A last minute change of plans made me completely rethink my final project. Originally I had proposed to do my final project on architecture thesis, but after reviewing what I needed for thesis and what I needed for this class, I found that there was no storytelling aspect in what I was doing for thesis. I am still excited to say that I am writing my senior thesis on virtual reality, and I have already created demos in unity to show to my critics, but I decided to do something much more special for this class.

For the independent learning aspect of this project, I used several tutorials to better understand unity. The first of which was https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vGkdNlpYgzs which taught me how to get many free 3d models. Google sketchup is a 3d modeling program that I have known for a little while. There is a 3d warehouse associated with this program that has hundreds of 3d models ready to download into sketchup. All one has to do is export as 3d model from sketchup and drag the asset into unity. The only thing is that to do this one has to have sketchup pro, which is not predownloaded on the newhouse computers, but are on the computers in the architecture computer lab. The second tutorial I used was https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h-oYmerBtEE which taught me how to use triggers to switch between scenes. One thing I noticed with the sketchup models is that they are very large so having multiple in a scene will lag the program and decrease framerate. To combat this, I separated my project into multiple scenes, each with a theme and linked them together with the help of an old-timey television.

For my final project, I wanted to showcase the uses of virtual reality. For me, going into video games and movies was always a dream. With the help of unity I was able to recreate one of my favorite games, pokemon and experience it within VR. Next, I decided to visit Hogwarts and enter the world of harry potter. I used playmaker to recreate the “wingardium leviosa” spell, and levitate the broom in front of the player at all times. Finally, I wanted to show people what it was like to stand front stage at an MTV concert. Although the scene is in unity, it could easily be done in real life with the help of a 360 capture rig. Perhaps in the future there will be more adaptation of VR in mainstream games, movies, and concert.