Time: 04/03-04/09
Summary:
Last weekend was ETC Playtest Day, where we had around 40 guests come in and 23 played through our experience. Each guest filled out a survey answering the length they spent playing, “What do you remember from each space?”, and “Did you experience any frustration or confusion in each space?”. Most people quickly grasped the idea of a dystopian society and they were very interested to see live-action footage inside the VR environment. While most guests observed things we wanted them to observe in most spaces, the playground was a bit distracting with closed doors and rusty equipment. We decided to cut the entire playground and empty rooms and turn it into a narrow hallway.
Production:
Production analysis tools with ShotGrid were utilized this week to better understand overall productivity as we were getting close to the end of the semester. We spent the first 3 weeks discussing the overall experience and “officially” started asset creation in Week 4. Week 4 was a test week to estimate a reasonable weekly asset number. After that, we set the goal to be 30 assets (model and material counted separately) per week, however, based on the chart below, the productivity didn’t maintain the level we expected. Although the pace suffered in March, we aim to iterate on the scope and catch up by mid-April.
Design:
As mentioned above, we decided to cut the entire playground and empty rooms and turn it into a narrow hallway.
Art/UI:
Our latest design for the spaces is shown below.
Programming:
With the number of assets increasing, optimization became the number one issue. The program has become noticeably unstable with multiple GPU crashes in UE5. Assets with high polygon counts and large textures are sent back for iteration.
Audio:
Sound tuning in UE5 has been a main task this week. With careful consideration of attenuation volume, air absorption, and spatialization method, the audio experience is becoming realistic. With new pipes added to the wall, you could hear the gas going through them.
Future Plans:
- Asset creation
- Optimization at runtime
