Week 6 - Midterm

Websocket + Unreal Engine

This week I've been busy with trying to send live data of touch gestures into UE(Unreal Engine). Trying to recognize mobile gesture input (tap & swipe (Left, Right, Top, Bottom)) while using a native social media app.

Challenge:

It is very extremely difficult to do this. I'm still a noob in coding skill and javascript and knowledge of mobile operating systems and devices (iOS & Android). Not to mention security issues.

Solution:

After talking to many of my friends about my thesis nonstop for the whole week about this problem I have, bits and pieces of solutions seemed to slowly fit together. So for my performance piece, instead of the 2 users are using their phone through a native app, they would have to use their phone through a web browser like chrome. I believe I would need to implement these elements together:

Demo 01 - Socket.io + hammer.js + Touch Gestures + Unreal Engine [Toggle Light]

Github - Code test touch gestures with server

Touch Gestures break down:

  • Pan Left = 1
  • Pan Right = 2
  • Pan Up = 3
  • Pan Down = 4 
  • Tap = 5

With Wippy's and Yuli's help, I'm able to get 5 touch gesture recognized from mobile through web server.

Test: Touch events + Server

Test: Touch events + Server + Console Log in UE4

Mirrored Phone Screen into Unreal Engine

Questions

  1. How to add the second and third and so-on plugins? I can do add the first plugins into the project file by creating a C++ project. But for the second and third, I couldn't do it and I ended up recreating the whole project file from scratch and re-added the plugins at the same time.

Week 5

Freaking Out

Dear Todd,

I'm worried.

Mint.

 

So... I've been watching Udemy tutorials on Multiplayer in Unreal, but I don't quite understand. I also tried TouchOsc following your youtube tutorial. That also didn't work quite well.

My Thesis Midterm Slides

Mirrored Screen iPhone - UE Demo

Here is my demo test I did. I mirrored my iPhone screen into PC using Air-server then stream it into Unreal Engine using NDI (Network Device Interface) platform which is a plugin for UE.

NDI - Link - Github
Air server - Link

Me - Avatar

Giant

I watched this Behind the Scene from youtube. It s very interesting because they break down what techniques they use.

Week 4

VR Review

Allumette

The story was simple and straightforward. I felt a little bit long for the whole story. There was one interaction I'm not sure with is when the old man sitting on the bridge. When lean in to check him out(he turned my back at me), he turned around to look at me. I wasn't sure if this is on purpose or I leaned in at the perfect timing when he actually looking at the daughter and mother. But if its the interaction they purposely put in to interact with the user, it's really cool.

Evolution of Verse

I really thought the train was going to hit me. Also, the sound was impactful. When the train breaks in thousands of bird, I felt like I'm flying with them but I'm not. I also want to point out that the baby extremely creep me out. I had chills on my back when it's holding me and when its slowly smiling at me, all my hair stand up.

Fall in Love

I did not enjoy this and the reason is that I don't have a personal connection with him/her so I generally don't want to talk to them. I lost interest really quick playing this app. I think this is the dating app for the future....

For this week's assignment, I did a lot of thinking and planning for my thesis and I would like to make good use of this class to test out my ideas and logistics.

Check out my thesis page for more info.

I'll keep updating my ideas and information through out the semester.

Week 3

Assignment : Interactivity - Blueprint

Interaction 1 : Spawning Scaffolding at random points.

I continue creating my world from last week. I made random spawn points with trigger boxes. I also added lights where the trigger boxes for indication.

  • 20 Trigger Boxes
  • 10 Spawn Points
Top_Wireframe.png
scaffold_staticmesh.png


Interaction 2 : Trigger Box with Sound

I tried to use the same 20 Trigger Boxes from triggering random spawn for sound but it didn’t work so I create trigger boxes dedicated to audio and put them at the same spot of spawning trigger boxes. 

I add collapse sound file.

sound.png

Procedural Objects

Found Procedural tutorial online so I add it in and wondering if there's a cool way to create this effect in my world.

Questions

  1. Is there a way to reuse the same trigger boxes for both spawning and sound?
  2. Do you mind reminding me how to adjust the world's light (sun) again? I tried but it didn't work.
  3.  Is there a way to group the On Actor Overlap from many trigger boxes to one group and only pull node out one time?

Rose & I

rose.jpg

I like it! It's really cute. I really like how they use a planet/sphere instead of a horizon line to grounded me. The animated stars was also a nice touch, suttle.

Week 2

Assignment:

Technical Exercise - Explore the interface of Unreal.  Create a scene only using assets from the Starter Content plus 5 other assets migrated from other Unreal projects found on the Learn tab of the Epic Games Launcher. Take 3 hero shots (“HighResShot 4”) and post to your blog with a brief description of your scene.

Play “The Lab” and “VRChat” on Steam. Include your thoughts on the experience in your blog post

ScreenShot00002.png

Hero Shot 1

Hero Shot 2

Hero Shot 3

Hero Shot 4

Thoughts on The Lab

Love it! My arm was got so sore especially in Save your Castle game. It was quite as exercise. I wish it was a multi-player game so someone so someone can help me save the castle. It would also be more fun too. The controller reaction of the bow to arrow was quite smooth that I din't realize it's reacting to my movement the put the arrow and fire. I don't quit understand the point of pumping the air balloon scene but the tiny satisfaction when the balloon blew away when I didn't pump the air in quite full enough was really interesting because I think the sound and its movement were in sync and fluid.

Thoughts on VR Chat

I walk up and tried to talk to this one person in the chat room but she walked away. This experience such rejection left me in this awkward position - emotionally and physically. I was like "Did she hear me?", "What am I suppose to do now?", "Do I just stand here?", "Should I follow her?". 

There was not a lot of people in the chat room.

Bunch of Questions to you, Todd

How to ...

  • make shadow not harsh
  • snapping - Short Cuts - Do you have a cheat sheet?
  • Navigation - Alt + Pan like in 3DMax?
  • Press play and the camera does not got to the default position and stay where I was working last?
  • When combine groups of object - axis is not in the middle - far away

Week 1

Reviews on: Henry . Dear Angelica . Google Earth VR . VR ShowDown .

Henry

It was very cute and sad. I feel like Henry is a trailer to a bigger Pixar movie. I think it was very well done and if this is going to be made in VR movies, I will definitely watch it. Also, little nuances of the dog's balloons when they tilt their heads were life like. I can imagine my dog, giving me a confuse face through the balloon's dog in Henry.

Dear Angelica

I found this sad and was a little too long for me but maybe because I have an attention span of a goldfish. The brush stroke effects was really well done and I wonder how they do it. Do they manually animate each brush stroke and narrate the story by where we're looking?

Google Earth VR

Also Love It! I went to places I've never been before like Rio. For someone like me who use Google Maps like crazy (everyday), I find this App really interesting because when this technology is advance enough and when I'm trying to find my next destination, my experience through my phone app can somehow be me flying over the street and see my route from the Bird's eye point of view.

VR ShowDown

I haven't try this one. I'll do this soon.