Virtual Reality

In term 4 of this year, the DT committee worked with the Library Committee to organise Games Week in Week 5.  The DT committee was in charge of running the VR station in the Chrysalids. The girls involved were me (Fai), Ella, Serena, Toni, Diana, Caitlyn, Chrissie, Inika and Amy.

The virtual reality kit that the school possessed was the HP VR Backpack, designed for a free-roam VR experience. Though it can be used as a desktop station, this time, we were using it for a gaming experience. Here is a video by HP showcasing their VR backpack:

Initially, we toyed around with many ideas – one was doing a mixed reality feed with Beat Saber. Ella, who had previous experience with the ATEM mini (a broadcast switcher that lets you switch between 4 video sources plus 2 audio sources) was mainly in charge of this project. She proposed setting up a camera to capture yourself in the mixed reality space, and setting up a green screen behind yourself so the background could easily be removed. Then, using the ATEM, one could overlay yourself over a third person view of Beat Saber.

In the end, due to time constraints and unexpected technical issues, we couldn’t get the mixed reality going. In the future, it would be a good idea to investigate more of mixed reality, and maybe incorporate the use of mixed reality software such as LIV.

For Games week, the committee banded together to select and test the games, and to set up the VR kits in the Chrysalids. The games that we had for play were Beat Saber, Job Simulator and Tiltbrush, which are all available on Steam. Quick trailers for each game:

All this work led to a successful VR station and a successful Games Week. All the girls had lots of fun trying out the VR kits and sharing the joy of VR with other students. In the future, I hope we have more chances to explore virtual reality!

This post was written by Fai