Part 1: What is VR and who can it be used in journalism?

• Presentation - Dan Pacheco.

Part 2: Different flavors of VR. 

• Mobile -- primarily 360 video. Try some apps in Cardboard.
• Sit-down, swivel-chair with game controller (Oculus).
• Full walkaround (HTC Vive, Daydream in the future).
• Let's see some examples (in 2D for now, sorry).

Part 3: Unity - What can it let you do?

• Gaming engine, but doesn't have to be just for games.
• Immersive news projects, like Harvest of Change.
• Most projects from Emblematic and anything walkaround in the HTC Vive.
• You can export for Mac, PC, and other platforms like gaming systems. Even the web!
• Let's look at that Harvest of Change project in Unity.
• Get inspired with some cool projects created by students just like you!
  • Focus on: Evan Jenkins, Aubrey Moore, Carly Port, Wasim Ahmad, Jackie Prager.

Part 4: Let's make a basic Unity project together.

Now you will create a scene in Unity3D. If you get lost you can follow along in these notes and watch the video tutorials in order. Today, focus on doing the following:

• Getting around the Unity environment
• Making a simple scene
• Creating a terrain and applying a texture
• Using the Asset Store
• Adding items from the Asset store to your scene
• Adding 3D sounds to your scene
• Moving through your scene using a First Person Controller
• Exporting your scene for Mac or PC
• Saving your project files to your portable hard drive
• ASSIGNMENT 1: Create a basic Unity scene.

Part 5: Make the scene interactive.

• Playmaker plugin, how it works.
• You can refer to this step by step instruction sheet and video if you get lost.
• ASSIGNMENT 2: Make your scene interactive.

Part 6: Adding characters and animations.

• We'll use Mixamo.com to find characters and apply animations.
• You can refer to this video later if you get lost.
• The last step is to trigger animations as actions using Playmaker.

BREAK! Let's reflect ...

At this point, believe it or not, you know everything you need to know in order to create an interactive project just as good as Harvest of Change. But how do you see all of this in VR? We'll do that next.

Part 7: Enable your project for experiencing in the Vive.

• SteamVR plugin
• Optional: VRTK plugin

Part 8: Walk into immersive VR

• Export your project for Vive
• Load on Vive PC
• Try other journalism experiences from Emblematic on the Vive.