Thesis Explorations
I realized I was getting slightly disorganized with my posts so I wanted to clarify some stuff. The thesis exploration projects I’m doing this semester are Puzzlr and Glove Test 1. Puzzlr is the project I’m working on in my devising experiential media course, and Glove Test 1 is the project I’m working on in my Design Studio course. Both of these projects are contributing to my final technological explorations and will eventually be combined next semester. You may also find Cycle documentations for Puzzlr on this blog and they are specific posts dedicated to the progress made on Puzzlr.
So about Glove Test 1,
In glove test one, my main goal is to get the Manus Prime X Gloves to work in Unreal engine with a simple physical surface-based interaction. This will be done by combining the Manus system with the HTC Vive pro trackers. So far, I’ve gotten the gloves to work in Unreal engine, and my next step is to get them working in VR. When I launch the VR preview, the fingers move but the wrists stay put. Originally, I had been planning to use the Manus Dashboard system to combine the HTC Vive tracker data and assign it to the wrists, but that has proven more difficult than I expected. The entire calibration process within Manus Dashboard is tricky, and doesn’t work very well. Because of this, I’ve decided to instead overlap the data within Unreal engine itself, and assign the tracker data being collected in unreal to the wrist position of the player’s hands.
So on Wednesday the 9th, I combined the glove data from the Manus dashboard and then assigned the 2 Vive trackers to the right and left hands. Once I started up the test it ran well and the hands in unreal were moving and bending realistically! Now that another obstacle has been overcome, I will now work on tying the hands to a VR pawn so they orient correctly around the headset when someone plays the experience.
Puzzlr Update
After a week of manufacturing, sanding, an tweaking, I’ve successfully refined the final white acrylic prototype of the Puzzlr board. I’ve now moved onto creating and editing the wire setup to get everything connected and ready for a playtest!