XR project final part and XR Expo

This last post on this blog will concern the final version of the XR barcade project, as well as some notes on the XR Expo, where we have demoed this project.

 

Sadly, not all features could be in the final version of the project. The biggest one, probably, is the multiplayer. This was due to the fact that, apparently, the Coherence plugin is apparently not compatible with the Oculus plugin – and, this being a VR experience, the Oculus plugin had to take priority. Obviously, this also had the consequence of the Movement SDK parts being deemed unnecessary, and removed. We all regretted this decision, but we had no other option. Regardless, we feel we have gained valuable experience from this as well – learning that a problem cannot, at least with our current tools, be solved is an important thing to any developer. In cases like this, the only thing we can do is abandon it, and focus on what we CAN solve – which we did.

 

In the final version of the project, three elements were included. First, was an exploration-based component – not a full game, but a rather nice experience in our opinion, where the full experience could be traversed while in VR. This is also a good demonstration of large-scale movement in VR. As players don’t have infinite-size rooms (at least, to our knowledge), we need some sort of movement. This was done with the common element of teleportation – however, this time, with the Oculus Integration’s teleport system instead of the XR Interaction Toolkit’s, as in the VR escape room project. This system offers a few extra features, such as multiple options for teleportation, each with a different user experience, while still being easy to implement, so if the focus is an Oculus-only release, this would be even better than the XRI Toolkit.

 

The second element is the minigolf game, which now works fully. There are a few points of interest which we have talked about in previous blogs, such as the hand animations, and the grabbable objects. However, there is another point of concern which was not raised often – and that is Unity physics. Unity physics generally does not work too well easily with VR. An example would be that, when the player swings the club, it sometimes passes clean through the golf ball. Granted, this could be solved by reducing the fixed timestep, increasing the frequency of the physics loop (and the FixedUpdate method, which is commonly used for physics code), but it still is a quite ineffective setup. It is very possible to integrate Unity physics and VR, but this has also presented an extra challenge.

 

The third element is the racing game. This was added quite late to the project, but thanks to Jannik going overboard, it is one of the most fun parts of the project. It contains 12 unique racetracks, selectable from a side panel in the garage. After selection, the track is loaded, and the player can drive out. Driving is controlled by the thumbstick, along with the A and B buttons (for acceleration and brake, respectively). During the race, the time of the player is measured per lap, which is then displayed on the wall of the garage. From a technical perspective, the main component of the racing game is the Simple Car Controller script.

In this script, the above section controls the movement of the car, based on the aforementioned input. This is the translated into physics-based movement via Wheel Colliders, Unity’s built-in colliders for vehicles’ wheels, which offer a variety of physics-based movement customization options. By fine-tuning these, we could make the handling of the car much better, improving user experience.

 

Finally, we wish to talk about the expo. It was a unique experience, yet one that was quite enjoyable. Showing off our projects, and allowing others to try them out was not only a driving force, which made us work ever harder to make the best experience we can, but also very enjoyable, “talking shop” with others, sharing ideas and solutions, which we feel is a great option for a class like ours.

 

To sum up, we all feel we have learned a lot of things about XR development during this semester. Marker-based AR, markerless AR, VR – all of these are emerging technologies that seem to have become more popular over the last few years, with huge potential, and with much more to come – making this experience very valuable for us.