Fred Truman
Design & Code Creative
The Secret Spot
February 21, 2012
Concept
Have you ever wished you could be instantly transported, through some magic or indescribably advanced technology, in a way and to a place such that you could escape all the pressures and stress of real life? If you can imagine such a place, what would it look like? What would the vibe be? Would it be hot so you could relax? Would it be cold so no one else would ever want to visit? The Secret Spot imagines that little place we all set aside, even if it’s just in our minds, and shows how cool it would be to have the power to flip between these worlds whenever we wanted.
Technical
This was developed with the Unity game engine and I used the ZigFu library to get skeleton detection with the Kinect. The ZigFu documentation is non existant and the examples are a little tricky, but I found an intro/documentation to ZigFu and the examples included in the package by Phoenix Perry which breaks everything down real nice-like. The ZigFu dudes currently provide nothing of the sort. Although, they have provided the library. I’m sure their busy with that. :D
Once I got the hang of the skeleton tracking and setting up all the dependent gameObjects and scripts, I decided I would attach the main camera to the head of the openNI skeleton and go for a first-person perspective. It’s really impressive how much easier this process was than using openFrameWorks for a similar kind of interaction. Once I decided on the portal concept I needed some way to detect when I had passed through. I suppose I could have just done it using boundaries on the camera, but I decided to use a collision detection between the camera and the distorted sphere just behind the portal. I found this intro to preparing game objects for physics very helpful. The script basically says if the camera hits this sphere behind the portal, change the skybox texture and the sphere texture. That’s really it.
Future Versions
I would like to be able to flip the orientation of the rotation, and force the user to have to turn around to go back through the Portal in the opposite direction. It would give a more realistic portal impression, but I’m not sure how feasible that might be – especially since this is just on screen. I also would like to change the capsule color, which I had set up but I couldn’t decide and be happy with how the whole color palette would invert so I just kept the portal black for now. It would also be great to have my own skyboxes from places I actually cared about – like ITP and home. I could just flip back and forth.
/*
Build a Portal
This script builds my geometry
*/
@MenuItem ("Test/Fred: Build Portal")
static function BuildPortal() {
var portalDimensions : int = 4;
var portalScale : int = 10;
var centerOfPortal : Vector3 = Vector3(0,0,0);
//
for(i = 0; i < diatomDimensions; i++){
innerCap = GeometryHelper.CreateCapsule(Vector3(portalScale/1.75,0,portalScale/4), Vector3(portalScale/3,portalScale/2,portalScale));
innerCap.name = "innerCap-" + i;
innerCap.transform.rotation.eulerAngles = Vector3(90,0,90);
innerCap.transform.RotateAround(centerOfPortal, Vector3(0,0,1), 360/portalDimensions*i);
}
for(j = 0; j < portalDimensions*3; j++){
outerCap = GeometryHelper.CreateCapsule(Vector3(Mathf.Cos(360/portalDimensions*j),portalScale*1.75,portalScale/4), Vector3(portalScale/3,portalScale,portalScale));
outerCap.name = "outerCap-" + j;
outerCap.transform.rotation.eulerAngles = Vector3(0,90,0);
outerCap.transform.RotateAround(centerOfPortal, Vector3(0,0,1), 360/(portalDimensions*3)*j);
}
}
/*
CapsuleRotate
This script controls the rotation of the capsules in the portal
*/
public var capsuleMultiple : float = 0.0;
function Update () {
transform.Rotate(Vector3(0,0,1) * Time.deltaTime * capsuleMultiple * 2, Space.World);
transform.RotateAround (Vector3.zero, Vector3(0,0,1), 20 * Time.deltaTime);
}
/*
LightColorAdjust
This script just creates a little pulse for my light to add some drama to the portal
*/
var duration : float = 1.0;
var color0 : Color = Color.red;
var color1 : Color = Color.blue;
function Update () {
// set light color
var t : float = Mathf.PingPong (Time.time, duration) / duration;
light.color = Color.Lerp (color0, color1, t);
}
/*
HitTest
Attach this to my camera, which is anchored to an openNI skeleton
*/
public var portalA : Material;
public var portalB : Material;
public var skyboxA : Material;
public var skyboxB : Material;
public var capsuleA : Material;
public var capsuleB : Material;
var diatomDimensions : int = 12;
private var lights : System.Boolean = false;
private var science : GameObject;
science = GameObject.FindWithTag("Science");
function Start() {
RenderSettings.skybox = skyboxB;
(science).renderer.material = portalB;
}
function OnCollisionEnter (hit : Collision) {
if (hit) {
var portal = hit.gameObject;
if(portal.tag=="Science"){
print("We have acheived science!");
if(lights===false) {
portal.renderer.material = portalA;
RenderSettings.skybox = skyboxA;
lights=true;
}else{
portal.renderer.material = portalB;
RenderSettings.skybox = skyboxB;
lights=false;
}
}
}
}