WiiR - Nintendo Wii VR

WiiR title screen
WiiR in-game

Inspiration

We were inspired by Johnny Lee's experimentation with Wii remotes to create a project that uses their functionality in new and interesting ways.

What it does

Our system uses the infra-red camera in a Wii remote to track the player's head movements. The game requires players to dodge obstacles by moving their head, and shoot fragile glass barricades with another Wii remote. The game also uses anaglyph 3D to make objects appear to jump out of the screen.

How we built it

We used Unity to create the game, with our code written in C#. Our system uses two Wii remotes, which we connected to a Laptop using Bluetooth. Our system also requires two Wii sensor bars, which despite their name, do not contain any sensors - only infra-red LEDs detected by the Wii remotes. We used two Wii consoles purely to power the two sensor bars.

Challenges we ran into

Achieving accurate head-tracking was the most challenging part of the project as we wanted to create the illusion of peering into a 3D world through the monitor. Modifying the render pipeline to render stereoscopic vision was also challenging.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

We are proud of how we used existing Wii technology for an unusual purpose. We are also proud of the game's visuals as we like the effect of the 3D vision.

What we learned

In particular, we learned about interfacing with Wii remotes, as well as becoming more familiar with Unity.

What's next for WiiR?

We would like to experiment with more game ideas that could use this form of VR, especially as it is more affordable than current VR devices. We would also work on improving the tracking software to make the experience more seamless.