During my final year at University, a VR project was created as part of the “Audio-Visual Production” module in the Games Technology course at UWE. This project was worked on with three other peers and this developer diary details my contributes and thoughts on the project.

We ended up deciding on creating an experience based on the Oregon Trail, inspired by the Oregon Trail game.

Summary of Contributions

Semester 1:

The first semester contained the planning of this project.

Elements such as the design documentation and pitch presentation was created during this semester.

Additionally, a prototype scene was created to provide a sample of what the final product could look like.

Semester 2:

During this semester, the project was developed from a prototype to an almost-complete functional VR experience.

Our team worked on different elements of the project, with my focus being the visual elements. A total of four individual scenes were created and my job was to enhance them visually, expanding them from simple prototype scenes to ones that would be visually appealing in a VR experience.

Month of February:

This month was when the project properly began to make progress again after the Christmas break.

I used this month to begin enhancing the first scene. I worked on adding more scenery such as trees and hills, making sure to add them only in locations where the user would be able to see them.

Additionally, I worked on adding a particle system to the first scene that would add rain. Adding this would also allow for more audio elements to be added to the project at a later stage.

As this is the first scene, it is important to make a good first impression to VR users, especially those who are new to VR. As the “player” is in a wagon with a roof, the rain won’t be an glaring onstruction.

Month of March:

Additional work on the first scene was done on this month, bringing it to a stage that is close to completion.

Additionally, the second scene was started. The original scene contained some simple buildings and walls to resemble a town, and to help establish this further, the town was expanded further, adding in detail in places the player could see while not disrupting from the scene’s main objective.

Month of April:

The first and second scene were both finalized in this month, bringing them to completion.

The third and fourth scenes were also enhanced with additional details. The third scene is in a snow setting, so features such as additional mountains, pine trees, rocks and mounds to give some weight to the terrain were added.

Lastly, the fourth scene’s setting was a desert-like area. To differentiate it from the second scene, tall mountains were added to surround the encampment in the scene to give it a canyon-esque feeling. Some unique decoration such as dead trees were added to help give this scene some unique visual flare.

Before and After Screenshots

The following is screenshots of all four scenes. The first screenshot of a scene is how it looked when it was passed on for visual enhancement. The second screenshot is what the finalized scene ended up looking like.

Scene 1:

Before:

After:

Scene 2:

Before:

After:

Scene 3:

Before:

After:

Scene 4:

Before:

After: