So that thing I broke, it’s getting fixed. Little by little, day by day.
So far I’ve managed to get:
Unfortunately I still can’t compile to my phone but hopefully, the weekend sorts that. It’s funny how breaking this thing has been possibly the most educational part of the course so far. I’m not saying I’d make a habit of it, but it was a net positive overall.
Here’s the latest update:
Making stuff is difficult, especially when that stuff is new. This is something I’m all too aware of. I was progressing nicely with my Night at the Museum project when (in my wisdom) I decided to upgrade my production tools mid-project. A word of advice, never do that.
Spending hours fixing a long list of issues is frustrating, but it isn’t a total loss. The key to success when you hit a bump in the road (like sucking at it, hating self etc) is to keep going! It’s not always easy but if you ever want to get good at anything, the key is preserving. Even in the face of self-loathing and a general distrust of your own abilities.
When you’re doing something new, embracing the tough times and roadblocks as an opportunity is key. You’ve got to see it as a way to toughen your resolve. If you can’t turn adversity into a win, then that adversity will win and you’ll stop progressing.
So the next time you find yourself making a virtual museum experience and your:
Don’t give up, keep going! Not only that, tell other people about it. Seeing other peoples screw-ups is encouraging to others on the path to something new.
I’m working on a project for my studies with Udacity. The goal is to create a VR experience that demonstrates my research into a VR company. I’ll do a series of posts on this as I progress along the path to completion.
To start here’s my first crack at the initial documentation for the project:
The purpose of the "Night at the museum" application is educate the user on the HTC Vive VR solution. The experience is based on an exhibit style scene, which contains 5 "stations", each covering some aspect of the HTC Vive.
The target audience for this application is anyone interested in VR that would like to learn more about the HTC Vive VR solution. Here’s a basic persona from them:
Name: Wade Watts Age: 18 Role: Budding VR enthusiast VR Experience: Experience with google cardboard but limited beyond that Quote: "VR is very exciting, I can't wait to learn more" About this person: Wade has grown up with computers, game consoles, tablets and smart phones. He's a digital native that loves to escape into his devices. VR is the ultimate expression of that escape.
I’ve started by looking at different museum and exhibit styles to select a something that fits the aesthetic I’m looking for. After looking at altogether too many museums (if that’s possible) I eventually settled on classic Greek style building with exhibits setup like sculptures on pedestals. I’m using the following images as inspiration for the design:
I like this style, it reminds me of some of my favourite museum tours, and I’ve also done some work in a previous project that shares a similar style. This should allow me to reuse some of the assets from that project, meaning I can move faster. Always important when you’re pressed for time.
Having established a concept for the style of the experience a setup to make a concept build. Using the assets from previous work made putting something workable together relatively easy.
I added a terrain GameObject with a few mountains in the distance to give the scene a sense of depth. I dropped in a “temple” model that is a good fit for a museum and added a few items to flesh out the concept. For the actual stations I acquired an HTC Vive model from sketchfab user Eternal Realm. I also kept an eye out for the scenes frame rate to make sure I wasn’t introducing anything at this early stage that had a big impact on performance. I still have a few more models to acquire but I’m happy with the direction the concept is heading in.
Now that I’ve got the basics in place the next thing on the agenda is the first round of user testing. I shouldn’t have to much trouble acquiring a suitable test subject to get things moving. I will be interesting to see how the scene changes and progresses over the course of development.
As a bit of a thought experiment, I’m taking a look at an industry and imagine a VR app might reshaping it.
Given my family’s always been in the construction industry (flooring), I thought it might be interesting to look into a segment of that market; medium to large scale commercial building construction.
To that end here’s a concept for an application that would help a site foreman and workers during a construction project to visualise the job to be done.
Create a virtual version of a construction site that shows the project at various stages of construction. Allowing the team to collectively understand what is to be done and how things should be at various stages. The application should also demonstrate hazards on site without exposing workers to those hazards.
Age: 30-65 Occupation: Site foreman Name: Alex A Quote: "A 200 page job spec might be required reading, but no ones actually across it all. It would be great to be able to see the spec and show it to others to explain the detail" 2–3 sentences describing what motivates them: Alex works long hours, and carries a lot of information and responsibility in their head. A key part of Alex's role is communication and having better tools to align everyone's activities on site are critical to a success project. Staff safety is also a top priority. Giving people a clear understand of what's going on across the site keeps everyone safe. Their experience level with VR: Little to none
Q: How accessible would each VR platform be to your target student in terms of price? Take into account location, age, and income. A: The only platforms that are really accessible is Cardboard/Daydream or Gear VR style VR. A construction site can be a busy, dirty place. An expensive tethered full immersion rig really isn't practical on site.
Q: How interactive does your lesson need to be? For example, do I need to pick things up or could I get away with just looking at objects? A: The user needs to be able to look at various objects, select them and have some details displayed to them. Movement would be required to view various scenes but does not require movement within a scene.
Q: How realistic do your visuals need to be in order to teach? For example, could I use 2D images and videos in a 3D Environment or do you need high poly 3D models. A: images clear enough to show construction detail and highlight hazards is sufficient. I would also be useful in some cases to be able to show exploded views of constructions, but this could also be done via images or simple animations.
Q: Does my student need to feel like a participant in the experience or can they be a passive viewer? Could they be both? A: Primarily they could be a passive viewer. The purpose of this app is to give the user a sense of what's going on, what needs to be done and what safety issues there are. There's little to no complex interaction required.
Q: Given the answers above, what are potential platforms you could use for your experience? A: In this case I think any platform could work, providing the right conditions. For example a dedicated space would be required for a high immersion setup. Having said that it would be far more practical to use a mobile setup on a construction site.
So it turns out the New York Times has been doing daily 360 stories for some time now. You can view them all on their sub site, the aptly named “The Daily 360“.
Not every one of these is improved by being a VR experience, but many are. Below are three that really caught my eye.
Watching it in browser is one thing but with a VR headset on it’s almost like you’re there. given the nature of the content, the scene has a strange mix of hope and sadness to it. Being able to be “present” really makes this story feel real, personal almost. You’re there with the people involved. It’s items like this that make you see why VR is sometimes called an empathy machine.
Hard to imagen how you could go wrong with a title like “Paraglide over Peru in 360”. It’s as beautiful as it sounds. One thing to be aware of though, simulator sickness. Experiences like this make you want to look about (sort of the point eh) but given the slow moving nature of the video, if your not careful it would be easy enough to make yourself sick watching this. Especially those who are susceptible to other forms of motion sickness. Having said that, as someone that once spent 45 mins sitting on the floor of a café bathroom following a bad VR session, I had no issue with this particular scene.
This one’s a bit of a mixed bag. Large chunks of this basically put you on the sidelines at the museum showcasing the concept mars vehicle. Given the vehicle is the only thing of interest in the scene, it’s not much of an advantage being in VR over standard video. The part that really works though is when the scene changes to be inside the vehicle. It gives you a sense of what it might be like to be piloting this thing. Which let’s face it is very cool.
As part of my VR course, I’ve been asked to perform a bit of a thought experiment. The outline of this work is:
Imagine you want to make a VR Education Application. This could be an exploration of the solar system, looking at fine grain detail of the human body, or teaching somebody how to program, just to name a few topics. For this experiment, pick any topic you would like to teach. And don’t worry if it doesn’t make sense in VR, we will worry about that part later. Just something you are passionate about.
The requirements include defining a statement of purpose, a persona for the target audience, answer a few short questions and post it to Medium. Given I have my own blog I figured I’d also post it here:
To demonstrate the Vet teaching hospital facilities at Massey University to prospective students.
Age: 17–18 years old
Occupation, if any: High school student
Name: Sam
A Quote: “I love working with and caring for animals”
2–3 sentences describing what motivates them:
They love working with and caring for animals. Learning in the best environment possible is important to be effective at their jobs. They want to become excellent, leaders in their field, to have the greatest impact. They are likely unsure of their specialised, but would have some idea of the options available. They already know they care for animals but are likely unsure of what the day to days of being a Vet are, but will be highly motivated to learn.
Their experience level with VR
May have had some small exposure to VR and education events or possibly in school. Given its still early days in the tech itself, it’s unlikely they are highly experienced.
Q: How accessible would each VR platform be to your target student in terms of price? Take into account location, age, and income. A: Accessibility of the various system is wildly different. Mobile Most high schoolers, of this age, have smartphones and the means to acquire a cardboard headset. Also, headsets could be supplied by the provider via the post, or at events. High immersion Much less accessible. The most likely source for high immersion would be the PlayStation VR and it’s unlikely prospects would think to use this given its context for gaming. The Vive and Oculus don't have enough presence yet to be meaningful for this use.
Q: How interactive does your lesson need to be? For example, do I need to pick things up or could I get away with just looking at objects? A: The experience is purely to show off a facility and teaching capabilities, so only basic interaction is required. Select objects for more details or to play videos/animations.
Q: How realistic do your visuals need to be in order to teach? For example, could I use 2D images and videos in a 3D Environment or do you need high poly 3D models? A: 2D images and video would be ample to communicate what needs to be communicated. If in future there was a need to train in the use of equipment etc then a more immersive VR platform would be required.
Q: Does my student need to feel like a participant in the experience or can they be a passive viewer? Could they be both? A: To a certain extent they could be both. Selecting options (pick a path style) or just following a set path. Having the option is likely a good idea given repeat users are likely to have something specific to see rather than the whole walkthrough. So it would be good to be able to skip to the parts they are most interested in.
Q: Given the answers above, what are potential platforms you could use for your experience? A: Given the limited access to high-end VR hardware, mobile VR (aka cardboard/daydream/gearvr) are likely the best targets. It’s fair to say highly immersive VR would be richer, but given it would reach far fewer people it’s not really relevant for outreach activities like this. The fact the content could also be easily reused and delivered via the web is also a plus for mobile.
Future tech – Microsoft Research: NormalTouch and TextureTouch
A few questions to consider with regards to future technologies:
Q: How would Augmented Reality better help teach your experience? A: In this case, it likely wouldn't be. Given we are attempting to educate student prospects on what the facilities are actually like at the University recreating that experience is better suited to VR. Augmented reality could potentially be used differently if you wanted to demo a particular part of the experience, such as show a horse on a large animal MRI machine, at an event. This could give prospects a real sense of scale relative to things around them.
Q: How could eye tracking help you better tailor your experience to your students? A: Using eye tracking to understand the users focus within an experience could enhance our ability to provide depth of field. Making the experience more natural for your eyes. We could also use I tracking to monitor what users are looking at and use this information to improve the experience over time.
Q: How would better Haptics better teach your experience? A: Introducing a tactile feel to the animals in the environment could provide a great sense of immersion and connection with the animals. The more real it seems the more convincing it is as a sales tool.
Q: How important is graphical fidelity to your experience? A: Given the experience is likely relatively short users are unlikely to experience eye strain. Also, we are only attempting to highlight the environment the student will be in a demo the sophistication of the facilities. Given this is the case, it's not completely necessary for the graphic fidelity to be top of the line. Having said that, improved displays that take advantage of light field technologies would vastly improve player comfort and as a result will be essential and common place in the future.
Q: How critical is it that your target student receives this training within the next two years? A: As the university expands internationally it's of increasing value to demonstrate to international prospects what facilities are on offer without them having the expense of physically travelling to New Zealand to see them first hand. Using VR allows them to get a sense of the place, helping them make more informed decisions.
As discussed earlier, there are loads of terms floating around in the world of VR. But it’s not just things on the spectrum between AR and VR. There are also various types of experiences within just VR.
Rather than try to cover every possible variant here, I’ll talk to the types I’ve experienced personally, and as a result what I think are the important components that make for good VR.
I’ve used quite a range now, from 3 degrees of freedom (3DOF) Google Cardboard, right up to a high immersion 6 degrees of freedom (6DOF) HTC Vive setups. Here’s an overview of what I’ve used so far:
I’ve got what can only be described as a growing collection of Google Cardboard headsets. The more you get involved/exposed to the VR community and events it seems sort of inevitable that you’ll pick up a few along the way. This is part of what makes Cardboard so great. It’s highly accessible. If you’ve got a modern iOS or Android-based phone you’ve got 99% of what you need to get going. Cardboard headsets range in sophistication and price, from $15 bits of literal cardboard, to “fancier” setups that strap to your head with headphones for $50+.
Accessibility aside, the sorts of experiences you can do in a Google Cardboard really are a perfect entry into VR. It’s a fantastic way to take users to inaccessible locations and show them things. Examples include estate agents showing an out of town client through a property, or placing a marine biology student at the bottom of the sea. The biggest and most obvious shortcoming is the low levels of both emersion and interactivity available to carboard users. Effectively you can only interact via the users’ gaze or a single button interface on the headset itself. This sort of thing is fine for a certain segment of VR but obviously, you’re not exactly going to be entering the Matrix anytime soon.
One of the things that can’t go unsaid about Cardboard’s accessibility is how it lowers the barrier to entry to VR development. As I said in my hardware for VR post, you can get into VR on a very low budget with cardboard as a target device, and that’s a big deal.
If you’re interested in giving Cardboard a go, take a look at Google’s Cardboard site.
The Gear VR is a fascinating step up from Cardboard. In many ways, it’s a very sensible direction to take VR. At around $100 USD, plus the cost of a compatible Samsung phone, the cost is more accessible than a full emersion setup. Obviously, a phone strapped to your head is only going to take you so far visually. You’re also only going to get a 3DOF (that’s pitch, roll, and yaw tracking of the users head) which limits the feeling of presence. However, the addition of a controller, even a simple 3DOF one, means far greater levels of interactivity. To my mind, having any control scheme that simulates a users hand greatly increases the value of the setup.
Having said all that, the Gear VR isn’t something I’d recommend unless you’re already a Samsung phone user. Its benefits are not worth the $1000 NZD investment over a cardboard setup. It’s also worth mentioning this segment of the marketing is increasingly competitive. Google have Daydream in this space. I haven’t used it personally but conceptually it looks quite similar. If you think a setup like this is something you’d like to explore you should consider both before making your decision. You should also be aware that Daydream looks to be releasing stand-alone headsets later this year that may be the most interesting take on this segment yet. Unless you’re in a mad rush for a VR setup I’d consider waiting until later in the year before buying.
I like to think of the HTC Vive as a window to the future rather than the revolution that some tout it to be. The experience itself is unmistakably amazing. The level of immersion is so high that I stopped thinking about controlling a computer simulation, and started just naturally interacting with it as if it was a real environment. It’s actually quite a strange thing to describe, but having used this setup dozens of times I’m convinced this as far more to do with your hands than it does your head.
The second you enter a VR environment, and you have some control of it via controls that closely approximates your hands, you stop thinking about the tools and just start being. Before you know it you are truly in VR. Based on the impact of hand controllers I’m a bit surprised more isn’t being done with cardboard headset combine with hand controllers, but then again there are likely significant technical challenges I’m not aware of.
Unsurprisingly the Vive is by far my favourite VR experience. However, the reason I say it’s a window to the future is the ticket price. These things cost a fortune. A Vive with hand controllers cost $799 USD. Which on its own is a big investment for most. Not inaccessible, but significant. The real kicker here is you need a high-end Mac or PC to connect the headset too. Taking that into account you can be looking at a $3000+ NZD machine to get started. Not exactly mainstream pricing.
It’s just a matter of time before these things transform into a more mainstream format. It’s quite likely the coming stand-alone headsets are the beginning of that. How much they cost and how good they are is yet to be seen, but I for one am excited at the possibilities.
The sooner more people have immersive VR experiences and reasonable consumer prices the faster this industry prices. With gateway drugs like Cardboard giving people their first taste for a low price, it’s sure to an explosive industry once the hardware catches up.