Developing Virtual Reality Simulations: VR C.A.T.S.
Learn the process XpertVR follows to create VR simulations
An Introduction:
As an example of our development process, we will take a peek under the hood of XpertVR’s in-house simulation, VR C.A.T.S.
This was a project our team took on in 2020 to test some new ideas, new platforms, and to have some fun. We usually spend 4+ months on our projects, but because this was an in-house project, built for entertainment, we sped up this timeline to 1 month.
Once you know all the ins and outs of VR C.A.T.S., try it out for yourself! Here’s the link to download it from Sidequest!
Stage one:
At XpertVR, we follow a 3-step process when developing immersive VR solutions. These three stages enable XpertVR to collaborate with our clients on their vision, define expectations and milestones, while also building a unique user experience for all parties involved.
Stage one begins with a meeting with our client’s team and the industry experts they have on staff. As VR C.A.T.S. was an in-house project, we used our in-house industry expert. VR C.A.T.S. is essentially a virtual escape room, so we sat down with Mustafa (Mu), who has years of experience in the space, having previously run a large escape room business in Turkey.
This allowed us to understand the ins and outs of the escape room process and the impact the simulation could have. We then worked on translating these processes and ideas into VR, while setting up project milestones and timelines. As well, typing out a Game Development Doc, a Technical Development Doc, collecting art reference photos and putting tasks into our project management software, ClickUp. This ensures that everyone is on the same page when we start the project and that we stay aligned throughout the project.
At the time we were looking into some police training simulations so we thought it would be fun to create a story around placing the player in the shoes of a futuristic "Cyber Agent".
Stage two:
Every real-world scenario has a story. So, why don’t virtual scenarios tell those stories as well?
At this stage, the XpertVR creative team applies what they have learned from our clients/industry experts to transform their simulations into compelling stories. In the case of VR C.A.T.S., we knew we wanted a fun story to engage the players, which was both connected to the environment and the puzzles the players needed to solve. Knowing we only had a month to develop the simulation, we decided to go for a simple art style and an environment with one enclosed room and 2 smaller attached rooms. This meant no outdoor environment would need to be created, and we could keep optimizing models for realism to a minimum. At the time, we were exploring police training simulations, so we thought it would be fun to create a story centred on placing the player in the shoes of a futuristic “Cyber Agent.”
Having these pieces fleshed out, we got to work on the three main components of every simulation: asset creation, programming, and technical art.
Asset Creation: In this phase, we create the foundational elements of the simulation. This includes creating 3D layouts of the environments, building static objects to populate the scene, and creating assets and displaying information that players will interact with.
For VR C.A.T.S., this began with a white-box layout of the environment, which allowed us to get a feel for the environment and how a player might interact without needing to do much work. From there, our programming team began working on the project, while the art team focused on bringing the environment to life and creating the 3D assets that the player would control.
Programming: In the programming phase, we create all of the functional aspects of the simulation. This starts with the basics of allowing the player to move throughout the environment, control their hands and stop them from falling through the floor! From there the programming team focuses on each of the interactable objects within the scene and makes them functional.
In VR C.A.T.S. the interactable objects included a futuristic screwdriver (similar to that of Doctor Who’s Sonic Screwdriver), a gyroscopic maze table, switches, a holographic keyboard and cutoff knobs for controlling pipes throughout the game. We don’t want to give too much away as these are all connected to puzzles in the game but if you want to see how each of these works and full walk through of the game, check it out here.
Technical Art: This phase encompasses the entire build out process. Because this phase involves art and programming it is usually completed later in the project, whereas the other two can run in tandem. That said, once this phase starts everything comes together, from the basics, such as scaling, sizing, and lighting. To more complicated features like shaders (water/smoke/weather design) that make the experience realistic and combining everything to create the perfect user experience for the final product.
Building VR C.A.T.S. technical art included the basics of scaling, sizing and lighting the scenes (learn more about lighting here). More complicated technical art included creating the animations that went with each puzzle and the shaders from the final scene!
Stage three:
Stage 3 is all about checking quality in-house, receiving feedback from our client/industry experts and making optimization/bug fixes. Feedback is vital to any successful launch. Collaboration is what brings those unique qualities to any outcome. During this time we plan as many meetings as required to ensure to hit the mark and that we are ready for launch. Plus ensures that every aspect of your simulation is rigorously tested before delivery.
In VR C.A.T.S. this meant a lot of gameplay testing with our in-house team as well as sending the simulation to a few friends and promoting it to our VR research panel. This gave us a lot of feedback and allowed us to make fixes to where people struggled with controls, ensure the tutorial explained everything properly and
The bottom line:
You can now see that there are a lot of different aspects that go into creating a VR simulation or game. But hopefully this helps you in creating your next simulation or planning to work with a VR development company.
If you would like to chat more about your ideas and see how we could help you with this process please reach out!