Haunted House VR
Mahdi Mohebbian, David Bruno Baptiste Louis Andugar
Haunted House : There are a lot of games in the world developed for audiences to put them in scary uncomfortable situations, these games were around in ages, the outcome of these games are just like watching a horror movie but 10 times more effective since you are the person in the situation. now the latest technology is a huge help to this line of games, yes VR headsets, the only thing missing from this world of madness is a headset that not only takes your monitor away but it induces the lifelike feeling of presence in the scene. This types of games are really popular among horror movie fans just like myself, and the beauty of it is that they never get old, the need for adrenaline always bring audiences back. This game contains some specific features that will magnify the effect on the audience:
Planned Aspects:
- Environment theme: this includes background music, lighting, objects, sound effects and the ambient of the game that can put the audience in a very creeped out situation.
- Horror Logical Plans: game can create jump scares or unpleasant scary events based on player movements and his location in the map. what needs to be done in this section is to plan these events smart and creative to have a better effect on players.
- a real good and realistic back story: this element will make the whole scenario of the game and the location of the game more realistic and effective on players.
It is worth mentioning that this game is not going to be a standing VR game since jump scares might startle the person and standing is not a wise choice in that situation. This process will be started by creating the scene and environment of the game, but mainly primitive characteristics, after implementing some features to it the details on the design will be fulfilled as well. At the end of the project, this will be a game which your character will be stuck in a haunted house, and you need to find your way out of there trying to find clues to get out unless the fear dominates you and forces you to give up on continuing the game.
For the development of this game, I will be using :
- Unity3D game engine
- required VR packages(StreamVR, VRTK).
- Oculus VR headset (VRTK have support for multiple VR headsets such as Oculus, Vive and etc, so there might be implementations for other headsets as well.
You can find specific samples of horror environment from a game called "P.T." which has both VR and regular mode for playing in the following :
P.t. game sample screenshot 1
P.t. game sample screenshot 2
P.t. game sample screenshot 3
P.t. game sample screenshot 4
and this is mainly what I do hope to see from people who want to play this game :
Milestone 1 (27.09)
(both team members):
- implementing backstory, map of the house and horror logic of the game so we would have a clear vision.
(Mahdi):
- Start working with Oculus Rift in Unity and get comfortable coding for events of the headset.
- Reviewing how to work with animations in Unity.
- Setting the scene at a primitive level.
(David):
- Creating a list of objects needed for the design of the house.
- Creating a list of animations needed for the design of the house.
- Starting the design of objects in the house.
Milestone 1 results :
- A short description about the progress on the Milestone1 features can be found in the youtube link below ( please play with SOUND ON ).
- As for the teamwork, we decided the back story together (we prefer to be confidential so that users in the game can figure it out themselves but if the backstory is required for the class we will explain orally).
List of objects considered:
- Ash tray
- Armchair
- Armor
- Bottle
- Bear plush
- Box
- Bowl
- Books
- Bed
- Chair
- Cross
- Coat hanger
- Clock
- Coffin
- Desk
- Door
- Fixed phone
- Fireplace
- Glass
- Hanger
- Keys
- Lighter
- Lamp
- Mattress
- Mouse
- Old toys
- Picture frame
- Pipe
- Radio
- Radiator
- Suitcase
- Table
- Wheelchair
- Wardrobe
- Wire rack
The purpose of the animation is to surprise the player:
List of animations :
- Slamming doors
- Object fell
- Breaking windows
- Explosion of bottle
- chair wheeling’s going forward alone
- Toys talking and moving
- Blinking lamp
- Ringing phone
- Mouse moving
Milestone 2 (11.10)
- Connecting different segments of the house to each other. (for example 1st and 2nd floor)
- Configuring VR player physics better.
- Setting more detail to the design of the house(more into details than primitive design.
- More progress with 3D object designs.
- Applying animation to some of the designed objects.
- Working with more complex animations from David's animated objects
Milestone 2 results :
- for the connection of 2 different floors of the house an old rusty elevator is being used.
- VR player physics is in order and now there is no unusual behavior from it.
- for the first floor the general design has been created and implemented, new textures on the house, and new objects imported.
- new object are from the list are being implemented with animations such as the cabinet in the video.
- cabinet object has been used for testing in the animation section.
- new designed and added objects :
- old chair
- old table
- bear head (altered)
- moos head (altered)
- old and rusty water bottle
- big clothes cabinet
Milestone 3 (25.10)
- Designing the first floor with the current object.
- Searching for a database of sound effects.
- Basic natural sound theme to the house ( rain with far away thunders ).
- Plan horror strategy + story just like house blueprint.
- Progress on objects design.
- (optional) Start implementation and testing of the strategy.
MileStone 3 results:
- video :
- 2 data sets were found but I actually found out that sounds are more of a subjective area and the desired sounds can't all be found in these databases.
- Rain and thunder sounds are added and the thunder is not planned in the game, it's designed to even surprise me as well. (in each frame there is a chance of 0.01% to activate a thunder sound that is how it is not predictable)
- Latest progress :
Milestone 4 (08.11)
- Complete the elevator design.
- Implementation of horror strategy ( segmentize the house floor in all area )
- Implementation of horror strategy ( count down timing for out of safe zone )
- Implementation of horror strategy ( creating light flickering )
- Finalize the design of the demon.
Milestone 4 results
- Video Screening was not working properly this week so for items 1,2,3 and 4 we will have a LIVE demo, and the screen recording will be added to this page later as soon as I got the software fixed.
- Design of the demon is also ready to be shown.
Milestone 5 (22.11)
- (Mahdi) Filling the scene with new objects.
- (Mahdi) Implementing the "DEATH MODE" scenario.
- (Mahdi) Fixing the LightFlicker changing condition (some help would be nice :D )
- (David) Adding clothing and also changing details about the face.
GRAPHIC PART:
I have improved the texture of the character. Then I added cloths and implemented simulation. We can see, in the video below, cloths is moving while the character is walking. That makes it more realistic:
I have improved the annimation also, we can see the difference between both video. The character don't stop each time the annimation is repeating now:
Finally, I rendered in Blender the result:
MILESTONE 5 WAS MISSED SO THE OBJECTIVES ARE MIXED IN MILESTONE 6
Milestone 5&6 result
- Filling the scene :
- Death Mode scenario implemented review in action.
- item left to do :
- Implementing the puzzles in the scene for the player to deal with.
FINAL MILESTONE & EXPO PREPARATION
- texts and hints added to the game
- starting introduction scene
- two different endings for both winning situation and also for losing situation
- the main sections of the game are now connected and the game has a goal and it is playable * 5 puzzles are added - new environmental sound effects added to the scenes
- radio including back story material recorded with my own voice is available in the game
- as a bonus, the flashlight has been attached to the hand so makes the tasks a bit easier for the players
Here is a trailer I made for the game :
and a gameplay video is available in the following :