Adventures in Interactive Musical VR Development and 3D Scanning or "How I Learned to Stop Worr

Charity Everett
Jul 28, 2016
2 min read

Beginning to slog away on your passion VR project is a lot like realizing that the dream home you bought actually has termite damage and all of the interior walls need to be replaced. It is still gorgeous. It is still everything you want. You just realize that you are going to have to work for it; and hard! You can still see everything that will be, you just see the many things that stand between you and the end goal.

My musical experience that I am building as a part of the Oculus Launch Pad program is proving to be most challenging. I am constantly someone who ups the ante. So I decided to see myself one musical VR experience I made with no coding,-- and raise myself one interactive musical VR experience that not only uses coding, but the ancient art of paper folding and the new technology of 3D scanning.

For this project, I am reimagining what a music video can be in virtual reality. The song as well as the experience will follow a narrative flow that takes you on the journey of a break up and what it feels like. I am creating a series of sandbox environments that encapsulate the different stages in the process while also moving the user through the experience at set points in the story. I am playing with the idea of giving the viewer (player?) free reign in the space and interactivity while also controlling the narrative flow. The song I have chosen is by a band called Sales that I discovered on Spotify.

Where has this journey taken me so far?...

To a concert to test out my powers of persuasion with an amazing band I discovered on Spotify (SPOILER ALERT: my powers of persuasion are legendary!). Shout out to Middle East Upstairs.

Since the song is a melancholy break up song, I have come up with a series of visuals that represent what each stage feels like. The group’s aesthetic is using paper, so I am making the world out of origami, and 3D scanning it into the space.

At the beginning you are hovering over the surface of a paper moon after crash landing. You are enveloped with darkness, stars, and rubble.

It feels like you are all alone out there floating…forgotten.

From here, you are taken to a forest filled with memories of happier times.

The idea is to have the user inhabit a world made entirely of paper and origami and the different ways that paper can transform from folding, to cutting, to ripping, to melting when it comes in contact with water.

I am going to recap all of the past stages of this journey, as well as keep you updated on what I am doing in the process now. Next time, I’ll tell you all about the 3D scanning process, and how I was able to successfully scan paper.