Month: May 2022

Updates to the environment and decorations

After some time I spent quite a lot of time this week making updates trying to find some additional assets which might feel more suitable to the time period and also further decorations to fill out the area more and make it more interesting for the player and exploration.

Adjustments to the layout and asset sizing

One thing that i found when making adjustments and to the XR rig was that certain objects were just too big or too small and so i needed to spent quite a bit of time making adjustments to all of these different elements. This was also needed to be considered across all scenes and how the player percieves certain items in VR because it is so much different to looking through the headset than looking through the editor.

Adding outlines to points of interest

One aspect that i thought would be really helpful is adding highlights to certain points of interests or objects in and around the scene. I found a veru useful shader and highlight script on the unity asset store which works great where you can adit the colours and thickness of the outline on most objects in a scene as seen in the photo below.

Triggering text animations on events

To also help guide the player on how to do certain tasks and events i thought it would be useful to have some text or ‘thought’ prompts to help tell the player what to do and also show what the character is and might be thinking at the time.

So in a number of the entrances to certain rooms and areas i added colliders which act as triggers for animated sprites hidden in the scene so when the player crosses these colliders it will show these text prompts in the environment.

The text prompts are hidden or set active false in the scene and when they are triggered an animation will play that fades them in and reveals them for the player to read but then fades out after a short time.

Adding hand Models to the scenes

we also added hand models into the scene which are animated so that when the player uses the triggerss the fingers are animated to bend. The hands were also given a texture which makes them more faded and transparent so they appear more ghost like and then be more anonymous to the player to hopefully help with the overall feeling of embodiment.

Testing 21 different users

During this past week over multiple days and locations we were able to test 21 individual users. All of us in the group took build folders of the user tests and distributed the 2 versions of the test randomly between the users to get the results that we required. We initially planned to test a total of 20 people but we were able to get one additional person for the data and of course for more effective quantitative data we would ideally need to test upward in the triple digits but for the time we have 21 should be fine to get some general idea of the data.

Overall the results of the data were very interesting and each user who tried the younger age XR rig, felt that it was effective in making them feel like a younger character with some users even stating that during the test. However for the older XR rig users mostly did not feel like they were an older character and were more annoyed by how slow they were moving as a character. So we felt that the younger rig was very effective and will need minimal updates for improvements but perhaps the older rig will need rethinking.

Results of the research iteration

Ideas for the elderly XR Rig

After testing some of the users and realizing some issues with the XR rigs we began to discuss and think of ways to improve it or other alternative options. After discussing with our teacher it was suggested that perhaps we could experiment with how most people’s eyesight will worsen as they age and so could we maybe add a slight blur to the lens to simulate this? It was also suggested that this idea could be emphasized if you start the user with a blur and when they pick up glasses it will correct the blur and also add frames around the lens for the player which might also help with immersion.

Creating the opening Menu

For the opening menu I spent some time to make something simple but also relevant to the overall experience and I thought it would work well like in the experience for the menu to be a bookcase and you can start the experience by clicking on the photo frames. The environment is completely dark except for a spotlight on the book case.

The photo frames were then added and changed so that there is buttons that the user can choose between like a normal menu.

A line renderer and script is then attached to the players hand so that when they move the line over the button and select it using the trigger it will then jump to the starting scene of the experience.

Creating the closing credits

The closing credits were then also kept very simple by creating the text credits as sprites which are then added to the scene which fade in and out after one another over the time the viewer is looking. There is also a disclaimer stating that the user should go try the AR element with a to be confirmed title of the experience.

User interface design for the AR app (Adobe XD)

For the AR element of the experience with the face filters i started to develop further and create a wireframe of what the overall experience will roughly look like on a mobile device and how it will work in the final experience.

Trying out Footstep sound effects

One idea that we had for the user test iteraction to see how people react to changes in the XR rig was to add footsteps sound effects to give the user an idea of speed and movement while playing the scene which i attempted using the code as shown below:

However through some further research and general testing i found that this method really does not work very well at all because it can confuse the user since its not their own feet making the sound effect and its also isnt necessary overall so we decided not to move forward with this.

We knew that we could need to develop some more testing and perhaps find some more ways of how we could make updates to the XR rig.

Questions for our Second Iteration:

1. Did you notice any differences?
2. If yes, please explain your answer
3. I felt like I was a child
4. I felt like i was an old person
5. Do you have any further comments you would like to add?

Finalising some Interior Design and Decoration

During this week i tried to go through my scene and make sure that i was filling up the space and really making it interesting for the user and adding any small details or additions that I could. It was also important to add elements that incorporate story elements such as the room with the painting that i wanted to make sure contained a lot of assets in this room specifically.

Creating the Painting Interaction

The painting interaction i initially thought would be quite trickt but overall using the set active true and false collider effect did work the charm with this interaction. I could create seperate faded objects that assemble together to make one whole object like a painting and have objects on the floor collide with these elements to reveal the fixed painting.

The script that i used to make this system work was quite simple so that when the particular painting piece the player picks up is collided with the faded versions that that piece will dissapear and reveal the correct version that will eventually lead to a full painting.

Creating the Photo Interaction

The photo frame interaction was created in a very similar manner to the painting interaction except this time they are linked to the photo frames and also use a very similar code to create this same effect. Sound effects were also added so that they would player on the particular collision with those objects and placing them.

One element with these particular assets that i found tricky was the box collider which had a strange centre of origin that needed to be reset for each part of the object. Luckily my lecturers helped me solve this issue and is something that i would definately need to remember for future assets in use.

Phone Answer Machine

The phone answering machine was quite easy to create in the end and mainly required having a audio source linked to the object that could be triggered when interacted with. I will also attempt to add spatial sounds to this particular element as well to try and create a more interesting and immersive effect for the user.

Photo Flash Scene Change Effect

For the scene transition i used a very similar approach from some of my previous projects which used a canvas and an animation that created a fading out effect. In this particular case i used a yellow flashing effect like a camera that also has a linked sound file of a camera flashing to essentially end the scene.