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:

Statement of purpose

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.

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Persona

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.

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Concepts

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.

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Concept build

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.

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Next steps

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.