Virtual Reality: Nature Walk

Introduction

Nature Walk is a VR mobile application developed as the capstone project for the Udacity Virtual Reality Nanodegree program.

Capstone Project Theme: Emotion
Nature Walk Targeted Emotions: Relaxation and Fun

This scene is set in a park environment with many trees and an old Ganesh Temple at the end of the journey. The player reads the initial instructions at the “start” screen and uses waypoints to move around the environment. There are birds flocking off the trees and magical forest music starts to play. The player can collect coins for fun, but the door to the temple will not unlock until the key is found. When the key is found, the door is unlocked and once clicked, the temple opens for the player to meditate or restart the scene by clicking the Ganesh statue. View one successful completion of the Nature Walk scene below.

Process Steps

Statement of Purpose:  
Night at the Museum is for relatively new VR users. It lets users escape everyday stresses on a nature walk and meditate at the Ganesh Temple.

Puzzler User Persona:  

Pre-Production & Scoping:
Scoping document included with project submission zip file.

User Testing

Round One: Scale, Placement of Game Objects, and FPS display ( for development)

User Tester 1: "FPS display isn’t working”
User Tester 2: "I can get through the nature walk and to the temple! Everything is to scale”

After reviewing the feedback from round one, I fixed FPS display to test for mobile optimization during development. I also rescaled the door and deleted some gameobjects ( like ferns and trees) from the screen.

Round Two: Animation, Audio, & Atlas Changes

User Tester 1: "Looks great to me!”
User Tester 2: “ All animations are working.”

After reviewing the feedback from round two, I fixed the shaders for the trees and ensured that the Tris number was below 60k and that the quality settings were corrected so that the shadows were disabled. The main issue was optimizing for mobile applications, which is not always seen by the user/player.

Round Three: Final Touches

Added final touches to the scene, deleted the FPS display, and ensured everything was in low-resolution and low-poly mode.

Round Four: AI Achievement Fix

The boids algorithm on the birds was not working. The birds are supposed to be spawning and flocking.

After reviewing the feedback from round four, I fixed the AI achievement on the birds. The birds should be spawning and flocking as intended now.

Walkthrough of Achievements 

Here are the targeted achievements in this project:

Fundamentals:
1. Scale Achievement
2. Animation Achievement
3. Lighting Achievement
4. Locomotion Achievement
5. Empathy Achievement

Completeness:
1. Gamification Achievement
2. Diegetic UI Achievement
3. AI Achievement

Challenges:
1. User Testing Achievement

Audio Sources:
Ambient, Key, Coin, Waypoints, Birds, Magical Forest Music 

Next Steps & Conclusion 

In conclusion, this capstone project was a challenge to develop due to the mobile optimization limitations. Despite the limitations, this scene provides a great stress-free experience for the busy individual. The game development went smoothly for the most part. I would’ve liked to include more details in the scene to enhance the experience. For example, if this app would hit the market, I would have added a few more elements like stones, waterfalls, ferns, and grass to the environment to make it look more like a hiking landscape. There are also small changes I would make to the terrain plane and camera placement. Overall, the nature walk is a smooth experience and relaxing to the interested viewer! The most important success factor in virtual reality development is performing multiple iteration testing of the application, which is definitely required for this application to potentially hit the market.

Information Sources:
Unity Asset Store - ARSH Studios, Skythiancat, Udacity Assets