Case Study: Junction

Development of three technologies for Hack Junction

Client: HACK JUNCTION

Creative Agency: C-Studio

Partners Involved: Virtual Neuroscience Lab

In late 2016 Hack Junction, a SLUSH hack, contacted us for technology and mentoring at their hackathon Hack Junction in Helsinki, a few days before SLUSH conference took place. We did indeed send over two speakers/mentors and loads of hardware (different headsets, Leap Motion controllers, etc.).

But C-Studio decided to provide more than that: our talented lead developer Filipp Keks coded three base technologies as ready usable code frameworks for developers at Junction: using a smartphone as a gun; using the head as remote and using steps as means for locomotion.

Client Profile:

Junction is a 48 hour international hackathon organized annually in Helsinki, Finland. The event brings together developers, designers, and entrepreneurs from around the world and helps them build solutions to real world challenges from local and multinational companies. Junction is a part of Major League Hacking and is also the largest hacking event in Europe.

The problem addressed:

The client needed help with promotion of the hackathon in Estonia and equipment & mentoring in Helsinki.

The solution provided:

C-Studio provided Hack Junction with “Divergent Thinking” workshop (held in Garage48 and led by Peeter Nieler) to help promote the event in Estonia, provided a wide selection of VR equipment for the event, sent mentors to the event in Helsinki to mentor the teams. Additionally, special software development kit was built to give better tools for the teams participating the hackathon.

In total several activities were executed:

• “Divergent Thinking” workshop in Tallinn, Garage48
• Providing different VR equipment for the hackathon in Helsinki
• Sending two mentors (Filipp Keks and Madis Vasser from Virtual Neuroscience Lab) to the hackathon in Helsinki
• Building special SDK for the event (read more below)

Development of the three technologies

The Challenge:

Mouse + keyboard or even gamepad doesn’t work well when it comes to movement in virtual reality environments. This task requires another kind of hardware. While new hardware is not yet available we would like to encourage developers to use a maximum of existing VR devices and other available gadgets in order to create better immersive experiences. You may call it a hack because some of the provided algorithms use hardware not the way it was intended.

This project is based on Oculus Natural Movement by Filipp Keks.

Download SDK from GitHub:

Flying

VR device head turn angle is used as a camera rotation velocity. This allows player to turn any direction with only a few degrees of head turn, gives natural feeling of motion and reduces motion sickness as camera is rotated together with players head. Be careful to to use large acceleration when changing flying speed as it contributes to motion sickness. See example in scene FlyingExample

Hand movement

Mobile device accelerometer is used to track the hand position. Accelerometer data together with screen taps are sent from mobile device to PC using local WiFi connection. This is a kind of game remote control optimized to be used with one hand. Use it to control gun, sword or a robot hand movement.

• Compile and run scene GyroController for PC
• Disable virtual reality support in player settings->other
• Compile and run scene GyroControllerDevice for your mobile device platform
• Create an Ad-Hoc WiFi hotspot and connect devices (Usually works better then WiFi router)
• Enter PCs local ip address in the text field of mobile device
• Hand controlled gun should appear on PC screen

Walking

VR device head up-down motion is used to control the forward movement. This basically works as step detection. Player may make a few steps around while inside VR tracker and device cord range and if he needs to move further just make steps in spot. See example in scene WalkingExample

Running

Same as walking but player have to jog in spot instead of just making steps. Be careful not to make your player jog too fast as it is easy to loose balance and fall. VR headset shake while joggings also benefits to motion sickness. See example in scene WalkingExample

Jumping

Sudden changes of head height used to detect jumps. Be careful as it is easy to loose balance and fall. VR headset shake while jumping also benefits to motion sickness. See example in scene WalkingExample

Crouching

Same as walking and jumping the head height is used to detect the crouching pose and forward motion. Virtual avatar collider size is changed so it is possible to crouch under ingame obstacles. See example in scene WalkingExample