I am really, really pleased to finally be able to show you all my wee personal project that has become my life over the last few months. I call it "Colonist A514" and its a seated-only experience that tells the story of the origin of life on Planet Earth in a new, and hopefully interesting/informative manner.
I built this demo because when I went halves in a DK2 with my son, I promised myself that I would give-something-back and now that I've got my VR legs I think I've got a fair idea of what works well in VR - plus there's been a real shortage of educational stuff. There must be heaps of students out there that would love to see these as standard classroom equipment but they've got very little ammo with which to convince their teachers.
Anyways - now for the criticism - have a gander, and let me know what I've done wrong or could have done better in your valued opinions. This is my first time using Unity so I am sure I have made loads of Unity Virgin mistakes. I get the unit back next week so will try and implement any feedback before submitting to Oculus Share. I did notice that on one low-end PC I tested, the floor turned a solid grey colour for whatever reason?
UPDATE: 24.03.15 All feedback has been integrated - thanks heaps everyone that helped out 🙂 Submitted the final version to Oculus Share and updated the demo link above as well. Enjoy.
UPDATE: 04.04.15 New version (1.02) coming in the next few days (thanks to the Easter break). Updated to the new Oculus runtime, fix for the grey floor shader bug (which seems to be showing up in videos people make), larger blackboard text in the main classroom, text panels moved closer for readability in the intro area, new robot for the source of the voice, loading message between scenes, and other minor quality improvements. Suggestions welcome 🙂
Super glad you both enjoyed it 🙂 Really makes me feel like this has been worthwhile.
No technical issues? Floor in the classroom turning solid grey, or stutter above the ocean drop? Just checking if these were low-end graphic issues or something I may have done wrong with shaders.
One of the guys in my beta test is retired and his comment was that he thought "the youth of today" - lol - wouldn't bother listening to the audio. So I explained to him that that was the whole point of what VR could possibly bring to education. They might not hear the facts but they'll remember the scene (which is what the audio is describing).
I7, 3.5ghz, 8CPU's GTX 970 64bit Windows 7 8GB Ram
I think the whole point of your demo ( and a strong point ) is to remain infomative, but perhaps some further highlighting or animation of the virtual 3D models and display as the narrator speaks would help hold concentration at the beginning? I did find myself loosing concentration and started to see how close I could get to the planet models, I was entertained but not perhaps in the way you would have wanted me to be at that point. It gets really interesting when the expidition starts. I think when you know the narration is preparing you for the away trip it's far more intreauging to listen too.
Good luck with this one, I can't wait to see more 🙂
Gidday Govny - is that above the water, just before the drop? There are I think too many textures/meshes in the reef so I'll reduce them if that's the case. Or, is is after the Teacherbot calls for a "attention deficit" break? In that case it's just the usual Unity scene change temporary freeze.
"ShardNZL" wrote: Gidday Govny - is that above the water, just before the drop? There are I think too many textures/meshes in the reef so I'll reduce them if that's the case. Or, is is after the Teacherbot calls for a "attention deficit" break? In that case it's just the usual Unity scene change temporary freeze.
the first. But last time I have tryed it didn't happen. All goes well.
