Category: XR

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Zotbox – Water

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I now have the basic terrain system with water working for Zotbox. This all runs very smoothly on the Quest 2 with a lot of headroom for future CPU/GPU needs. I use the Quest 2 for testing since this is the baseline. The terrain is scalable so on Quest 3 there will be a larger view distance for example. Getting to this point hasn’t been easy and I am very excited for where this is… Continue reading

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No Future – Zombies

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I feel like I have been making some good progress on No Future and my underlying VR ARPG sandbox lately and want to share details. One of my various efforts towards a vertical slice is building some zombies and I am at a new milestone with them. Check out this video which I captured on the Quest 2. These are the zombies from the Synty Studios Simple Apocalypse pack that I am currently working with. They… Continue reading

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Hurricane VR Physics Interactions

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I love the foundation of physics interactions in Half Life: ALYX and I want my VR ARPG sandbox to essentially work the same way.

Hands shouldn’t go through objects. Grasping and interaction should feel natural like real world objects. Things should seem like they have weight with some requiring two hands to move. This kind of interaction is important and creates a sense of presence.

Hurricane VR is a physics interactions framework that has everything to achieve this. There is also a companion physics based rigid body controller that integrates with it called HexaBody VR. Together they form a starting point for BONEWORKS or Blade & Sorcery levels of interaction.

I have been working with both frameworks and highly recommend them. There is a significant learning curve with them but they are well written and actively being developed with a great community on discord.

These assets are definitely bringing next level interaction to VR developers!

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Zotbox – a VR ARPG Sandbox

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So why am I creating No Future? My primary motivation is my VR ARPG sandbox called Zotbox. No Future is simply a fun choice of something that will help drive the creation of that framework. My hope is to eventually develop several VR games using it. So what is it? Zotbox is essentially a codebase for a VR ARPG sandbox inside Unity with built in level editing and generation in VR. The world is created… Continue reading

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Unlocking the Quest with App Lab

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Oculus Quest 2

I thought it was worthwhile writing a little about how Oculus is unlocking the Quest with the new App Lab distribution process. App Lab is a new way to share early access concepts with the Quest community that finally breaks down the extreme walled garden that Oculus aka Facebook has built around the platform. For Quest it will be the only way someone can distribute content for the device without being chosen and blessed by… Continue reading

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No Future

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Since it is now 2021 and I haven’t been doing any posts for a while I started feeling like I am neglecting the blog and wanted to introduce my new hobby project No Future. I have been pretty busy the last few months with a variety of work projects – some Unity/XR related and some not but a really nice mix of things and all in the realm of real-time 3D. I guess that I… Continue reading

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Valem VR In Unity Channel

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I recently found a great channel if you are interested in learning the new Unity XR framework. Valem is really cool and he has a series called Introduction to VR in Unity – UNITY XR TOOLKIT that provides a nice foundation for basic cross-platform VR interaction. This is excellent for beginners and is pretty easy to follow along. I just love listening to this guy!

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Unity And Multi-Platform XR

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Recently BUG had a great presentation by Jonathan Linowes of Parkerhill XR Studio on the new multi-platform XR framework that is now in Unity 2019.3. This is a replacement for the existing legacy XR integrations that were built into the engine in recent years. If you have been doing any VR development since the DK1 you have likely been through the ups and downs of Unity VR integrations which have been quite the ride. There… Continue reading

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Alien Assimilator Crash

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I have been having fun building out the damage system for Alien Assimilator. During the assimilation run the human army is attacking your ship and as alien overlord you need to protect it fighting off various units like a wave shooter. However at the same time you must keep consuming material to power the shields, weapons, and other systems along with harvesting humans from the city – with your ultimate goal being to harvest as many as possible.

The ship is a simple working system with a variety of modules. These include lots of things like blaster cannons, snatcher beams, shield generators, matter to energy converters, energy storage cells, and thrusters to keep you aloft. If you lose to many modules your ship is going to start to fail ultimately crashing. There will eventually be a variety of designs with different trade offs to unlock – probably even a Borg Cube like one! I will also probably have a simple editor to make your own designs as well.

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Unity Development

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After four amazing years at Wayfair doing really cool XR projects I am now moving on! I am hoping to find some new and exciting projects to get involved in. Going forward I plan to work on some of my own concepts while looking for freelance Unity development opportunities!

I have many years of experience with Unity and leading XR platforms and devices – SteamVR, Oculus, Magic Leap, HoloLens, Google Daydream/Cardboard/ARCore etc. I also have plenty of experience doing mobile development and performance optimization with Unity including on standalone devices beyond phones like Oculus Quest and Magic Leap One.

I am willing to take on any project. I am reliable, detail oriented, and passionate about what I work on. Check out my LinkedIn profile to see more about my skill set, past projects, and published experiences.

If you need help with a Unity project feel free to contact me via mike@pixelatedramblings.com or reach out through LinkedIn, Twitter, or Facebook.

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Alien Assimilator Humans

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Lately I have been trying out ideas for what the humans should look like in Alien Assimilator. After getting some inspiration from lots of voxel characters and looking at voxel games and their art styles I have settled on a style that I like.

I will be working on a lot of different ones following this art style. I decided I wanted a very simplistic design so that the vertex and triangle counts would not be extremely high. Plus these guys are little maybe a couple of inches tall on the ground so you won’t see lots of detail unless you get close to them.

They are modeled in MagicaVoxel as a body, head, arm, and leg. I put them together via script and do simple movements for the legs and arms while they wobble walk. They just wander about and look around right now. I plan to add some more states to them – one is to run around in circles hysterically waving their arms in the air. They can also turn into a rag doll and float when being snatched by the assimilator.

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Skyrim VR

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So I broke down during the Steam winter sale last year and decided to pay for Skyrim again since it was half price – all so I can try it in VR! I also dusted off my giant PRIMA game guide as well but referring to a game guide while playing in VR isn’t so easy 🙂 I have been playing for quite some time and I am probably two thirds of the way through… Continue reading

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Audio Spatializers for VR

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After switching Alien Assimilator over to Steam VR I wanted to figure out what options there were for spatialized audio. I ended up searching around some on the internet and found this great post that covers the Oculus, Google and Valve spatializers. I had the same requirements they outline: Free to use and ship in your app. Currently supported by active development. Cross-platform compatibility with Unity. The article does a fantastic job outlining the strengths… Continue reading

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House Designs in VR (Part 1)

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A few years ago I purchased some property in the mountains of southern Vermont where I am planning to eventually build a house.  It’s a beautiful place and is about 15 acres with approximately a third of that open fields and the rest woods.  There is a stream, a farm pond, and a three season cabin on the lower portion that is enjoyed many weekends throughout the year – except the coldest parts of the… Continue reading