Arkology Trailer 2017 05 09

Key Info

Role: Team Leader, Lead Design, Lead Programmer
Team: 6 (Core), 17 (Total)
Duration: Jun 2016 - June 2017
Technology: Unity3D, HTC Vive

Led a small team on a Virtual Reality Real-Time Strategy game for user interface research

Presented at Taipei Game Show¹, Intel University Game Showcase at GDC², and Tokyo Indie Fest

Explored User Interface

As I had to return to my home country to serve the mandatory military service, we did not end up publishing our work at the time. Nonetheless, many of these concepts are incorporated and continued in XROSS UI

Customizable User Interface
CUIs are User Interfaces that allow users to modify the settings based on their preferences.

Example

• Customizable User Interface Panel and Sockets
  • Customizable UI Panel -
  • UI Sockets (on Controller) -
  • UI Sockets (on Chandelier) -
  • UI Sockets (on Command Table) -
• UI Chandelier for UI that are infrequently accessed.
  • The chandelier resides above the main interaction zone, so that these infrequently accessed information will not get in the way of the most common interaction and vision. When the user does need to access these infrequently accessed info, the user simply has to pull down the chandelier from above. O` Once pulled down, the user can rotate the chandelier to quickly access other menus. The user can also place menus on different locations of the chandlier based on the socket system.

Tailored User Interface
TUIs are User Interfaces that are modified by a system based on what’s known about the user (e.g., user height, arm length, etc.).

Example

• Tutorial Posters uses User Height to set height to be around the user eye level for easy reading
• Command Table uses User Height to set height to be around the user’s waist, roughly 1/2 of user height. The user can also grab the edge of the table to further customize it as desired.

Other User Interfaces
We also explored spatial user interfaces that do not belong to customizable UI or tailored UI.

Example:

• Unit Health Circle is akin to unit health bar. Placed at the bottom of the table to delineate the units health from a 3d space to a 2d plane, regardless of the unit’s position on the y-axis.
• Proxy Units are ghostly representations of the user’s military Units. As they are symbolic representations of something physical, they cannot attack or take damage. However, the player can interact with ghosts units to give orders to the units that they symbolically represent.

For example, the user can order the construction and movement of a new unit to a location simply by grabbing and placing the ghost unit on the menu to a location on the map. Once the unit is constructed, it will head toward the ghost unit’s location. The ghost unit will disappear once the two converge.

• Control Group Volume is Control Group in Real-Time Strategy but given physical volume. Player can drag and drop proxy units into and out of the Control Group Volume to make the unit part of or remove from the Control Group.

Media

Arkology Fall 2016

Arkology Spring 2017

Footnote

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