THE LUMINOUS
ROLE
Junior Developer
SUMMARY
The Luminous is a VR series unpacking the fundamental connections between Science and Spirituality.
My main contributions to this project were grey-boxing interactions and level flow, then developing upon that. I also worked on and optimized some materials to get the most I could out of mobile VR.
TOOLS
Unreal Engine, Blender, Photoshop, Perforce
YEAR
2021 - 2023
PLATFORM
Oculus Quest VR
COMPANY
Wrestler
Interaction Development
Level Progression System
One level within The Luminous was based around the user exploring the scale of our universe by gradually shrinking themselves into a microscopic scale.
This was achieved using hand-tracking with the player grabbing the space in front of them and pulling their hands away. This way, the player would be pulling themselves into the world. I was responsible for tying this mechanic with the level and scale the world according to the player's input.
The level consisted of five different areas, each exponentially smaller than the last. The speed at which each area was scaled was controlled by a custom curve so that I could individually control how each area would feel.
Each area was set up to be scaled relative to the previous area and would finish at a scale relative to its starting scale. Each area would appear after the player had completed the previous area.
Material Development
Leaf Material Optimization
I was responsible for creating and optimizing a material for a leaf mesh that would scale up to 10,000x of its original size. One initial issue was having to design the material in a way that would look good at any scale but still be performant enough for mobile.
The material had to be made unlit, as having a lit and dynamic object was too expensive. I added custom functionality to support normal maps within an unlit texture. I then used a colour curve to create my own cheap and stylized lighting, specularity, and shadows for the leaf. The material would read the curve and add lighting or shadow based on the viewing angle of a pixel on the leaf.
I had a normal map layered over the UVs with different scales, which would blend together depending on how big the leaf was currently to get the right amount of detail. Having too much detail on too small of a scale would cause a lot of aliasing when viewed on the Oculus Quest. An extra texture with cells would fade in when the leaf was scaled at least 8,000x of it's original size.
Rain Material
I helped to create a stylized rain effect which was composed of a rain and a ripple material effect.
The ripple effect was made as a material on a flat plane. I used a colour curve and mapped it onto a radial mask pulsing outwards. Then I applied it to an opacity mask to get the final look.
The rain drops were created using a world space material centered around a pivot point. I masked the upper half and stretched it out to create a simple teardrop shape. A Fresnel effect was used to colour the edges brighter to give it a glow.
The shape would also speed up and stretch the closer it was to the ground.
The drop would dim when the z-height is less than zero instead of splashing for a subtle surreal effect.
