Avrora
VR Experience
Developed with
Timeline
March 2023
July 2023
My Role
Concept Development
Coding
User Testing
Concept Presentation
Tools
Unity
Meta Quest 2
BiTalino
Blender
Figma
Summary
A project developed in the Virtual & Phyisical Prototyping course. In collaboration with PHD candidates from Università degli Studi di Milano Bicocca we learned to use VR technology and biometric sensors to create a compelling experience.
Brief
Develop a virtual reality experience that enhances nature connectedness, test the experience with real user and redact a short paper on the results.
Outcome
A virtual reality experience taking place in a natural environment and integrate BITalino sensors to read, record and transmit biofeedback data to interact with the surrounding environment.
Benchmarking
We looked at existing VR experiences that used somehow the player biofeedback or were really focused on interaction set in a natural environment.
Cosmos
Cosmos is a VR experience where the heart rate of two players is tracked and displayed on the screen, and in order for visual effects to occur, the two users must try to synchronise their heartbeats.
STRATA
Strata is a responsive VR experience where the user's heart rate, breathing, stress levels, and brain waves are tuned to create a generative game engine world.
Flower
Flower is a home console video game where the player embodies the natural element of wind and guides a flower petal through natural landscapes.
Concept Development
AVRORA is an immersive VR experience that enhances players' nature connectedness through meaningful interactions with the computer-generated surroundings.
It allows users to achieve calmness and inner peace through a captivating narrative designed to evoke emotions and lead them to “self-transcendent experiences” (STEs) (Glowacki et al., 2022), aiming to blur the boundaries between themselves and the environment to enable a deep immersion.
Taking inspiration from Inuit culture, a narrative guides the user on a journey through natural landscapes and tasks, fostering personal growth, mindfulness, and serenity.
Experience Flowchart
The journey is divided into four significant moments: at the beginning of the experience, the user finds themselves in front of a fire and is greeted by the voice of the shaman, the user's guiding figure, who initiates them into the forthcoming journey.
Continuing along the path, the player must modulate their breath to merge with the oscillating movement of the wind, enabling them to control the swaying motion of the surrounding tree branches.
Along the way, a deer approaches, and the user must interact with it delicately and respectfully to gain its trust.
Finally, in the night sky, the phenomenon
of the aurora borealis emerges and the user gains control over it, being able to change its appearance through hand movements,
at the same time the user is able to hear their own heartbeat, this signals their final connection with the world.
Technical Development
Unity Scripts
Day & Night Shift
Day and night lights and shadows are simulated via script and change over time.
Subtitle System & Audio Objects
Audio Objects contain audio clips and subtitles, and are triggered when the player collides with their trigger box.
Continuous Locomotion System
Possible motion sickness
Low character velocity
Ray Interactor
Used to interact with the Connection Panel on screen.
Hybrid8 Test
Script that controls all interactions related to BITalino sensors, from the Connection Panel to the ECG and Respiration of the user.
Respiration Task
Respiration Circles
Players modulate their breath to align it with a guiding circle on screen that simulates the desired cycle of inhalation and exhalation.
Wind Zone
Players impart an oscillatory movement synchronised with their breath to the surrounding trees through an attached spherical Wind Zone. The trees bend inward when inhaling and outward when exhaling.
Deer Task
Deer Interaction
A deer approaches: by gently stroking its head, the deer will become tame.
However, if the user gets too close to its antlers, the deer will react abruptly and become agitated.
Deer Animation
The deer has four animation types: walking, happy, angry and idle.
The first three are activated through bool variables depending on the player’s collisions.
Animations and audio clips are triggered via script when the player’s hands collide with the deer’s head or antlers.
Aurora Borealis Task
Aurora Borealis Interaction
At the mountaintop, the phenomenon of the aurora borealis manifests. The player has the ability to modify its colour through hand movements, triggering a shift from bluish-green to fucsia, and listens to their heart rate.
Color Shift
The faster the player’s controller movement, the closer the aurora's colour will tend towards the extreme right colour (magenta) of the associated colour gradient.
User Testing
VR Familiarity
Among the quantitative data collected by the group at the end of the testing phase, based on the Google Form completed by the participants, 6 of them had already interacted with virtual reality experiences, resulting in a equilibrated audience to test the experience with.
Regarding post-test insights, half of the participants, 6 out of 11, reported that in the first couple of minutes they felt discomforts such as motion sickness, dizziness and eye strain.
Nature Connectedness
In the pre-test questionnaire the majority of them stated to already feel a great connection with nature in their daily life, this trend further increased after living the experience. When testers have been asked in the pre-test what are the emotions and feelings they experience the most when immersed in natural environments they responded “mindfulness” (5 people), “relief” (5 people), “satisfaction” (2 people) and “serenity” (1 person). This data confirmed the positive emotional state that testers seek for when exploring natural environments.
The team also wanted to investigate about the overall level of immersion that participants felt during the experience and it turned out that all testers considered AVRORA an immersive experience.
Final Insights
Respiration Tasks
The narrator's directions were not followed probably because they were not straightforward enough.
Respiration data frequency was too high, leading to a flickering output.
Deer Task
Some testers didn’t place directly in front of the deer, leading to unwanted interactions.
Most of the testers were happily surprised by this interaction.
Aurora Borealis Task
Most of the testers found this effect realistic and immersive.
The testers hands movement were too gentle to make the aurora’s colours change.