The Hurricane Preparedness Prototype was developed in December 2017 over a 10 week period as a form of training for those in areas threatened by hurricanes who may be unfamiliar with how to prepare for such an event.

3 levels were created, each containing different challenges and user roles.

Level 1 places the user in a strictly observational role, only able to move about the environment. The user then experiences a storm rapidly increasing in intensity - the sky grows dark, wind and rain are audibly louder with thunder and lightning, and the window breaks as debris smashes into it. This level demonstrates to the user what a high level hurricane may feel like if the house is left unprotected and without any supplies.

Level 2 the user is placed in a kitchen where they must select appropriate items for a hurricane supplies kit from the counter onto the table. The number of objects is counted, and once the user reaches 10, will be told the number of inappropriate objects on the table, and will continue until all the correct objects are in their kit.

Level 3 requires the user to move about the exterior of the house and complete tasks such as putting up shutters, trimming trees, and relocating the generator from the garage to outside the house away from windows.

This became a strong technical challenge for me as a first step into development for VR using the HTC Vive and Unity3D. Previous projects had a strong focus on asset development and environment creation, but my focus here was rapid prototyping and examination of VR development concepts. Through this process I encountered conceptual questions about player awareness in a virtual space, how to organize potentially emotional content in a learning scenario, and how a player may navigate through a space to conduct tasks.

MindMap was a Google Cardboard project created as a way for me to visually examine project materials and process in a virtual space.

As a first foray into mobile development and Google Cardboard, I learned a lot about the process (ironically) of creating apps, and the feasibility of using something like this to assist in other work. I used materials from my Hurricane Preparedness Prototype as an example, and determined that while this would work well for simple images and models, the detailed writing was very difficult to see in the app and would need further exploration (potentially with user interaction to place and move materials at will).

Created with: Unity3D, Google Cardboard SDK.
December 2017

Created for the Reality, Virtually! Hackathon. 
October 8-12, 2017
Best Everyday AR Hack
1st Place Architecture, Engineering, Construction

Team Members: Abigail Ayers, Joseph Crotchett, Avery Lamp, Xiao Ling, Kenny Friedman 

Currently, Mobile augmented reality (AR) technology doesn’t provide a solution for creating shared AR experiences. With our platform, mobile AR developers and designers can create a new class of AR experience where multiple collaborators can engage in a shared space. This has rich applications in education, collaborative working, prototyping, to name a few. For the first time ever, we have made a strategy that allows for the aligning of worlds in AR experiences, opening the possibilities for AR experiences of all types.

My role in this team was that of designer and 3D artist. I created the 3D assets used in our app, and provided design organization/direction. Our app runs on any device running iOS 11 and up, and provides a platform for a collaborative AR workspace. Participants can drag and drop models into the same 3D space and interact with each other.

Github
Devpost

This project was assigned as part of our 6200 Graduate Design Studio. The goal was to create an animated music video to an instrumental song of our choice, with specific emphasis on the beats, and two weeks to complete it.

Our team of four was largely 3D based and chose to view this assignment as an opportunity to explore methods we had not worked with yet. Motion capture was especially interesting, so we hosted an open call within the Dance Department at OSU and captured data from three different dancers. My job within the team was to research FX in Maya and work with particles and fluids to create a variety of effects to apply to the data. 

Created by: Abigail Ayers, Brienne Butters, Tori Campbell, and Kevin Bruggeman.

Music: Oriental Uno, by Beats Antique. Listen to the full song here.