Utilizing 3D scans for this project was great in theory. It truly brings reality to VR, and seems like a stepping stone to the future of VR in journalism. However, in practice utilizing 3D scans can be a frustrating process.

First using the scanner to obtain a 3D scan can be tricky to grasp. You must have the red thermo field over your target to even begin the scan. I found this tricky for both humans and objects, but especially tricky for objects. Then at all times you must stay 3 feet away from the target and try to move slowly enough to not have any black spots but quickly enough to not have it freeze up and lose your tracking.

Once you get through the scanning processing, the processing is simple and doesn't take very long. Emailing the scan to yourself sounds simple, but proved to be the complete opposite when I tried it. I emailed to both others and myself multiple times in a .obj format for use in MeshLab, however the email kept receiving it as a .png. Eventually I found sending it do a Gmail account would allow it to come as a three piece zip file with two .obg files and one .jpeg of the texture map.

Once you get this you can take the .obj of your scan and process through MeshLab to transfer to a Collada .dae for use in Unity. This process was also fairly straightforward and not frustrating.

Once processed, you can open a Unity process and drag to your assets to enter it into your scene. I did all of this and felt it made most sense to add the model to my Mixamo project scene, because it works with the abstract absurdity vibe I was going for. I was disappointed to see the scan came in looking like a white statue rather than a real person.

I got irritated that the file didn't drag in with textures so shaders couldn't fix it and that I had to drag in separate texture files to be able to see a realistic looking skin on the scan. However once you drag it onto all of your mesh levels the result is something that looks mostly realistic although still blotchy in areas.

Overall I'd say 3D scans are something I'd hope to have as a more streamlined process if I were to use VR in the future, particularly for journalism stories. I can picture in my head so many ways to recreate stories, utilize online articles alongside 3D scans to better tell stories, etc. I'm hoping in the future this process could be as simple as something like audio editing with Audacity, where a novice can find the program both useful and easy to master at least simple tasks and then more expert types can make an art out of it.