Making this Unity scene was, overall, a pleasurable learning experience that came out about as well as I could have reasonably expected it to. I had little problems importing assets, manipulating terrain, and coming to grips with what is probably the most difficult part of using the Scene Editor: Navigation and UI. However, with a little experimentation and an ergonomic mouse, I overcame.

The idea for this scene grew very organically out of the limited resources with which I was working. Beginning with a simple sand albedo terrain texture, I set out to find a skybox that would make a nice complement. After stumbling upon the Nebula skybox, the decision was made for me that I was building a science fiction scene. But what next? I reasoned that whatever I built should be tongue-in-cheek, to reconcile the inevitably poor quality of the final product, and turning to the great body of works in the western canon, I decided to take my inspiration from Douglas Adams, and set out to build a crude model of The Restaurant at The End of the Universe.

Using a charming model of a cafe table, I spaced out the area where my restaurant would go and built some seating. For my second object, I decided it would be appropriate to insert an object that would naturally produce sound. After seeing the unsatisfying or difficult-to-manage offerings of speakers and musical instruments on offer in the asset store, I settled on a jukebox (appropriate for the setting) and set it to play a gentle, whimsical song from my hard drive.

Finally, I decided to insert some small paraphernelia to give my scene character and detail. I placed a can of soda on one of the tables, and meticulously "hung" a towel on one of the chairs, in reference to Adams' famous mantra.

There were some more details in the scene, but this was the core experience I crafted. And while we are all aware of the sorts of experience Unity is capable of creating, I think this experience made me think about the obstacles to immersion that still stand in our way. Sound, field of view, resolution, and many other aspects of the experience still leave much to be desired, and yet these problems do not seem to be extremely difficult to solve, only costly.

In any case, it is safe to assume that entertainment-based scenes such as this could prove to be quite engaging and desirable, especially now in the age of fandom, where small details of a scene which are made more discernable when viewed through a VR interface, make for a more rewarding experience.

WATCH NOW AT https://youtu.be/BPw7LLKJooE

ADDENDUM: The featured image for this post depicts my extreme frustration at not being able to properly create a screencapture of my project to upload to YouTube. This, amazingly, is an area where Windows' bounty of apps and programs did not come through for me.