VR Studio Summer 2017

Instructor: Andrew Garrahan
Email: andrew@computerlunch.com
website: computerlunch andrewgarrahan.com

This course meets every Tuesday and Thursday from 6:30pm to 9:00pm, running Feb 14th to April 6th, at WeWork Room 2E on the 2nd Floor in Chelsea 115 W 18th St, New York, NY 10011. We also meet at the Samsung Accelerator for two weeks of Gear VR.

Class Outline

1 Feb 14 + 16 Unity Refresher (Interface, Game Objects, Importing Assets & Scripting, materials)

– Unity Prefabs
– Asset Store
– VR Design Fundamentals
– Look at Google VR Design Lab. How to keep people from getting motion sickness/nausea
– How to run my VR headset from Unity.
– First Person Player Controller

2 Feb 21 + 23 – Look at methods for moving around in VR
– Player controller
– 360 Images & Video
– Skybox
– Switching Scenes
– Introduce VR Touch Controller
3 Feb 28 + March 2 LOCATION: Samsung Accelerator.
– Setting up laptops to export Unity apps to Android.
– Creating an oculus oSig file
– Installing Gear VR unity app on samsung phone.
– Instantiate GameObjects
– Hit detection. OnTriggerEnter vs RayCasting
– Playing sound effects.
– C# Singleton code design pattern
4 March 7 + 9 LOCATION: Samsung Accelerator
Add gameplay to your environments and finishing this project.
– Optimization for Gear VR
5 March 14 + 16 Look at example of 3rd person VR game
Using an external usb controller or xBox.
Using touch controller api’s
Using Only one button Gear VR input.
– Path finding
6 March 21 + 23 – Designing a 3D person camera following script
– Animation controller for avatar animation.
– Collectibles
– enemy ai
7 March 28 + 30 Vive group game jam – Experiment with HTC Vive motion controllers, as a group build an interactive VR Toy or game.
8 April 4 + 6 Finish Vive group jam, Talk about Submission process and Marketing. 

 

Project #1: First Person Walker

THEME: Creating VR environments for First Person Perspective & Moving the player around in space.
Create a 2 scenes that the player can view in VR. One of these scenes should allow the player to move around the space.

  • Chose a theme and create a simple mood board.- Collect 10 images/textures for inspiration for your environments
    – Find two unity assets or 3D models you could use in these scenes.
  • Switching scenes. The scene change can be triggered by number of methods. Invoking a timer count down. Having the player move though a warp zone triggering the scene change.
  • One scene must have a skybox or 360 photo.
  • Optional: If you like you can add a collection object element but it is not required.

Feb 16: Mood Board: Collect 10 images for inspiration for theme.
Feb 23: Play test in class. Movement method and Switching scenes should work.

DUE: Feb 28th – Have Unity project and Record a video of play though.

Project #2: VR Shooter

THEME: Selecting objects with player gaze. Menus

– These 2 week will be held at the Samsung Accelerator Office
– Exporting for Gear VR on Samsung Phones
– Gear VR Button Input
– Hit detection
– Raycasting

DUE: Exported on Gear VR end of class Thursday March 9th

Project #3: HoloLens Group Project

THEME: Controlling an avatar from a 3rd person perspective. Control inputs. Level design. Obstacle/Enemy design, path finding.

March 23: Play test in class. Core gameplay should be working.

DUE 28th: Have unity project and Record play though.

Project #4 Personal Project

Class will decided the concept and direction of this project. Group project will incorporate the Vive touch controls and room scale VR in the final prototype.
Use github and source tree to collaborated one Unity project.

DUE April 6th: Finished prototype is uploaded to itch.io, Marketing Screen Shots, Video, and Basic Press release.

SOFTWARE TOOLS

Unity 5.5.1f1
Slack
SourceTree & GitHub