In 2019, I developed a Mixed Reality Installation for Alex Davies, Michaela Davies and Jill Bennett for the Black Dog Institute’s Big Anxiety Festival using the HTC Vive, Unreal Engine and OSC. The work consists of 7 interactive environments navigable through a physical room built within the gallery. Using the rooms key interface, the door, a user can switch between worlds, inviting the external terrain within the room as they engage with the windows and balcony of the room. With the physical and virtual spaces aligning, dynamic sound design and the inclusion of natural oscillating wind generated by each environment through a fan controlled with OSC, the convergence of multiple realities feels immediately natural, and offered a comfortable entry into VR for all ages.
Tasked with the job to construct the environments and design the interaction for the project, I used a number of resources to make the project a reality:
- Quixel’s Megascans library
- 3D assets built with Cinema4D
- Terrain built with World Machine
- System Interaction Design through the Unreal’s Blueprint editor
