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- All Subjects: Unity
- Creators: Computer Science and Engineering Program
- Member of: Barrett, The Honors College Thesis/Creative Project Collection
- Status: Published
simulated computer-generated environment. These environments are accurately simulated in that they provide the appearance of- and allow users to interact with- the simulated environment. Using head-mounted displays, controllers, and auditory feedback, virtual reality provides a convincing simulation of interactable virtual worlds (Wikipedia, “Virtual reality”). The many worlds of virtual reality are often expansive, colorful, and detailed. However, there is one great flaw among them- an emotion evoked in many users through the exploration of such worlds-loneliness.
The content in these worlds is impressive, immersive, and entertaining. Without other people to share in these experiences, however, one can find themselves lonely. Users discover a feeling that no matter how many objects and colors surround them in countless virtual worlds, every world feels empty. As humans are social beings by nature, they feel lost without a sense of human connection and human interaction. Multiplayer experiences offer this missing element into the immersion of virtual reality worlds. Multiplayer offers users the opportunity to interact with other live people in a virtual simulation, which creates lasting memories and deeper, more meaningful immersion.
HackerHero is an educational game designed to teach children, especially those from marginalized backgrounds, computation thinking skills needed for STEAM fields. It also teaches children about social injustice. This project was focused on creating an audio visualization for an AI character within the HackerHero game. The audio visualization consisted of a static silhouette of a face and a wave-like form to represent the mouth. Audio content analysis was performed on audio sampled from the character’s voice lines. Pitch and amplitude derived from the analysis was used to animate the character’s visual features such as it’s brightness, color, and mouth movement. The mouth’s movement and color was manipulated with the audio’s pitch. The lights of Wave were controlled by the amplitude of the audio. Design considerations were made to accommodate those with visual disabilities such as color blindness and epilepsy. Overall the final audio visualization satisfied the project sponsor and built upon existing audio visualization work. User feedback will be a necessity for improving the audio visualization in the future.
This thesis is based on bringing together three different components: non-Euclidean geometric worlds, virtual reality, and environmental puzzles in video games. While all three exist in their own right in the world of video games, as well as combined in pairs, there are virtually no examples of all three together. Non-Euclidean environmental puzzle games have existed for around 10 years in various forms, short environmental puzzle games in virtual reality have come into existence in around the past five years, and non-Euclidean virtual reality exists mainly as non-video game short demos from the past few years. This project seeks to be able to bring these components together to create a proof of concept for how a game like this should function, particularly the integration of non-Euclidean virtual reality in the context of a video game. To do this, a Unity package which uses a custom system for creating worlds in a non-Euclidean way rather than Unity’s built-in components such as for transforms, collisions, and rendering was used. This was used in conjunction with the SteamVR implementation with Unity to create a cohesive and immersive player experience.
The NBA yields billions of dollars each year and serves as a pastime and hobby for millions of Americans. However, many people do not have the time to watch several 2-hour games every week, especially when only a fraction of the game is actually exciting footage. The goal of Sports Summary is to take the ``fluff'' out of these games and create a distilled summary that includes only the most exciting and relevant events. The Sports Summary model records visual and auditory data, camera angles, and game clock readings and correlates it with the game's play-by-play data. On average, a game of more than 2 hours long is shortened to a summary of less than 20 minutes. This summary is then uploaded to the Sports Summary website, where users can filter by the type of event, giving more autonomy and a more comprehensive viewing experience than highlight reels. Additionally, the website allows for users to submit footage they would like to watch for processing and later viewing. Sports Summary creates an enjoyable and accessible way to watch games.