Forum Discussion
Brand new developer... got in the game specifically for rift
Hello community.
I'm a filmmaker first and foremost and in addition to several "traditionally styled" projects, I have been working on 2d and 3d films from POV perspective as an art form. When I first heard about oculus rift I was really excited about the possibilities and jumped right on board to try and create some new and unique storytelling experiences. I unfortunately have very little software/game development skills yet though I am learning fast. I was wondering though if any of you experienced developers have some insight about how to streamline my learning to accomplish my goals:
-create a playable interactive 360-degree story that occurs essentially in one stationary location (seemed simplest to me and a good place to start)
-create a passive 360-degree (or at least 180-degree... something that use the head tracking) film that will play back on the rift and allow users to choose what they look at. (I know how to film something like this... but piecing the film together and coding the head tracking on the rift is the part I have no idea about)
-design a virtual musical experience that can create organic visuals based on any user selected audio input (itunes, pandora, spotify, etc.).
Those are the three starter projects that I'm most interested in developing right now. Advanced devs could you help me set my expectations and point me in the right directions? I've chosen unity as my platform to learn since online multi-platform distribution seems much easier as well as the wealth of resources I've already been able to find and invest in for learning the platform... is this a good choice or is there another? What aspects of the engine and the oculus platform should be my focus to learn?
Thanks in advance for any who would help an artist and development noob like me explore a new medium.
I'm a filmmaker first and foremost and in addition to several "traditionally styled" projects, I have been working on 2d and 3d films from POV perspective as an art form. When I first heard about oculus rift I was really excited about the possibilities and jumped right on board to try and create some new and unique storytelling experiences. I unfortunately have very little software/game development skills yet though I am learning fast. I was wondering though if any of you experienced developers have some insight about how to streamline my learning to accomplish my goals:
-create a playable interactive 360-degree story that occurs essentially in one stationary location (seemed simplest to me and a good place to start)
-create a passive 360-degree (or at least 180-degree... something that use the head tracking) film that will play back on the rift and allow users to choose what they look at. (I know how to film something like this... but piecing the film together and coding the head tracking on the rift is the part I have no idea about)
-design a virtual musical experience that can create organic visuals based on any user selected audio input (itunes, pandora, spotify, etc.).
Those are the three starter projects that I'm most interested in developing right now. Advanced devs could you help me set my expectations and point me in the right directions? I've chosen unity as my platform to learn since online multi-platform distribution seems much easier as well as the wealth of resources I've already been able to find and invest in for learning the platform... is this a good choice or is there another? What aspects of the engine and the oculus platform should be my focus to learn?
Thanks in advance for any who would help an artist and development noob like me explore a new medium.
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- Hi there
It's a bit hard to find an appropriate answer, since "interactive 360-degree story" could mean anything in terms of "interactivity". For example:- Is it interactive only in terms of what you look at?
- Is it interactive in terms of having dialogs with non-player characters?
- Is it interactive in terms of having interaction with objects in the scene (e.g. pick up, drop down, combine)
- Is it interactive in terms of influencing the scene or even the story (e.g. through dialogs or through items)?
- ...
Even the passive 360 project has some varieties. E.g.:- Will the player (or better "spectator") be stationary in the scene? Like a spectator in the cinema?
- Or will he be moved through the scene automatically (like on a ride in Disney Land (-; )
- Or will he be able to freely roam around?
- What parts will the scene consist of? Actors (non player characters) that will move and interact with each other?
- ...
The building blocks that you require will highly depend on the "functionality" that you want to provide and achieve in each of your projects.
But for the more encouraging answers to your questions:- Unity is a very good starting point for non-developers. It's very easy to learn and even the development part can be kept very small and/or be learned in digestible steps
- Unity (or better the "Unity Asset Store") provides a HUGE variety of ready-to-use (well, many of them (-;) building blocks. Some of them can be used "plug and play".
- The Oculus integration into Unity is fantastic. It took me two minutes to integrate Oculus Rift into my own scene. It was almost frightening how easy it was (-;
I'm glad to point you into the right direction if you provide some more background information on what you want to achieve.
Cheers (-: - Thanks so much for your response Parallaxe!
Here's some clarification:
"Interactive 360-degree story" I see as being essentially a video game but not like a shooter or survival horror or anything where players can die or accomplish missions or anything. More like a story that you walk around inside of and progress the action through stumbling upon the next part of the narrative. I guess think "myst" without puzzles or games like "The Piano" that just feature walking around and discovering the next bits of the story.
"Passive 360-degree project" I see as being a live-action film. There's several 360-degree cameras out and in development and I'm talking about basically just creating a passive experience like a film but where users wear the oculus rift to look around at the scenes unfolding without any actual control over the movement or interaction (just did the Interstellar Oculus Rift Experience today and it was pretty incredible! Even without being able to interact with the scene). I'm not sure what this exactly looks like yet, if maybe there's some mild camera movement to help guide the viewer to the appropriate points of the story, if the viewer is supposed to be an actual character or just given a front row seat to view the other characters... that's unclear to me yet. The main thing I'm looking to accomplish is just find a way to "project" a 360-degree live-action film onto the oculus. I'm hoping to accomplish that somehow with Unity unless there's some tools already out there for this application.
From what you're describing though, it seems if you learn to build pretty much anything in Unity it's a very short leap to get it to work with the Oculus Rift. That's very encouraging indeed :)
From my best guess it seems like it'd be pretty easy to build a game that works normally on a PC but then add a VR "mode" for those that have the rift that way the experience is available to both types of users. Is this accurate or is it more complicated than that? - I have sent you a PM with some recommendations on the first steps. Hope it helps (-:
