Week 14 – Softs Opening

As mentioned from the previous week, the Simtopia team buckled down on adding more to their experiences and presenting their prototype to the ETC faculty during softs opening. For softs opening, Simtopia wanted to incorporate interactions in virtual reality for both the God scale and first person perspective.

Some of these interactions for the God Scale view included the following:

  • Building Mode
    • Allowing a player to build upon modules in the space station experience
  • Scaling Mode
    • Allowing a player to be able to scale and move around the space for ease of building in VR
  • Editing Mode
    • Giving the player the ability to grab a module and remove it from the space station for more customization
  • Embodying Creatures Mode
    • Having the player hover over a creature that they see in the God scale mode and clicking the trigger to embody and become one of those creatures.

Some of the interactions for the first person perspective view included the following:

  • Including two types of movement
    • Headset movement which allows the player to move in the direction of where their headset is pointing
    • Controller movement which allows the player to move in the direction that their controller is pointing
  • Collecting resources
    • Also known as delicious mocha in Simtopia’s experience
  • Combining and mixing the resources
    • Allowing the player to mix those mochi to get unique surprises
  • Unlocking resources
    • After the player mixes the resources, they get the option of either unlocking a module that the player can use in the God scale view or unlocking a new medicine that can enhance the ability of their Simimon creatures

The image above shows the basic experience loop of the Simtopia experience which allows the player to build modules in the God scale view in this experience, embody creatures which takes them from the God scale view to the first person perspective, collect resources in the first person perspective as the various Simimon (the creatures in Simtopia), and then finally the player is able to unlock new items (either a new module for the God scale view or a medicine item that can be used to enhance their creatures) when mixing the various resources (mochi) that they receive.

The interaction graph above dictates the internal controls that the player can use on the Vive controller and all of the interactions that Simtopia has utilized thus far with the limitations of the controller.

The image view above shows the Vive controller and the specific button controls that users can select to complete interactions in the Simtopia experience.

After sharing all of this at softs, the Simtopia team received feedback that the interactions are fun in the experience however, that there still needs to be a minimal gameplay loop of some kind even though we are not a game experience. After coming to the conclusion that our experience is an innovation design experience that came forth through the framework of utilizing the Vive to make our discoveries, we created an experience that allowed players and guests to explore these interactions in a customizable space station space. Our prototype experience is unique for design – allowing people to have fun building and exploring even though it’s not a gaming experience. It was fleshed out so much in this spotlight that it seemed to be a gaming prototype although it was not. To address this, Simtopia is actually adding the minimal game loop to provide clarity and understanding to their project.

Here are some updates from the team in accordance to their pipelines:

  • Design:
    • Updated the design guide
    • Updated the Simimon details
    • Updated the capsule details
  • Art:
      • Environment:
        • Created shelf model for jetpack
        • Created feeding timer UI
        • Created Controller Description UI
        • Fixed lighting with Tianyi
        • Implement script for jetpack shelf interaction
        • Implement script for triggering broken jetpack event
        • Add emission to creature texture
        • Worked with Mengqi on design guide for Softs
        • Composed technical demo for softs
        • Implemented dissolve shader
        • Implemented script for fixing jetpack
        • Created particle effect for receiving product
      • Creatures:
        • Fixed Mini Simimon animations in Maya
        • Improved creatures shading and textures in Unity
  • Programming:
    • Created a prototype for softs
    • Improved the lighting
    • Pick up mochi
    • Teleport mochi
    • Mochi Inventory for the green room
    • Teleporter animation
    • Feed the creatures with medicine
    • Medicine effect countdown
    • Pick up capsule
    • Teleport capsule
    • Mix mochi in Mixer
    • Generate Egg
    • Shelf Storing Updating System
    • Roll shelf
    • Roll Mixer
  • Sound:
    • BGM
    • SFX:
      • Mixer
      • Simimon_Normal:
        • Excited
        • Get poked
        • Angry
        • Sad
    • Simimon_Mini:
      • Excited
      • Get poked
      • Angry
      • Sad
    • Simimon_Large:
      • Excited
      • Get poked
      • Angry
      • Sad
    • Robomon:
      • Full Charged
      • Out of power
      • Get poked
      • Excited

Thanks for checking in with Simtopia! See you next week as we share our updated design guide, discoveries and innovations that we find at the ETC Fall Festival 2018, and our plans for gearing up for finals!