Tracker Puck

The tracker puck is the first piece of the controller to arrive!  HTC has released a tracker puck which can make other controllers visible in VR.  It's really cool.  The photos online do not do it justice.  This thing is small, compact, and so incredibly light.  I'm very surprised.

This makes things way easier than originally thought.  We originally opened a Vive controller and were going to use the trackers inside to make the pi into  Vive controller.  

If the tracker puck proves to not have the same functionality we were looking for, we will try and use the pieces from the controller instead.  Really excited to begin working on this project.  The rest of the pieces should be in later this week.

More cool things to come!

Personal Programming Project

Today marks the starting point of my next project that I will be making for the Programming 3 course.  I will be creating an object that you can interact with in the Zelda room I programmed for last semester.  My group is making the room into an escape room with several Zelda themed puzzles.  To take this project even further, I am creating an ocarina controller with a raspberry pi that will connect to the computer using Bluetooth.  We will also use a Vive tracker puck to have the item be visible in VR and out.

My presentation for the proposal went very well and I was funded for my project.

Here is the supplies I will be using and the links to them:

Raspberry pi 0: $9.95

https://www.buyapi.ca/product/raspberry-pi-zero-w/

Infared sensor: $1.76 for 1

http://www.robotshop.com/en/reflective-ir-sensor-470-10k-resistors.html?gclid=Cj0KEQjw0v_IBRCEzKHK0KiCrKMBEiQA3--1Nv_4n3EF6ErJaT_wCBipAlHLkpwnfNWwNSKAXrhzMh0aAsXk8P8HAQ

6 buttons from N64 controller

Tactile button pack X20: $2.50

Pin heads: $0.95

https://www.adafruit.com/product/366

Battery pack 5 volt: $14.95

https://www.adafruit.com/product/1959

Vive tracker puck - $115

https://www.vive.com/us/vive-tracker-for-developer/

The first step will be to solder the buttons on and begin programming the pi.  All of the pieces will be going inside of a 3D printed ocarina case.  Stick to this blog because part of the project requirements is that I am frequently updating my blog about my progress,  

Lots of cool things to come.

Featured on the news

One of my projects, A heart of tin, was recently featured on the local news.  My project lead, Hannah Pogue, and I were interviewed and got to show the game to the reporters.  This was the first time I've ever been on the news so it was really cool.  Nice to have a project I have worked really hard on get some recognition.  Here is the link to the story.

http://www.fox35orlando.com/news/mobile-app-news-feed/256579179-story

Lots of cool things to come

Half Done

Well, I am now halfway through my career at The Florida Interactive Entertainment Academy.  Time seems to really fly by here.  I've had a great opportunity working with all of the talented people here.  I have so many great projects to show for it and have overcome challenges I never thought I'd face.  This semester, I created a game to help families deal with depression for a class called gamelab.  This game was made for the HTC Vive and had some high quality art in it.  Video below:

Another project I had a lot of fun creating was Excommunicated.  This was a project for our project named The Gauntlet.  We had to design and create a game in 6 weeks.  However, some teams, including my own, were only as big as 2 people.  I had a lot of fun working with my friend and colleague Jerrick Flores to design a multiplayer experience in VR.  Nobody in the cohort had done this before, so it was an uphill battle learning networking with 2 Vives.  In the end, we pulled it off and had a great game to show for it.  Here is a video of that.

I also got to finish a side project that I had to scrape together in my limited free time.  This project was my own personal take on ILMX Lab's Trials On Tatooine.  Grudge Of The Mandalorian is a Star Wars Experience.  I was completely in charge of this project and ran a team of 10 artists to deliver this project to be as authentic as possible.  I learned so much about the unreal engine in this project and I even edited UE4 source code to remove those pesky black bars that Unreal renders VR games with.  Here is a video:

Anyway, looks like I'll be in the market for a job this semester.  So the great search now begins.  I'll also be working on my VR capstone "The Draft".  

More cool stuff to come!

Zelda

So yesterday, one of the artists in the cohort asked me to put some intractability into the Zelda VR scene he made for his final.  This was a nice change of pace since I had just finished working on my finals.  This was quick, easy, and fun.  I was only asked to make items able to be picked up.  Instead, I added a little more.  Bombs that you pick up will light their fuses and will not explode until you throw them similar to Zelda.  I also added sound functionality to rupees when you pick them up.  I made the sword and shield snap to the hand position that Link would normally hold them in game.  I also made Navi in the scene shout phrases from the game if the player looks at her.  Lastly, I made pots destructible because you can't have a Zelda game without smashing some pots.

Anyway, gotta get footage from my other projects to update this site.
More cool things to come!