Building Virtual Worlds
Overview
Type
course projects from Entertainment Technology Center (ETC), Carnegie Mellon University
Date
2 - 3 weeks for each project from Aug 2018 - Dec 2018
Location
Pittsburgh, PA
USA
Role
interaction designer
artist
Tools
Unity, Maya, 3Ds MAX
Team size
4-5 team members including artists, programmers, and a sound designer
Project Overview
Building Virtual Worlds(BVW) is a core course from Entertainment Technology Center (ETC), Carnegie Mellon University. This course challenges students to work quickly, creatively, and collaboratively. BVW gives small teams of students two weeks to create a virtual world, with new groups and goals for each round. Students are welcomed to user diverse platforms such as VR (HTC Vive, Oculus), AR (Google AR kit, Meta II), immersive installation (CAVE), and other interactive digital tools such as Phidgets, jam-o-drum, etc.
role and work process
The key learning point in this course project is teamwork and the value of rapid prototyping and iterative process. Since every round goes on for 2 weeks (even 1-week sometimes), students need to follow a compact schedule with repetitive user test / playtest to check whether the project goal is on the right track.
As an interaction designer
Other than an artist, I am an interaction/experience designer. learning how to design innovative experiences for players in both the virtual and physical worlds in an engaging and enjoyable way. During the development, I paid close attention to the interaction experience. I design and conduct the user test / playtest figuring out how guests / users react to the information given by the virtual world, how they behave at a certain point, where they feel most confused, etc., and delivering insights gained from the test. By applying the game design theory into practice, I learned to use indirect control and adjust the interest curve to create an immersive experience better, and I also realized the importance of providing a sense of presence and engagement in XR experience.
As an artist
In this project, I also participated as an artist responsible for concept art, 3D modeling, environment design. Since it is teamwork, communicating, and finding the most efficient way to make things work smoothly highly depends on having work ethics and principles.
01 I got your back
Platform
HTC Vive (VR)
Constraints
Character A is afraid of Character B. Guest (User) should protect A from B.
Role
concept design, interaction design, 3D modeling.
Description
Guest fill the role of best friend to MR. Woah, a lovable blue monster with stage fright. Guest are armed with a popcorn bucket and the ability to throw popcorn at any
unwanted “Boo”s that threaten Mr. Woha’s confidence
For the experience design, we try to keep the UI-free principle to provide a more immersive experience:
Using the utterance of the avatar to naturally introduce the background and story
-
Making the input trigger of the player as same as the blue monster hand to give the hint on the relationship between the player and the character
-
Using the facial expression and emotion of the character to deliver the feedback of confidence status
-
Keep the interaction intuitive: touch the character’s hand when heard give me five to start the game scene; holding a real popcorn bucket with tracker; throwing the popcorns at the impolite audience
02 The mission
Platform
HTC Vive (VR)
Constraints
The project should aim for targeting naive guests, users who hardly have experience in the given platform or even game.
Role
3D modeling, interaction design, user test
Description
An AR experience as a regular office employee that must destroy evidence for their boss.
Considering the interaction feature of Meta II, we choose grabbing and moving as the main interaction for the player. Since it should be a naive guest friendly experience, we try to make every mission as intuitive as possible:
-
The color matching for related objects
-
The confidential sign for the target objects
-
Using the phone call from the boss to guide the whole story and give the hints
-
Automatic correction of certain object position to avoid misoperation interrupting the game play
03 The Lovely fools
Platform
Kinect II
Constraints
Design and develop a fun-focused and highly-replayable game in one week
Role
Design and develop a fun-focused and highly-replayable game in one week
Description
It's a one week project developed on the motion-sensing device Kinect. It is a two-player competing game. In the world, guests control the monster’s arms with their arms, and they need to collect certain objects to gain points and hit each other to make the competitor lose points. Who ever get a higher point in one minute wins the game.
04 Through the storm
Platform
HTC Vive (with one controller and one tracker)
Constraints
Tell an interactive story through VR experience. The story should have its beginning to end maintaining its interest curve.
Role
experience & interaction designer, 3D artist
Description
Through the Storm is a virtual reality, an interactive story designed for the platform HTC Vive. Before they enter the world, a guest is asked to sit down on the floor, cross-legged, and is given a magic wand (a Vive controller) and a magic shield (a cardboard leaf with a Vive tracker attached to the front). The world was designed in two-weeks for the class, Building Virtual Worlds at the Entertainment Technology Center (ETC). It was additionally presented at the 2018 ETC Fall Festival as part of the Building Virtual World's Showcase for guests to experience.
For more design descriptions: Full Design Process
Platform
Jam O drum
Constraints
Any experience that's is suitable for the festival - meaning, something unique, highly interactive, and of course, fun!
Role
game design, interaction design, 3D modeling, character design
Description
We designed a fun and multiplayer experience on Jam-O-Drum, which is a collaborative audiovisual instrument designed by a team led by Tina Blaine. In this world, guests are raccoons stealing chicken eggs by throwing bombs at them. Guests work against each other and collect as many eggs as possible in order to win the game. Four guests are able to identify themselves as raccoons with different outfit and characteristics on the welcome screen once they approached the Jam-O-Drum. Once all four guests hit their characters, they share the view from a single projection on the center drum and interact with chickens and other guests. Turning the wheel to control the direction of their character and hitting the drum to drop bombs on their hand are the only two interactions they need to conduct. This two-minute experience includes two power-ups to increase the interest curve and create a more competitive and dramatic process.