Virtual reality (VR) has the capacity to immerse us in games and virtual worlds on a level not possible through other platforms and mediums. In this project the goal was to exploit this capacity by creating a VR experience which could keep someone interested for approximately 2 minutes. I decided to create an experience which would not only be immersive, but relaxing. My VR experience, titled “Winter Wonderland” is both an interactive and passive experience where players are immersed in a snowy world filled with snowmen, falling snow, and starry skies.
The interactive elements allow players to interact with snowball and snowmen in the virtual world. Players can toss snowballs to knock down the snowmen, toss snowmen into the air and eve rebuild the snowmen. Passively, the players can admire the view, and watch the snow falling around them. While the experience is a novel one, it is aimed to be engaging and suitable for all ages.
After deciding on the initial “Winter Wonderland” concept, the next stage was ideation, where I thought up a number of immersive elements (such as falling snow, and snowballs that could be thrown at snowmen) which could add to the experience and provide some variety. Once I had determined what elements to include, I designed a general layout for the experience which would allow the player to feel like they are in a world without actually building a full world (as saving performance is important in order to maintain a high frame rate in VR).
I chose to put lots of tall pine trees around the edges which would help to obscure the seam between the backdrop dome (pictured above) and the ground. I left a clearing in the centre so that the player’s field of view would not be too obscured, but did still want some non-interactable environmental elements in the area, so decided to scatter some smaller dead trees in the main area. The snowmen and snowball piles would also be scattered around this area to give the play a number of targets in different spots with a nearby supply of snowballs.
The next stage involved making all the assets. I modelled the necessary objects in Maya, keeping a low poly count while ensuring the shapes were still recogniseable. I unwrapped the UVs for the backdrop dome to make them easier to paint in Photoshop, and then went about painting the backdrop, ensuring the texture was seamless and using dark colours so that the falling snow would be clearly visible.
The next stage involved arranging all the assets in the scene and testing throughout. I added the necessary physics components to all the objects as well as particle systems and coding for the falling snow and snowball impacts. During this stage, I found that the snowmen fell over upon the game starting, but managed to fix this by adjusting their mass (and consequently adjusting the mass of the snowballs so that they would be heavy enough to knock down the snowmen). Lastly, I scaled the scene appropriately (so that it would be life-size) and did a last check that everything worked correctly.
