Rafty: MR Rafting Experiece

Inspiration

Multiple MR experiences utilize spatial data, but none require the use of the spatial labeling system. We wanted to design a game that takes full advantage of the furniture in any given room and uses MRUK's Anchor Prefab Spawner to create a unique experience.

What it does

Rafty is an MR game where furniture can be moved and rescanned to create unique boats that can float in your room. Having the illusion of movement by making the water move, dynamically spawning in treasure and fish that could be interacted with throughout the experience, and onboarding through a unique tutorial are some of the features that are included in this experience.

How we built it

Rafty utilizes a multitude of SDKs, including MRUK and the Interaction SDK. We started by creating a prototype using the Mixed Reality Utility Kit to see if our idea was possible. Our main focus was to make sure multiple furniture pieces could be scanned and put together to create a raft. Once this was completed, we created more environmental interactions, cleaned up the visuals with animation and Spatial UI, and finalized our project with immersive audio and effects.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

Though we are all primarily designers, we were able to create a fleshed-out MR experience with the help of the Building Blocks that Meta provides. When testing our project with adults of all ages, we found that we've accomplished our goals of having an immersive and comfortable experience. Our testers have not felt any dizziness and had fun creating their own rafts.

What we learned

Safety First! We knew that moving around on furniture could be dangerous, especially when there’s a 3D model on the furniture. If the user has not scanned the furniture well, the 3D model could be placed off, things can move.

To prevent harm, we thought these were essential:

Menu to change the opacity of the water, essential interaction to prevent people from stepping outside of their furniture
Volume slider as well to still hear others around you
Raft prefabs are designed to not have any fake walls

What's next for Rafty: MR Rafting Experiece

This was our first time delving into Mixed Reality development, and there were a few features we couldn’t include in this iteration.

Rescanning during the experience: This prevents users from truly moving around their furniture as much as they want. Because we were using MRUK which replaces OVRSceneManager, it was not possible to call for rescanning the scene.
Hand interactions to give users more freedom: While we were user testing with those new to headsets or those who are older, the controls on the Quest 3 took some time to get used to. Having a fully hand tracking version may make this experience more intuitive towards those users.
Quest 2 Integration: This iteration is limited to the Quest 3 as furniture must be labeled. For more accessibility, however, 3D models could be placed using only spatial anchors to allow Quest 2 and Quest Pro users to also try out Rafty.

Thank You!

Thank you to the instructors at Design and Technology for giving us valuable conceptual feedback, and all the students who user tested our game along the way! We wouldn’t have made it this far without your input and support.