Programmer/Tech Art - Unreal
A project born out of cooperation between Wabash National and Extract Technologies, the task for our team at the Envision Center was to create a VR showcase of their state-of-the-art mobile clean-room, a way for dangerous chemicals to be handled in a mobile laboratory setting. Based on imagery provided by the clients, our team of artists recreated what the truck would look like complete with the medical technology. As this concept was simply being demonstrated before actually being built, it was a great cost savings to the client, and the client could also show potential buyers what exactly they want to build, as opposed to simply explaining it verbally,...
VR Engineering Intern - Unity
Littlstar is a leading content platform for 360 video in VR and the web. The app plays on Vive, Oculus Rift, GearVR, Google Daydream, and PSVR.
Over the course of my VR engineering internship, my tasks primarily included working alongside other software engineers and designers on implementing a UI redesign, optimizing and improving video playback for PSVR, and quality assurance. Specific to VR, it was insightful to see how the codebase considered ray-based interaction vs. contol-based interaction. The engineers had devised a simple way to swap between the two depending on the deployment platform for quickly testing any device that was needed....
Programmer - OpenGL/C++
This project was a challenge for me to dive into OpenGL and learn how to build a custom VR video player so I could playback 360 video recordings I was taking at the time for the Envision Center. The initial challenges included leveraging the OpenVR platform in a C++ environment, and making sure the program could delegate memory in order to handle the size and length of the larger 360 video file.
Additional challenges included trying to determine a viable debugging strategy for graphics bugs. CPU based problems were much easier to tackle by setting breakpoints or using counters to determine playback. It was much more difficult to figure out why the f...
Programmer/Tech Art - Unity
A collaboration with Purdue's future astronauts in AAE and NASA for the Human Journey to Mars Project. The purpose is to simulate what life might be like on Mars in the near future, focusing on the everyday life for a Martian colonist.
The absolute coolest part of this project was getting the opportunity to put Dr. Buzz Aldrin on Mars in our VR simulation. I've always had a fascination with space so this was a surely a dream come true. Buzz's thoughts on this project: "Why do you need to go to Mars when you have this?"
My greatest challenge for this project was learning the responsibility of being a lead developer on any project, as this was my...
Designer / Programmer - Unity
This project began when, while on a trip around Ireland with my mom and sister, I saw a fellow traveler wearing Purdue gear. I said hello, and after a quick chat learned James Jenkins is a professor of safety training for construction. I told him about our VR lab and what we do, and this began a great partnership between building construction managment at Purdue and our VR lab.
I began the project as a solo developer, building the playback system using Unity's timeline feature, treating the project as a real-time rendered video. The idea is this training would 'coach' the user about fall safety language, and we would throw in simulated real-life intera...
Solo Dev - Unreal
A game about shooting fireballs at zombies in the dark. The goal is to survive as many waves of zombies as possible, utilizing your unrelenting fire as your primary light source. Using Unreal Engine 4 and Mixamo.
I was inspired to create this project with a 1 week deadline to see if I could build a simple game in that time. I had already created the environment from a past project, so the time was spent creating the gameplay such as shooting fireballs, animating the enemies, and programming the AI to attack the player. I wanted to build an experience that was 'spooky' and dimly lit, but the act of interacting with the game (shooting at zombies or the...