Most people living in Seattle have had some sort of encounter with homelessness. Some of us just ignore it, move on with our day, and then let the problem sit uncomfortably on our consciousness. Some people regard it with distaste and disgust. Either way homelessness is a widely misunderstood issue and receiving education is crucial to understand both their behaviors and ours. Our program provides such education and helps our users create a supportive community so our streets will stay safe.

All of us have personally have had encounters with homeless people and did not know how to correctly handle those situations. When we were brainstorming we originally came up with two other topics, one of a tutor website that Anna came up with and one of a workout program on the VR headset by Senuka. We encountered a large issue with deciding on our topic because our group was divided on the ideas. After much deliberation, we all moved back to homelessness where we collaboratively planned out StreetLife VR.

Our process began with writing down the general skeleton of the interactive film as well as brainstorming the interactions. We then divided up the work. Senuka took an XR rig from a prebuilt framework and placed it into scenes made using free assets from the unity asset store. The homeless man was given animations which were controlled by a flowchart in the Unity editor. Senuka also coded a controller for audio and events.

Some problems we encountered were the difference in animation framerates between VR and desktop leading to mismatched timings. Airlink also did not work so all changes that needed to be tested on the headset had to go through the tedious process of building a new patch.

If we had more time we would add new scenes, interactive experiences, more resources, and more educational features. StreetLife VR can be used in an educational setting or a personal one. The basis is that it is a necessary educational resource that will teach people in the Seattle area how not to only stay safe, but also potentially impact and save lives. Homelessness is arguably the most prevalent and visible problem in Seattle with thousands of tents on the streets. We want to break the barrier between the homeless and the other residents of Washington, and this project will help with that.