Spring 2022 offering (in-person)

Virtual Experiences - Real Impact: VR4Good IAT 445 Project showcase, Tuesday April 12

on Tuesday April 12, the stu­dents from my course on “immer­sive envi­ron­ments” (IAT 445) will be pre­sent­ing their final VR projects that they worked on for this semester.The topic was Impact: Using immer­sive expe­ri­ence design to con­tribute to mean­ing­ful solu­tions to real-world chal­lenges. That is: what is a topic that you (and your team) care very deeply about that would help create a better world? A topic you care about so deeply about that it might be worth making a purposeful/transformative immer­sive VR expe­ri­ence out of it?

You have 2 options to participate:

In-person VR showcase: 2-4pm

where you get a chance to try out the dif­fer­ent VR expe­ri­ences your­self, talk to the project cre­ators, and mingle with other visitors!

Located on the SFU Surrey campus, in room 3140, see direc­tions, and the map below).

note: VR head­sets will be cleaned before each usage. Please wear a mask to keep every­body safe.

Live-streamed online showcase: 4:30 - 6pm: Zoom link

• 4:30pm: Introductions from Instructor and TA, overview of the course and the projects in the showcase
• 4:40 — 6:00: Project trail­ers & live team inter­view. Moderated VR show­case fea­tur­ing video trail­ers, video footage from the VR expe­ri­ences,  and live inter­views with the VR designers
  • Team 1–1 4:40
  • Team 1–2 4:55
  • Team 2–1   5:10
  • Team 2–3   5:25
  • Team 2–3 5:40
• after­wards: Closing:  Final Q&A, audi­ence ques­tions, closing

if you missed the show­case, here’s a recording:

Details about the VR Projects:

Standoff

Nobody duels at high noon…without a good reason

Website of Team 1–1

Razor: A narrative driven experience where players will embody different characters in a town held frozen in time by a standoff to discover what has happened, and that everyone has their own version of the story to tell.

Trouble is brew­ing at high noon, and every­one has taken a side. You’ll explore each facet of the con­flict by jump­ing into the shoes of anyone in town. Navigate chal­leng­ing per­spec­tives to move deeper into the nar­ra­tive, and between the char­ac­ters in town. When the clock­tower hits 12, and ham­mers fall, who will you stand with?

Video trailer:

Full project video:

West City

Green or Grey? You Decide.

Website of Team 1–2

Razor: Players will understand, value, and experience what it’s like to re-immersify themselves in nature after spending prolonged time in an urbanized area

Reconnect is an envi­ron­men­tal nature expe­ri­ence where users engage with an envi­ron­ment that has 2 dif­fer­ent forms. With the choice to switch between urban and nat­ural envi­ron­ments, users ponder the debate of — is urban­iza­tion bad?

Video trailer:

Full project video:

Sheltered

More than just a cute pet

Website of Team 2–1

Razor: An explorative VR experience that allows the user to witness the tragic lives of 4 dogs that were abandoned in a shelter

Sheltered Pasts is an immer­sive VR expe­ri­ence that takes the user through a crowded animal shel­ter. As the user approaches the cages, the unimag­in­able hap­pens. The user is trans­formed into the dog, and they get to see the world from their point of view. The user will wit­ness the tragic past that put the dog in its cage today.

Video trailer:

Full project video:

Darkness in the Corner

Women chained in dark corners, who hears your cries?

Website of Team 2–2

Razor: A narrative-driven VR experience adapted from real-world cases that immerse the player as a trafficked woman, who is seeking to escape from her darkest days in a village in an unknown place and back to her normal life.

Darkness in the Corner is a VR role-playing game about the topic of woman traf­fick­ing. By get­ting into another place in the world and being another person, play­ers would need to observe, think, col­lect, risk, and make sure not to be found by the people who brought the woman here, to solve any chal­lenges and dan­gers, and suc­cess­fully escape from where she is locked in and reveal the evil­ness hidden in the cor­ners that no one knows.

Video trailer:

Full project video:

ForeSight

Let’s nurture nature for a better futur

Website of Team 2–3

Razor: An open-world adventure VR experience that allows the immersant to traverse and protect a forest with the ability to see into the future.

Foresight is a VR expe­ri­ence that reflects upon the impacts of cli­mate change, specif­i­cally defor­esta­tion and how human activ­i­ties have irre­versible con­se­quences on the planet. Embodying a char­ac­ter who has the abil­ity to switch between present and future time­lines, imm­er­sants will be able to unveil clues from the future to pre­vent the destruc­tion of the forest. Our team aims to incite reflec­tion within the imm­er­sants through the stark visual con­trast in colours and life through switch­ing time­lines, along with a fox com­pan­ion that assists the imm­er­sant through­out their journey.

project trailer video

Full project video:

Project Posters

Impressions from Showcase

---

Fall 2021 offering (in-person)

Impact: Using immer­sive expe­ri­ence design to con­tribute to mean­ing­ful solu­tions to real-world chal­lenges. That is: what is a topic that you (and your team) care very deeply about that would help create a better world? A topic you care about so deeply about that it might be worth making a purposeful/transformative immer­sive VR expe­ri­ence out of it?

Impact: VR4Good IAT 445 Project showcase, Thursday, Dec 2nd, from 2 - 6:30pm

on  Thursday, Dec 2^nd, from 2–6:30pm, the stu­dents from my course on “immer­sive envi­ron­ments” (IAT 445) will be pre­sent­ing their final VR projects, fea­tur­ing video trail­ers for each projects, and team inter­views with the VR designers.

The second part (Starting at 4:30) will be live-streamed on Zoom and acces­si­ble to every­one with an inter­net connection

Schedule:

in-person VR showcase: 14:00 - 16:30 (=2-4:30pm)

on the SFU Surrey campus, in room 3140. (direc­tions)

Live-streamed online showcase: 16:30 - 18:30 (=4:30 - 6:30pm): Zoom link

• 16:30pm: Introductions from Instructor and TA, overview of the course and the projects in the showcase
• 16:40 — 18:20: live VR project show­case & team inter­view. Moderated VR show­cases and inter­views with the VR designers
  • Team 1–1 16:40
  • Team 1–2 16:55
  • Team 1–3 17:10
  • Team 1–4   17:25
    < poten­tial short break >
  • Team 2–1 17:40
  • Team 2–2 17:55
  • Team 2–3 18:10
• 18:25: Closing:  Final Q&A, audi­ence ques­tions, closing

if you missed the show­case, here’s a recording:

Details about the VR Projects:

Amaoto

Technically, like, everything is a drum when you think about it

Website of Team 1–1

Razor: Immerse yourself in the sound-driven experience of being alone on a rainy day, combining the percussive capabilities of pots and pans with the impact of droplets falling from the sky– all without getting wet.

By method of tac­tile, sat­is­fy­ing inter­ac­tions with house­hold objects re-contextualized to catch rain­drops, Amaoto guides imm­er­sants through a med­i­ta­tive, self-paced explo­ration of a rainy envi­ron­ment. In doing so, it not only hopes to pro­vide a calm­ing escape, but encour­ages imm­er­sants to find simple joys or a sense of peace within day-to-day inter­ac­tions which they may not have paid close atten­tion to previously.

Trailer:

project video:

Invisible War

Be careful, be prepared for next war

Website of Team 1–2

Razor: The user acts as a doctor to learn about The knowledge and impact of COVID-19, and to vaccinate people against COVID-19

World of Virus is an immer­sive expe­ri­ence that puts the player in the shoes of a virus infect­ing the human body. Experience the damage COVID-19 can cause from a first person view and learn about human anatomy along the way.

Trailer:

project video:

Habitual Hero

A little good goes a long way

Website of Team 1–3

Razor: Habitual Hero is an immersive VR experience intended to teach users the simplicity of being compassionate and helpful towards others

Habitual Hero is a challenge-based VR expe­ri­ence that places the user into a test to see how they handle the prob­lems in front of them. Users are given the oppor­tu­nity to become a super­hero in the pre-vr expe­ri­ence and must demon­strate they are a proper fit by com­plet­ing a series of tasks inside the vir­tual world. In the end, the user dis­cov­ers there is no serum to give them powers and that being a hero is help­ing others and being compassionate.

Trailer:

project video:

A Waste of Space

Space may be endless, but our pollution shouldn’t be...

Website of Team 1–4

Razor: A satirical VR experience that addresses the carelessness of large corporate companies and their methods of "removing" space debris, indicating a need for a proper mitigation plan in the near future

A Waste of Space is a satir­i­cal expe­ri­ence set in the near future, where large cor­po­rate com­pa­nies launch rock­ets into space and have space sta­tions estab­lished to clean up the left­over debris from these launches. During a rou­tine debris cleanup, the player will be con­fronted with the shock­ing real­ity of the method in which these com­pa­nies sup­pos­edly “clean” up all this waste.

Trailer:

project video:

Staying Afloat

The burdens that keep us are only pocket-deep

Website of Team 2–1

Razor:  Pursuit of Happiness type game set in Canada

Taking care of a family has never been an easy task, but just imag­ine what hap­pens when you lose your job. Staying Afloat takes its users through a rather unlucky tale of finan­cial burden and how to get one­self and their family back on their feet. Travel the city, chat with others, and do what you need to do to pre­vent your family from suffering.

Trailer:

project video:

Beyond the Ruins

It's no longer cruelty on paper

Website of Team 2–2

Razor: To create stories that make people reflect on the war and use the power of immersion to reduce people's prejudices

The war cor­re­spon­dent is a role-playing game about the topic of anti-war. The game requires the player to play the role of a war cor­re­spon­dent. They will expe­ri­ence, observe the harm and cru­elty of war to ordi­nary people and even sol­diers from the per­spec­tive of a vul­ner­a­ble person who has expe­ri­enced war. In the game, the player needs to explore the bat­tle­field and use vir­tual cam­eras to record the moment about the war, such as crying chil­dren, injured sol­diers and the let­ters found in the dead sol­diers’ pock­ets. Finally, the player will pub­lish the report after a cer­tain number of photos have been collected.

Trailer:

project video:

Lenny the Leaf 

Trees feel too

Website of Team 2–3

Razor: Our goal is to raise awareness towards the health of forests in a playful way by utilizing emotional connection

Lenny the Leaf revolves around a garbage man that dis­cov­ers a sen­tient sapling named Lenny. Lenny is in a forest that has become a garbage dump and asks the garbage man for his assis­tance to restore the forest and save Lenny’s life. The garbage man must do so by com­plet­ing tasks that Lenny asks of him.

Trailer:

project video:

Project Posters

Project Executive Summaries

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Summer 2021 offering (online)

Impact: VR4Good IAT 445 Project showcase, Thursday June 24th at 10:30

on Thursday June 24^th from 10:30 — 1pm, the stu­dents from my course on “immer­sive envi­ron­ments” (IAT 445) will be pre­sent­ing their final projects, live-streamed on Twitch and acces­si­ble to every­one with an inter­net connection

Draft Schedule:

• 10:30am: Introductions from Instructor and TA, overview of the course and the projects in the show­case on Twitch
• 10:45 — 12pm noon: live VR project show­case & team inter­view. Moderated VR show­cases and inter­views with the VR design­ers (join us on Twitch)
• Ca noon – close:  Open social. Your chance to chat, social­ize, and talk to instructor/TA/students in our Wonder.me room.

Recording of live Twitch stream of Showcase:

 

 

Still in search of the water

The price of water

Team 1–1

Razor: Experience the daily routine of a girl and the challenges that are faced by her due lack of access to clean water in the village of Ethiopia.

The Well is a sensory-based immer­sive VR expe­ri­ence that allows play­ers to inter­act with game objects to unravel the story of a girl who lives in the vil­lage of Ethiopia. The player gets to expe­ri­ence the daily rou­tine of the girl and the chal­lenges that are faced by her every­day due to the lack of access to clean water; as well as under­stand the girl’s inter­nal wishes and strug­gles. The visual and audi­tory immer­sion will mimic the real-life con­text of vil­lages of Ethiopia to best rep­re­sent the sit­u­a­tion and the envi­ron­ment. In the end, the player will have a per­son­al­ized expe­ri­ence of what a day of life would be like with­out access to clean water and draw com­pas­sion for the girls living in vil­lages of some of the African countries.

Trailer:

Final project video:

Depresso Espresso: The Closing Shift

Minimum wage, maximum stress.

Team 1–2

Razor: Taking on the persona of a new worker under the training of a senior employee, players learn basic tasks and interactions with customers that become more demanding and less empathetic, disregarding you and your co-worker’s growing levels of stress.

In Depresso Espresso, imm­er­sants are new hires at a coffee shop, expe­ri­enc­ing their first clos­ing shift with only one senior worker in the store. As they learn and per­form var­i­ous tasks around the store, imm­er­sants wit­ness and expe­ri­ence mis­treat­ment first­hand. Throughout the evening, cus­tomers become more demand­ing and less empa­thetic, lead­ing imm­er­sants to gain aware­ness of the social under­ly­ings of the dehu­man­iza­tion of low-wage workers.

Forest Restorers

Regrow the forest to nurture nature

Team 2–1

Razor: Restore nature in environments ravaged by deforestation and desertification by understanding the importance of recycling and mindful consumption.

The Guardian of Nature needs your help restor­ing the forests on Earth. Experience the envi­ron­men­tal impact of paper waste gen­er­ated by human activ­ity and the dev­as­tat­ing effects of defor­esta­tion. Discover the impor­tance of recy­cling and pre­vent­ing exces­sive consumption.

Dolphin Bay: A Disturbing Beach Day

Be the solution to beach pollution

Team 2–2

Razor: A different kind of “beach day” to collect beach litter in a modern world to keep the dolphins from consuming the litter.

The beach is full of sun­shine, but some­times full of garbage as well. Our par­tic­i­pant will be placed in the shoes of a marine con­ser­va­tion­ist and expe­ri­ence what it’s like to be han­dling the garbage on the Dolphin Bay beach and saving marine wildlife from their issues. During the expe­ri­ence, the par­tic­i­pant would be using his phone to com­mu­ni­cate with his friend and receiv­ing instruc­tions. We would like the par­tic­i­pants to engage them­selves in an entirely dif­fer­ent expe­ri­ence and help them create empa­thy for marine wildlife.

Wheel Life: A World With Limited Mobility

Wheel life, real struggles

Team 2–3

Razor: Live your life to the fullest in an exciting and meaningful journey in a wheelchair, beyond your limits and obstacles.

Wheel Life is a wheel­chair sim­u­la­tor where the imm­er­sant will get to expe­ri­ence common obsta­cles that the mobil­ity impaired face on a reg­u­lar basis. Each player will be given two tasks to do, such as com­plet­ing a daily rou­tine in their home and catch­ing the bus. Once the first task is com­pleted, the imm­er­sant will walk out of the house and onto a step which will tele­port them to the bus scene.

Project Executive Summaries

Project posters:

 

Spring 2020 offering:

SHIFT: VR4Good Addressing Climate Change & Consumerism: IAT 445 Project showcase

[NOTE: due to the Covid-19 pan­demic and social dis­tanc­ing mea­sures this show­case will happen only online, below are links to the dif­fer­ent projects and videos.]

On Tuesday April 14^th 2020, the stu­dents from my course on “immer­sive envi­ron­ments” (IAT 445) will be pre­sent­ing their final projects in the Mezzanine on our SFU Surrey campus, from about 11am — 3pm.

 

10 stu­dent teams will show­case their own immer­sive Virtual Reality projects that they devel­oped in the pop­u­lar game engine Unity3D and will present using Vive Cosmos, HTC Vive, or Oculus Quest head-mounted displays.

this semester’s design chal­lenge for stu­dents is Shift: Using immer­sive expe­ri­ence design to con­tribute to mean­ing­ful solu­tions to real-world global chal­lenges, specif­i­cally cli­mate change or con­sumerism. Specifically, you will work in a team and use Unity and the guid­ing frame­works from this course (e.g., immer­sion, pres­ence, user-centered sys­tems design, agile devel­op­ment, trans­for­ma­tive expe­ri­ence design etc.) to iter­a­tively ideate, design, pro­to­type, and eval­u­ate an immer­sive inter­ac­tive VR expe­ri­ence that takes advan­tage of the unique affor­dances and capa­bil­i­ties of immer­sive VR expe­ri­ences. You will design for user expe­ri­ences that have the poten­tial to pos­i­tively shift users’ cognition/perspective and/or behav­ior that would oth­er­wise be impos­si­ble (or not as easily acces­si­ble) to most users. How can you pro­vide inter­est­ing, inspir­ing, or mean­ing­ful VR expe­ri­ences that create a pos­i­tive change in the user? That is, what expe­ri­ences can you pro­vide in VR that are oth­er­wise dif­fi­cult, dan­ger­ous, or hard to expe­ri­ence? Instead of using VR as a diver­sion and ulti­mate sen­sory over­load tool to wow people, think of ways you can use it for some­thing more inter­est­ing, novel, excit­ing, and mean­ing­ful. How will you go beyond tra­di­tional dig­i­tal expe­ri­ences and take advan­tage of the poten­tial of immer­sive technologies/VR?

Project posters:

 

Projects from Spring 2020

Phoenix's Sacrifice: It only takes a small spark to incinerate a forest, but just one seed to grow a new one.

Showcase and Project Videos from Summer 2017 offering

On Friday June 23, 2017, the stu­dents from my course on “immer­sive envi­ron­ments” (IAT 445) pre­sented their final projects in the Mezzanine on our SFU Surrey campus, from 10am — 2:30pm.

9 stu­dent teams will show­case their own immer­sive Virtual Reality projects that they devel­oped in the pop­u­lar game engine Unity3D and will present using the Oculus Rift head-mounted display.

Get ready to become a polar bear expe­ri­enc­ing the after­maths of our own deci­sion and how it affects global warm­ing, VR sur­vival train­ing while con­fronted with con­flict­ing inner voices, being a synaes­thete (seeing sound) in tur­moil over a con­flict of artis­tic aspi­ra­tions, unrav­el­ing the mys­ter­ies of an aban­doned man­sion, emo­tion­ally con­nect­ing to a child’s inner world by expe­ri­enc­ing their dreams, expe­ri­enc­ing the lone­li­ness of an aban­doned dog first-hand/paw, and much more.

Some projects draw from con­tem­po­rary indie/art com­puter games like Dear Esther, Journey, or Stanley’s Parable and cinema, fiction/sci-fi, and of course VR. Students were tasked to design for a pur­pose­ful and immer­sive user expe­ri­ence — this semester’s design chal­lenge for stu­dents was Going beyond: “Use unity3D and guid­ing frame­works (e.g., immer­sion, pres­ence, user-centered sys­tems design etc.) to iter­a­tively ideate, design, pro­to­type, and eval­u­ate an immer­sive and inter­ac­tive vir­tual envi­ron­ment expe­ri­ence that “goes beyond”: How could you pro­vide inter­est­ing, inspir­ing, or mean­ing­ful expe­ri­ences in VR? That is, what expe­ri­ences could you pro­vide in VR that are oth­er­wise dif­fi­cult, dan­ger­ous, or hard to expe­ri­ence? Instead of using VR as only a past-time and ulti­mate sen­sory over­load tool to wow people, how could you use it for some­thing more inter­est­ing, novel, excit­ing, or mean­ing­ful?” Be pre­pared for some excit­ing showcases!

In case you can’t make it to the inter­ac­tive project show­case, you can join the public project video pre­sen­ta­tion ses­sion on Thursday June 29^th  at 2:30pm, in Surrey room #5380, or wait for the best videos to be posted online.

See SFU’s media release, on publicnow.com for cur­rent media infor­ma­tion, and the Teaching & Learning blog for a news story on this course from Spring 2013, enti­tled: “How a SIAT course in immer­sive envi­ron­ments exposed stu­dents to the real world”

See my teach­ing page and SFU media release for more infos. The redesign of the 2013 offer­ing of the course was sup­ported by a Teaching and Learning Development Grant and invalu­able ongo­ing assis­tance by edu­ca­tional con­sul­tant Barb Berry.

Pictures from showcase:

Sample Project Videos

Forlorn

Canvas of Sound

Echo

Adrift

Finding Home

The Cave

Project posters:

Executive summaries that were handed out during the showcase

Showcase and Project Videos from Fall 2016 offering

Below are the project posters and pic­tures from our show­case on Friday December 9^th 2016, where stu­dents from my course on “immer­sive envi­ron­ments” (IAT 445) pre­sented their final projects in the Mezzanine on our SFU Surrey campus, from about 10:00am — 2pm. See also SFU’s Media Advisory.

Students were tasked to design for a pur­pose­ful and immer­sive user expe­ri­ence — this semester’s design chal­lenge for stu­dents was evok­ing a strong yet mean­ing­ful feel­ing of empathy

Here’s the offi­cial SFU 1-minute cov­er­age of my IAT 445 Immersive Environments course:

and media cov­er­age from BlackPress at http://www.northdeltareporter.com/news/405786476.html]

Sample Project Videos

Parallel Minds

The Reef

The Painter

Retrograde

Below are the project posters:

and the first page of the executive  summaries (see here for Full pdf's)

other project pictures and materials:

Showcase and Project Videos from Summer Intersession 2015 offering

Below are the project posters and pic­tures from our show­case on Friday June 26^th 2015

this semester’s design chal­lenge for stu­dents was evok­ing a strong yet mean­ing­ful emo­tional or vis­ceral response using an immer­sive envi­ronemnt built with the game engine Unity3D that most stu­dents just started learn­ing at the begin­ning of the semester.

Sample Project Videos

 CDM by team Much VR

 

 Mystic by team Mystikal Lab

 

B-Eye by team Bees

 

The Passage by team M.O.S.T.

 

https://vimeo.com/132536087 Hooked by team Muffins

Project showcase on Friday November 28th 2014

Below are the project posters for the Fall 2014 showcase

Project posters:

Sample Project Videos

Omen by team Maze

 

Love &Grief

 

Sweet Sacrifice  by team super sparkly pink uni­corn 4K

Impressions from the showcase:

Showcase and Project Videos from Summer Intersession 2014 offering

Below are the project posters for the show­case on Friday June 20^th, 2014:

Sample Project Videos

Here are some of the final project videos of the teams:

Team Skywalker: Fall from the sky

 

Team Dream Up: Awakening

 

Sweets

 

Team Zissou: Glow

 

Team imag­i­nar­i­ous: Lukomorye

Impressions from the showcase:

Showcase and Project Videos from Fall 2013 offering

Below are the project posters for the show­case on Thursday Nov. 28 2013:

Sample Project Videos

Here are some of the final project videos of the teams:

Team Mindfulness: (REM)INISCENT

Team WAKE: WAKE

Team Segway: Azuria

Team Insanity: Conjecture

Impressions from the showcase:

Showcase, Project Videos, and Portfolios from Spring 2013 offering

Examples from Project Showcase

On April 4 & 5^th 2013, the stu­dents from the “immer­sive envi­ron­ments” course (IAT 445) pre­sented their final projects in the Mezzanine on our SFU Surrey campus. 9 Teams show­cased their own immer­sive Virtual Reality projects that they devel­oped in the pop­u­lar game engine Unity3D - for most of them this was their first expo­sure to the soft­ware. Below are first impres­sions of the show­case — thanks to all the stu­dents for their great contributions!  

Sample Project Videos

Here are some of the final project videos of the teams:

Team Pendulum: Finding Alice

 

Team UFOria: Alien Abduction

 

Team Underland: Underlurcker

Additional media cov­er­age: SFU media release

 

Student Portfolios

Below are some exam­ples from Student port­fo­lios which were cre­ated as part of this course to high­light stu­dents’ skills and projects and pro­mote their com­pet­i­tive­ness on the job market.
Amy Hsuanwen Wang
Devin Cook
Stefan Dalen
Sarah Han
Kyle Historillo
Khalid Abdullah
The redesign of the 2013 offer­ing of the course was sup­ported by a Teaching and Learning Development Grant and invalu­able assis­tance by edu­ca­tional con­sul­tant Barb Berry.

Pictures from previous immersive environments (IAT445) showcases

See IAT 445: Immersive Environments & IAT 445: Immersive Environments Showcase for more details