Virtual Reality Diary video series - Reel Pictures

#1

Hi all,

I’m putting together a “VR Diary” - a series of videos covering the things we are working on while experimenting with Virtual Reality. This thread will collect each of the videos as they are made.

I am a 3D Generalist at “Reel Pictures” - a dedicated 3D Animation studio in Melbourne Australia. We have been putting together a series of VR experiences and focusing on interactive fully-3D VR using game engines like Unreal Engine. We definitely want to experiment with 360 video, but for now the focus is on full-3D environments.

I thought it would be fun to put together an occasional video about the work we’ve been doing or the tools we’ve been using - all from the perspective of a 3D Generalist with experience in “offline” 3D production shifting to realtime 3D.

This is a link to the VR Diary Playlist on YouTube:
Reel Pictures VR Diary Playlist
When we make a new VR Diary video I will add it to this thread.

It would be great to hear what other 3D users are doing with VR and to share some tips! We are located in Melbourne so if you want to come by and try out the VR demos/chat VR, get in touch!

#2

//youtu.be/hoOMFk74HQQ

In this first video we show our “Studio 60 Hub”. This is a 1:1 scale model of our actual Studio space - located at "Studio #60, Docklands Cotton Mills, Footscray.

This studio space serves as a ‘hub’ where we can load all of our individual VR experiences. It is very much inspired by Valve’s “The Lab.” Every VR Experience we are working on is contained in a “NES”/80’s mixtape inspired 8-bit cartridge. Users can pick up a particular cartridge and load it into the cartrdige loader. This is inspired by Owlchemy Labs’ “Job Simulator”.

We have found this “Studio 60 Hub” demo to be a fantastic “1st Experience” for anyone visiting the studio. Existing clients may visit us for a meeting and at the end, we ask them if they’ve tried VR. If they have - we ask if they’ve tried this new type of VR, “Roomscale”! (HTC Vive).

We show them the headset and the controllers so they can inspect them in the ‘real world’. We then help them put the headset on. Suddenly they’re standing in a 1:1 virtual recreation of the exact room they are in. They are standing in the same location too!

They can physically touch the tables (they can’t see their hands though). But they can see the virtual “Motion controllers”. they can physically pick these virtual controllers up and feel them in their hand. Now they have a way to interact with the virtual environment - at the moment some simple phyiscs objects that can be thrown around.

Just this has proven to be a great demo to show people. We aim to take it a lot further and show off a lot of fun ‘tricks’ and experiences inside this virtual studio environment.

Tools:
The teleporting and physics interactions are based on the fantastic tools Mitch McCaffrey has been sharing with the VR community. You find out more about Mitch’s VR tools below:
Mitch’s VR Lab YouTube Channel
Mitch’s VR Lab Github Repository

#3

//youtu.be/TnUW8kayvt0

Epic have just released an official Template dedicated to VR in their newly updated Unreal Engine 4.13 . Unreal Engine contains some fantastic template projects for 1st person shooters, racing games, 2D platformers, space shooters, etc. They are all extremely handy for anyone new to Unreal or realtime rendering. It’s possible to drop in 3D assets into one of these templates and have them running in seconds.

Our second VR Diary video is focusing on this new VR Template and the features it contains. The template includes 2 sample maps, one of them is a great launchpad for creating seated or standing experiences with the CV1 and Xbox controller. This video focuses only on the motion controller map which is setup to support the Oculus Touch, Vive and Playstation VR.

his video only covers the Motion Controller map. It shows off the teleportation system and the Pickup system. The pickup system in particular is really nice. I love how there’s really great feedback as your hands approach a “pickup-able” object. Firstly your controller will vibrate. Secondly, your “virtual” avatar’s hand actually animates open slightly.

Overal, a great launchpad for testing out 3D assets in VR!

#4

I have recently put together my 3rd VR Diary video.

This time i’m showing how I use one of the HTC Vive motion controllers to represent my head as I give a demo to a 1st-time VR user.

//youtu.be/MK4y2NUEfj0

We have given many VR demos here at Reel Pictures, Melbourne and we have found that this technique of at least representing ourselves as a (very basic) 3D avatar goes a long way in making a first-time VR user feel comfortable. The user will know where you’re standing and the sound of your voice lines up 1-to-1 with this “virtual” head.

It’s not possible for you to sneak up and surprise the user because they can see where you are at all times. You will “Travel” with them if they teleport around so you are not left behind.

It has also helped a lot when demonstrating to potential clients. I do not currently have 2 Vives set up so this is a great way to demo what a multi-user experience would be like.
We currently have it set up to allow the instructor to draw a ‘line’ like a laser pointer - in order to indicate what they’re looking at.

There are a lot more possible ideas:
-Have the game engine draw a “torso” underneath the head, representing the instructor’s body. This can be innacurate, and only draw when the ‘head’ is upright and above 1.3 metres from the ground for example
-add arms/limbs that have ragdoll physics (or some very basic gestural animations) that can be triggered by the instructor.
-Have the instructor head’s mouth open and close as the actual ‘instructor’ is talking. using a microphone as input. Or visually show this using an audio waveform or a glow, etc.

This idea was inspired by the “Facebook” social VR videos that have been demoed so far, showing people represented as simple avatars with a floating head and hands.

Hope someone finds this idea interesting and if you like it please do subscribe to our VR Diary videos. We have put together many different demos and aim to give overviews of them every week or so.

#5

This VR Diary video is an overview of our “VR CAD Model Viewer”. This app allows you to view and interact with CAD data in Virtual Reality. The models sit on a virtual tabletop at user-specified scale. You can view these scale models from any angle and isolate specific areas. You can then physically walk through key areas of the model in a 1:1 real-world scale.

//youtu.be/hz2fyroFdRw

Table of Contents for this video:
00:00 intro + overview of the ‘demo state’.
01:09 Loading the “Museum of the Hoddle Grid” CAD Model
02:11 Interacting with the Model
03:10 Switching from Tabletop view to Real-World Scale
03:56 Future Plans
05:09 Conclusion

In this video, this VR app is in its early stages. In our future videos we will show some of the progress we’ve been making as well as some other examples where it could be useful in rapid prototyping for products and in industrial design applications.

The model featured in this video was Designed By Melbourne-based Architect Paul Evans. It is part of a submission to the Royal Society of Victoria by Paul Evans, Nigel Westbrook and Michael Wentworth-Bell.

At the moment, the process of preparing the model for VR is not automated - we are preparing the model in 3ds Max before sending it to Unreal.

We are in the process of automating as many of the processes as possible:

[ul]
[li] Generating Lightmap UVs
[/li][li]Creating adequate Collisions based on Floors, walls and ceiling
[/li][li]Assigning Unreal Shaders based on object name, layer name or existing material name
[/li][li]Placing key teleport points based on locations placed in Revit
[/li][li]Placement of Sun based on Geo Location set in Revit
[/li][li]Tagging of Doors, Glass and individual floors to allow users to isolate / toggle visibility
[/li][/ul]

Depending on the complexity of the scene, Optimization of the resulting meshes is required. With some prep, The few test scenes we have worked with so far have maintained a stable 90fps in the headset on standard hardware.

There are a few solutions available for viewing CAD data in VR that are completely automated. Ours is not completely automated yet, but we are translating our experience in Arch-Vis into realtime VR, and can create projects that are a lot more specialised in their use - adding specific functionality per project.

This is a very popular and exciting use-case for VR tech and one I can see many CG studios being a part of!