Interactive Design Blog

The Assignment Teaming up with art history students, our class had just three weeks to develop a functional virtual reality experience.  Choosing 'Thermae - A Roman Bathhouse Virtual Experience' as my group's project, we were fortunate to have clear design goals and assets at the ready. With no time to waste, we quickly set to work, bringing their vision to life. The "Final" Product  (It actually needs some refining but this will have to do for now...)   My Role My role was to bring together all of the assets and to make sure that there was uniformity in the final product.  In addition I was responsible for writing the scripts that triggered interactions such as: Teleporting to specific areas of the scene Revealing and hiding information Playing specific animation "takes" created by Ace Designing Menu Interactions Incorporating animation created by Ace Use UI design by Natalia 

Over the course of the Fall 2022 and Spring 2023 semesters, I have amassed quite a few immersive video projects.  My goal with this post is to collect and share those projects and to present them to a larger audience at the Interactive Media Annual Showcase!  The first project that I would like to share is called "This is Not a Train", which was a collective effort between Gabriel Torres, Lukas Rodriguez, and me.      The second project is called "Awkward Experiences"  and it was built and designed with the same team.  This time we used stereoscopic, 180 degree video and tried our best to make the user feel incredibly uncomfortable.   The third experience was made in the Spring 2023 semester for building Virtual Worlds.  In this experience, the user can explore a gallery and literally jump into a painting. The final experience is a playful VR build that allows the user to go on an Indian Jones style adventure to save an ancient treasure from poachers.

 The Assignment For this assignment, the class was tasked with creating a virtual digital twin experience using Unity. The goal was to design and develop a virtual environment that mirrored a real-world location such as a museum, a historical site, a nature park, or a more imaginative space such as film set. Users should be able to explore the virtual environment, interact with objects, and learn more about the location and interact with overlay displays through informative pop-ups, audio narration, and visual cues.   Techniques and interactions should include the ability to: Grab and manipulate objects  Trigger Animation Teleport across the terrain or to specific spots in the scene Initially I was going to recreate a place that was familiar and that would also encourage exploration, like a kitchen. That idea proved to be a bit mundane, and so I pivoted to my backup, exploring an adventurous cavern from the world of Indiana Jones! The Final Product Th

The Assignment For this next assignment, the class was asked to create five (5) interactions that involve switching skyboxes in Unity to reveal a new panoramic image or video.  In addition, other interactions can involve opening and closing information panels, and switching to new scenes.  The Final Product Play the video below to see a video captured directly from the headset.   The Big Idea I always wanted to jump into the world of a painting, and I thought this project would be a good way to explore that idea.  The challenge was to create new content on top of an existing painting in order to give it enough visual information to make a seamless 360 degree image. Below are some images of how I extended two paintings. Van Gogh's Starry Night               A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte Painting by Georges Seurat   Seurat had another painting called,"Baigneurs a Asnieres" that also takes place