fix the issue with the fog impacting the contours of the terrain viewed through the fire.
Today we hope to merge all of our scenes together and have the animation of the arms coordinate with the release of a water grenade. We also hope to add Will’s script to allow the detection of collisions between the water and fire particles in the scene.
Here is the video of the scene:
Update: March 15
Today we continued to work on tying all the parts together and finalizing the style and interactions. On Friday, we were able to successfully make the user put out the fires by shooting the particle orb out of the gloves of the on-screen character. On Saturday, we finally fleshed out our narrative and decided to stick with the original idea of a civilization living under a dome on a planet that is plagued by constant fires. We debated whether we would change the premise of the experience to protecting the civilization’s final tree from forest fires, but scrapped this in favor of the original idea. We discussed how we could make this narrative apparent in order to provide some context for the scene as well as motivation for the user to focus on the objectives. In order to do this we decided to record a voiceover, giving the player explicit instructions on what to do.
We also decided to style the orb/grenade similar to a magical ball, using a simple particle system made using Unity’s Visual Effects Graph. This allowed the effect to appear more magical, tying into the narrative’s description of the character as someone with “powers.”
Today we added a final script to see when the character enters a transparent cylinder that marks the final destination. Upon entering, a voiceover congratulating the user on their efforts plays and the sprinkler comes to life and shoots a stream of water away from the dome.