Project Update 10/16/16
In the time since my last update I have been reading through the Unreal and Oculus documentation, cleaning up my level, and preparing a primitive working start screen/main menu. The project is now deployed as an executable and can be launched and played. Right now when you launch the game you are taken strait into a virtual reality viewport and are prompted to press a to start the game or press b to exit. I will also be mapping this to a gamepad. Once in the level you see an empty space station module with off white walls and a closed hatch at the top and bottom. Obviously in a real station there is no up or down, but I have opted to fix the orientation and position of the player at least for this section. The game can be closed at any time by pressing 'Esc'.
In general the Unreal documentation has been quite helpful but on the Oculus side I found that it was quite lite. With Unreal to find much information about how to do anything for VR I found that I really had to go to their forums to find anything very useful.
Before when I created my module I pretty much threw it together by eyeballing it and I never finished adding textures to all of the surfaces. I aligned the pieces to the center of the level so that they perfectly matched up the with grid form the top view. I also increased the number of sides of my cylinder pieces form twenty to forty. I will most likely increase that again by quite a bit. Although, I do not think the number will be super high because my experience in Oculus shows me that the dual view tends to create a relatively soft image at the current screen resolution.
By the end of the semester I want to have a full main menu with blocks that highlight and can be selected by the "gaze", there will be at least three functions that must be preformed within the module, a goal and failure state that will restart or exit the game, and a working pause menu. I also want to have voiceover playing in the level instructing the player on what to do next.
For next week I will have at least one intractable object in the module, one task and have panels placed realistically on the walls of the module.
Overall I am considering adding more environments for the player to interact with. There might be a state where the module fills with a gas and the player is knocked out and they a new level loads where they begin to play through a narrative. I think that would add some artistic vision and new opportunities to script other interesting encounters. That is all for now, I may post another update later today as I keep working.
Comments