Inspiration
The art of paper folding, combined with our love for puzzles, sparked the idea of transforming flat surfaces into 3D models with your own hands in mixed reality.
What it does
By folding virtual paper sheet player transforms flat plot into 3D model to reveal hidden shape. The folding process is controlled by hands. Player keeps paper figure with one hand and folds it across edge lines with other hand to reach correct angle. Each figure presents a new paper puzzle, making experience fun and simulating real life paper modelling.
How we built it
The project is created in Unity with some sophisticated C# coding behind to track hand grab and to transform polygonal meshes. Custom shaders were implemented to create virtual two-sided paper.
XR capabilities are supported by Meta XR All-in-One SDK. Tested during development on Meta Quest 2 headset. Projects leverages hand interaction and passthrough capability.
Challenges we ran into
Creating user interface in XR from scratch can be daunting and is the result of trial and error. Even though it's a spacial experience you still need some familiar menus and buttons to interact with. Interactions feel very different from what can be considered de-facto standard in flat UI world.
Testing during development is another thing that can be challenging because it often requires putting headset on and off. This discrepancy between means of development and testing adds a good deal of interruption into the development workflow.
Accomplishments that we're proud of
In the end, we achieved our goals and Papercraft emerged – an XR experience where player can create 3D models by folding flat sheets. It was an experiment to create simulation of real process and it was definitely a successful experiment.
What we learned
VR development can take time to make it properly. The bar of quality is high from the start. Even the smallest animation can make experience feel way more natural.
Also, now we're aware of a lot of small but important tricks in XR development in Unity. For example, custom shaders were written to support two-sided polygons in VR rendering.
What's next for Papercraft
It would be fun to stick completed 3D models to real walls for visualization of player's progress. We also plan to add more interesting models and experiment with other play modes.
Log in or sign up for Devpost to join the conversation.