COLOVR
Teamworks group project for Udacity VR nanodegree program
COLOVR is an interactive projectile-based painting app for the Google Cardboard created by four students in Udacity’s VR nanodegree: Haisam, Joel, Jordan, and Michael.
We started the project having all listed ourselves as “beginners” in VR development. Our goal was to use what we had learned in the course so far to develop a Google Cardboard App from scratch. The open-ended prompt for the project: “COLOR” (or COLOUR as we call it in Canada).
At first, we discussed creating a fully paintable environment. Early demos focused on changing colours on click, creating a potential paintable space, and launching paintballs.
In the end, we used a free scripting asset called InkPainter in order to implement paint splatter effects. Unfortunately, pre-made made asset packages didn’t have UV layouts conducive to the InkPainter plugin. With the time constraints, we did not have time to search for the appropriately UV’d assets or to create a large number of custom ones.
Because planes seemed to worked the best with InkPainter, we decided to focus the project around painting different canvases, with projectiles.
The next step was adding a way to choose your paint color. We decided to create custom paint buckets with different options, plus a “rainbow” bucket that selects a random color for you. By simply aiming the GVRPointer recticle at the bucket and pressing the fire button, you can change all future paintball projectiles into that bucket’s corresponding color, until you decide to choose another paint bucket color.
The user can cycle through the available stencils using the arrows provided on the side, and can “refresh”/clean the current image by hitting the refresh button.
Finally, some grass and a custom skybox were added to give the experience more character, and a relaxed, outdoor feel.
Putting together COLOVR was a great learning experience. Building something functional from scratch, and dealing with time constraints and pitfalls was a valuable experience. We hope to add more features to the project in the future.
Check out this demo video of COLOVR in action!
A little bit about the team members:
Haisam Elkewidy is currently a full stack web developer who specializes in automation testing and information security at Revature. Haisam aspires to build his own Virtual Reality apps as a hobby, and as such has enrolled into Udacity’s nanodegree program. He is currently finishing up Term 1.
Joel Thiessen is a video producer at the University of British Columbia. He focuses on creating video content intended to facilitate knowledge transfer of complex subjects to large student populations. He is exploring the potential of VR/AR to further enhance student experience and learning outcomes.
Jordan Partridge is a 3D modeler in San Jose, CA. She has been working on medical/anatomical models for over 3 years and the application of AR/VR for scientific and educational purposes is what drew her interest towards this new up-and-coming field. Jordan hopes to transition into VR Development as a career.
http://jordanpartridge.com/
Michael Smilovitch is a researcher from Montréal, Canada. His interdisciplinary interests have led him to attempt to synthesize the arts and sciences in unique ways. He released a collection of neuroscience-inspired poetry in early 2017 entitled “obscuritysquared”, and hopes to next develop a series of interactive VR poems. He also sings in the Progressive Metal band “Bird Problems”.
