How do you determine an accessible play area for a seated VR experience? This is how we did it for #TableOfTales (1/9)pic.twitter.com/iDhF1qVlE3
Show this thread
First, Table of Tales is grid based, so we needed to figure out what area of the tiles would be in comfortable reach range. We filled the entire play area with tiles, attached trail renderers to the controllers and positioned a camera looking downwards. (2/9)
-
-
Once that was setup, we got someone (me) to put on a headset, sit up straight (no leaning) and wave their arm over the play area while recording the screen. Then we did the same with the non-dominant hand.pic.twitter.com/vuESlWcze2
Show this thread -
That was a start, but I’m pretty tall so my results wouldn’t work for everyone. So, we repeated with as many people at as many arm reaches and heights that we could get. (4/9)pic.twitter.com/anyL8GCsOa
Show this thread -
Using these results, we were able to determine the radius of the reach area in the x and z directions. We also got a set of results with people leaning in so we also knew what parts of the play area were still reachable but not ideal. (5/9)pic.twitter.com/KvdFUJg8zZ
Show this thread -
Now that we had that information how did we make it useful? Easy, shove it in an editor that is frequently used by designers and make it easy to use. (6/9)pic.twitter.com/x0hyq0a9Jz
Show this thread -
We have ‘map nodes’ that determine where in the play area a map would load. The map node has an overlay showing what parts of the map that are playable. Green is the comfortable play area, yellow is reachable but shouldn’t be used too often and red is out of reach. (7/9)pic.twitter.com/ZLPRdjZT2L
Show this thread -
We had this in out design tools within the first month or two of development and was used for the entirety of the project. We wanted to make Table of Tales a comfortable VR game from the start. (8/9)
Show this thread -
Bonus: to further improve accessibility we added an ‘extendo-arm’ to the controllers. (9/9)pic.twitter.com/pOIXrbXMx4
Show this thread
End of conversation
New conversation -
Loading seems to be taking a while.
Twitter may be over capacity or experiencing a momentary hiccup. Try again or visit Twitter Status for more information.