Project Description

Immersive Histories, a Roman Thermae Virtual Reality Experience allows users to experience life as a Roman and explore the unique social and functional nature of the Roman bathhouse.

The User Experience

Users are given the opportunity to explore the "frigidarium" where they can learn about the artistic production featured in the bathhouse and get more in-depth exploration of the cooling and heating systems.

In addition to the bathhouse, users can explore the courtyard, a beautiful open-air area commonly referred to as the palestra, the place where exercising and socializing often took place. By navigating the space, users may hear some interesting conversation and enjoy the music of a local minstrel.

Collaborators
Xueer Xia
Ace Zhang
Natalia Jimenez

Role
Interaction Design
VR Development
Spacial Audio Design
Terrain and Set Design Final Composition and Deployment

Timeline
Three Week Sprint
May 2023

Technology
Unity
C#
Photoshop
Adobe Premiere

Key Goals

The Roman Thermae Virtual Reality Experience aims to:


  • Transport users back to the ancient world of Rome through immersive visuals, showcasing architectural wonders, artifacts, and daily life.
  • Provide insights into the significance of Roman bathhouses within the social, cultural, and historical context of ancient civilization.
  • Offer an engaging experience by enabling interaction with the virtual environment and its intricacies.
Interactions
Animation controller
Animation controller
Trigger audio
Logo reveal
Main menu and buttons
Fade out of scene
Challenges and Complications

The biggest challenge that I faced was managing the file size of the file in order to collaborate with my team. The project grew to be whopping 29GB at one point, which made collaborating with my team very difficult.

The solution was to reduce the polycount of most assets and to remove any unused materials and objects from the file.

One of the most confounding problems was that the water shader asset (an integral aspect of this project!) would only render in ONE EYEBALL while using the Oculus headset. As a workaround, I found a nice, simple, non-moving water shader and applied it to a plane. I figured out how to animate the pattern of the simple shader to simulate the movement of water.


Another challenge was seeing the experience from the preview window in my laptop did not correlate 1:1 with the view inside of an Oculus head set. The UI looked different and the height of the "player" was different. As a result there was a lot of going back and forth to find a comfortable experience for the user.
Code

To explore some of the code to make this experience function, feel free to check out this post on the Interactive Media production blog.