Design for Another World
Meditating VR Forest Environment
Introduction
Our assignment was basically to create a VR environment. It was completely open ended, and we were free to create whatever environment we wanted to give the user any experience we wanted. So we decided to create and environment which is clam, soothing, and happy. We wanted to use this environment to help people meditate, or just find inner peace. We came up with three aspects to create this experience; ambiance, audio, and solitude.
Brainstorming
Our brainstorming process started with a discussion of what a user would want to experience. Since we just finished another assignment of “design for well-being”, someone suggested we could create an environment for people to relax and meditate. We thought that this would be an appealing environment for any user because the sounds combined with an environment that most people would consider relaxing. We also believed that it would be a relatively easier project to scope and keep in scope because of the amount of aesthetics needed over the raw amount of back-end html code, which would help to both keep the project within the time constraints as well as within the design constraints we were given. Another aspect that we considered when designing the initial idea was one that would be relevant to our classmates during this time of the term, and we thought that having an area for people to relax in would not only be an interesting place to design, but also be useful to everyone who is stressed about finals and other things in their lives. This was a good idea to pursue because this project was our final project because everyone testing this environment will have other finals that day, and they will all need a relaxation session. The first things we had to consider was the setting. We wanted our setting to be outdoors and connected to nature, because nature resembles balance, peace, and life. A forest seemed like a perfect setting for this project. Next we thought about what sounds we can add to this environment: A running lake, rain, animals, wind, etc. So we used audio to create the image of our environment in our minds, and to figure out what to include in the environment.
Initial User Testing
During the first user testing, we did not yet have a prototype to test. Instead, we simulated our meditation forest using a 3D video we found on Youtube and played some audio in the background in order to add to the experience. The link to where we found the video can be found at the bottom of this section. This video allowed the user to walk around a forest. We had the user wear headphones for the audio experience. We were able to test five different users. Our users overall really enjoyed the example experience and liked the idea. One user mentioned that it really appealed to their outdoorsiness and made them feel peaceful. Another user who had used peaceful/relaxing VR experiences before felt that our idea and initial concept was up to par with those he had used before. Images from our first user testing day can be seen below.
Prototyping
To create the prototype, we decided to use the resources given through a-frame, and to use just the models from inside of a-frame, as well as the back-end engine to use as a canvas for the other parts of the experience. We found out that the a-frame engine had a few problems during the initial design process. One of the key problems was that the tree models that we created were multiple objects placed on top of each other, and so each tree had more of a cpu pull that if it was a single mesh, which hurt performance on some machines. Another problem that we ran into was the html audio component inside of a-frame. We decided to instead use just a basic html audio object to play that audio, since the way that we designed the audio experience meant that it would be always playing in the background. We found some workarounds for the tree objects as well as implemented the sounds and other graphical components with not as much trouble as the initial set-up of the html file, and were able to create a relatively complete area for the user to immerse themselves in.
Demo Day User Testing
Our demo day was a success. We were able to test our prototypes without any bugs or errors. Most of our testers were amazed by or environment and audio. We did not mention that it was aimed to relax the user, but they told us that they felt “chill, relaxed, calm”. This meant that we succeeded on delivering a relaxing experience. We got some constructive feedback as well. Some of our users told us it would look nicer if we had more trees; however, the more trees we put in, the more it lags, because every tree is composed of three or four cones, and a cylinder. This means that for every tree we put in, A-Frame is trying to compute five different objects. The users liked our water animation as well, because it was subtle, yet provided better immersion. Another constructing feedback was to our river. They suggested giving the lake a flow instead of making it a rectangle. This idea came up in one of our meetings as well, but we didn’t have enough time to change the shape, and the water animations.
Conclusion
In the end, we believe our forest environment was a successful soothing VR interaction. Having considered several other options for the environment including a beach, a cliffside, and a desert. Some of the things that we found users enjoyed included the general ambient sounds as well as the environment’s layout. Several users suggested that adding more trees would be an improvement. We found unfortunately that adding more trees proved to be both incredibly tedious and draining on the system. As we added more trees, the entire interaction slowed to a crawl and the framerate became unbearingly low. In order to keep the experience calming, we opted to sacrifice the size of the forest. Given more time, we would likely implement the trees with instanced 3d models instead to improve the load Aframe had to deal with, thus letting us build a much larger forest. Likewise, we would like to expand the forest as a whole and provide more for the user to explore.
Below is a link to our project and a link to a video of our project!