Industrial Engineering – Virtual Reality Competition & Touring Activation (2019)

CASE STUDY

CLIENT:
not disclosed

AGENCY:
not disclosed

DELIVERABLES:
• Activation Deployment Strategy
• Windows PC VR Application
• Hardware Consultation & Setup
• Promotional Materials
• Documentation & Training

TECHNOLOGY:
• Samsung Odyssey (x9)
• ASUS ROG Strix II w/ NVIDIA 1070 (x9)
• Fanatec Racing Wheel & Pedals (x9)
• Travel-Ready Stands & Cases (x9)
• Unity 3D
• Blender
• AutoCAD
• Adobe Creative Cloud
• Steam VR
• Windows Mixed Reality
• Fanatec Wheel Control

OBJECTIVE:
Create a fun, yet competitive virtual reality game that requires a mix of skill and product knowledge for an international employee competition. The competition, spanning nearly a full year, travels to more than 75 locations in the US, Canada, and Europe, with roughly 100+ participants per location. The virtual reality game will utilize a real-world steering wheel and pedal controller, challenging players to first deliver a product to a customer on-time, and then answer trivia questions to install the product. The game must be able to load player information dynamically (name, e-mail, company name, etc) from event sign-in tablets, have customized gameplay elements for each player, and output a final score back to a master scorekeeping database online. Additionally, the game should also be a fun experience for spectators to cheer on their fellow employees.

SOLUTION:
ShowMeVirtual began this project by first doing a deep dive into the client’s employee and customer profile. We wanted to thoroughly understand the core demographics of the employees the activation was catered to, and also understand what a typical customer’s installation site would look like. From there, we began designing race course concepts and 3D game art that centered around a photorealistic environment, and props to populate it. In addition to the environment, we created a drivable 1:1 recreation of the specialty installation vehicle used on this type of job, controlled by the player with a real-world steering wheel and pedal game controller. When viewed from within the VR headset, it feels as if you are actually sitting behind the wheel of the installation vehicle, racing to the job site. With some additional detail-oriented 3D modeling and texturing, we were able to utilize a CAD model of the actual product, helping to really drive home both the realism and mission of the game to it’s players.

With countless hours of user testing while building out the physics and environment of the game, we integrated and tweaked various obstacles along the race track to help provide variation to each race, while increasing the challenge for each player. A narrator, acting as a dispatcher over the vehicle’s radio, helped to steer the entire narrative story arc of the game for each player. The dispatcher first explained the controls and let the player practice in the parking lot, then accompanied them during race and warned them of upcoming obstacles, and finally helped guide the player through the installation process by helping them to answer trivia questions to install the product at the job site. The entire experience was a blast for spectators and players alike, but spectators were always shown an altered view of the game on the spectating monitors that would leave them unable to assist the current player in achieving a better score.

Because family and friends at the local events would also want to join in on the fun of playing the VR game, we created three separate game modes where some players would be considered “non-competitive” and as such would not submit a score to the master leaderboard. The game also featured a number of unique animations and events, which would be triggered dynamically depending on how the player was performing throughout their run. After each race, our integrated scoreboard system logged each competitive player’s score to present both local and global rankings in real-time at each event. In addition to extensive documentation and training, ShowMeVirtual also configured portable hardware solutions for the activation’s nine traveling VR units, helping to make this large-scale activation a huge success for the client.