This is a virtual reality project for the Graduate level Multimedia Application Design course at IU's School of Informatics and Computing, and surely one of the most ambitious projects I've ever done.
Given the freedom to create whatever we want, my partner Jonathan Sheldon and I chose to go the experimental route and explore the virtual reality technology at IUPUI's Advanced Visualization Lab (AVL).
We decided to create an application for what the AVL staff calls The Cave. The Cave is a virtual reality system that has movable walls, 3D motion tracked glasses and a single handheld controller. We noticed there were only a few completed projects created for the Cave, so we wanted to help by contributing a project that might serve as a good demonstration for the technology.
Neither of us had experience with Virtual Reality. My partner had some experience in 3D Animation and 3D modeling, and my primary experience at the time was in Design and Audio/Video Production. Virtual Reality is complex, so we decided to create something simple and effective, to limit the user functions while keeping the game interesting. Eventually we arrived at the concept of a maze with a time-constrained objective.
My partner Jonathan Sheldon designed and modeled the base using Maya. I was responsible for creating the Unity 3D game space, coding the game functions with JavaScript, and launching the application using MiddleVR. This was all entirely new to me!
The goal of the game is to fix 3 radiation leaks within a 5 minute time period. A person over the radio helps by giving instructions, and the Geiger Counter sound helps orient the player towards the objective.
The result was a resounding success! The team at IUPUI enjoyed the project and they continue to demo the technology using our project. The President of MiddleVR played the game as well!
We could not have completed this without the help of the Advanced Visualization Lab wizard Chauncey Frend. That guy is awesome!
If you want to check out the project, click on the following link: https://www.ryansellick.com/Moon_Base_WebGL/moonbase.html
NOTE: The project seems to work best on Firefox. The web application for MiddleVR is a little buggy, especially with the audio.