Titanic VR interactions

The experience I have been working on has two main elements, the story and the jigsaw puzzle. I wanted it to be a static cinematic app so people suffering from motion sickness in VR could also experience it without feeling nauseous. I have developed motion sickness in VR within the last year, therefore, I understand how it can prevent one from enjoying VR, not to mention building and testing it.

As I was developing the idea of a pop-up book, I had some animations in place. Objects would appear and move automatically as the experience progresses. I wanted to add interactions to make the app more engaging and immersive for the player. Certain objects would trigger actions (animations) or audio in the scene. 

In the first scene, the player stands in front of a big table. There are three books on that table, but one of them is much bigger than the other two. It is a hint for the player to reach for the book. It has not been said but it was indicated by making the book stand out in the scene. The player, after grabbing the book and moving it to the centre of the table, triggers the animation. A large pop-up book will appear, and with a moving page, Titanic and then an iceberg.

The second scene is a story scene, with more VR interactions. There is another large pop-up book on the table – as the pop-up book is the key element of the look of my experience. Next to the book, there are objects on the table; when picked by the player, they all trigger actions. Compass and binoculars activate the audio – a short story about Titanic, whereas the glass bottle, when traditionally smashed against the ship leaving for its maiden journey, breaks activating the broken glass sound, but also making the ship sail away. 

The third scene is all based on interactions, since it is the jigsaw puzzle scene (described with mechanics explained in one of my previous posts about this project). Completing the puzzle, thanks to the corresponding to the action code, activates a big model of the Titanic appearing in the scene. In the next step of developing that scene, I want to adjust the code so the fireworks will appear at the same time, along with a celebratory music or cheering crowd sound.

The fourth scene I was to build, would be a scene where the player is on the Titanic’s deck, entering the port in the US or something along these lines. It would probably have one or two interactions. Sadly, at the current stage of developing my game and its due date, I realise I might not build that scene at all. 

The next four days are crucial and I will be focusing on having my game ready for Friday, along with required documentation and presentation of the project. It has been an intense time, when at day I was looking after my family, and spent evenings and often nights on developing two (and for some short time three) projects. 

All the above interactions are implemented in the project through the script. Bussola Sound Activation is the name of the script for activating a short story that is being told after the player grabs the compass from the table. There are three important components needed for this script to work: bussola object, player and audio clip. They are all called at the beginning of the script. Next, void On Trigger Enter (Collider other) is called, and there is an if statement added to that. In practice it means that when two objects collide and one of them has a player tag, the audio clip called Intro will be activated. Moreover, the last line of the code: Destroy(Bussola, 30f); means that the Bussola object will be destroyed after 30 seconds from the start of the audio – it is carefully measured for this particular audio. In the game the compass simply disappears.

The future development of the project would involve more advanced interactions and further developing the story of the Titanic being brought back to life.