Bubbles
Findlay Black
Creating Immersive Worlds
Beginnings
The genesis of the idea was an inspiration: I was inspired by the air bubbles you exhale when scuba diving. I want to create physics accurate bubbles that rise from a set depth and pop upon reaching the surface. I want the bubble particles to have ‘ragdoll-like’ physics, their shapes are irregular, and they have a shimmying like movement when they ascend. The bubbles separate and combine: if they bump together for long enough they combine, and if you swipe at the bubbles they separate. I want the bubbles particles to be emitted in breath-like bursts. An idea I have for this function is to connect a microphone, and when it reaches a certain peak decibel, it enables the particle system as long as that volume level is reached. This would mean when the user breathed into the mic, bubbles would flow out.
GOALS
- ‘Ragdoll’ physics/irregular shape
- Pop at surface
- Combine and separate interaction
- Emitted by user breath
Successes
First Draft
I have created a basic particle system that emits bubble particles that expand as they rise and ‘kill’ at a certain height (after life elapses).
Also I have tried, emphasis on tried, a create ‘ragdoll’ physics on a sphere(below)
Here above is my next plans/ outline on how to do the audio input as trigger for the particle system.
After First Help Session
About a week and a half later, I have gone leaps and bounds in progress.
Firstly, after meeting with Professor Christian and showing him the prototype for the first time, he introduced me to the unreal audio library that can be downloaded into the engine as a plugin. Once this was imported into my project I was able to get the microphone from the HTC vive and convert that value to decibels and use that value as a trigger function for the Particle bubble system.
Almost Everyday for the past week and a half I have stopped by to tweak the particle system and the map. I was able to customize the mesh, adding more glow, tweaking the color, and adding shine with the ‘Refraction’ node in the material editor. These tweaks helped the bubbles stand out from the sky and foggy environment. I added in an orbit to the particles to help randomize the bubbles behavior, and imply the particles’ independence from one another.
Also many changes were made to the actor. I ran into an issue with the camera and it not being inhabited when in play mode, so I made that actor a child to a spawn. I deleted the actor’s camera, and gave it to the pawn, and it functioned properly.
Run Through Video:
Failures
I decided to drop the ‘ragdoll’ physics after finding the orbit module in the particle system.
Things detailed below ended up being unattainable in the time frame, and will hopefully be completed in time for the IMA Show.
Successful Rings Collision with Bubble Particles
Gratification Response from Collision
Clean/polish visuals for a sleek VR environment.
