Widevision is an event held each year to showcase Western Sydney Universities Industrial Design cohort. In 2020 the exhibition was moved to a zoom meeting rather than an in-person event due to Covid. In 2021, the university proposed doing a VR exhibition that one of the students would work on for the honours work. I chose to take up this challenge.
I had to teach myself everything from scratch because I had no knowledge of virtual reality at all. I started by developing 2 concepts. A VR space people could attend from anywhere, or a guided tour augmented reality headset. With lockdown restricting movement, I went with the 1st option (though I did have a working AR headset that I could play OepnTTD on) and begun learning SteamVRs hammer tools, using SolidWorks to create my assets and importing them into SteamVR and eventually having an environment that both myself and my supervisor were really proud of.
Semester One
1st semester was mainly research on both what engine to use, what constitutes an exhibition/makes one good and VR technology and it’s outreach. During this time, a wearable computer was created as a prototype if Widevision were to happen in person, but that become unlikely very fast, an image of it can be found below.
Semester Two
Semester 2 began with producing a guide for students who wanted their projects in Widevision VR. And after that was sent out to students, mechanics were constructed and finalised. The following videos showcase this work.
Week 5 Update Presentation
Week 10 Update Presentation
As of posting, 2520 different people have entered and experienced this VR environment, and 33 choose to use it as their default environment when launching their VR headset. If you’d like to check it out, you can subscribe to it with SteamVR HERE »
Now
Widevision VR is now finished, the environment can be found here which can be dowloaded and accessed through SteamVRs home feature. As of posting, 2489 different people have entered and experienced this VR environment. Also the video below is a trailer style video showcasing the environment, which can also be viewed in VR in the environment.