Blender

June 9th, 2013

My oldest daughter and I are working on a project for the Oculus Rift. We will be building a scene from Ready Player One. It is her honors project for next year. We expect it to take all summer to complete. The project will include a small book that documents the process of creating the scene.

We will need to learn several toolsets:

1. Blender : A free 3D modeling application for building static mesh objects

2. UDK : Engine to create the world which will include blender objects.

There is an amazing 41 part tutorial on youtube that we've starting watching. I finished the first 4 parts today and was able to create a dinosaur. I think it looks more like a robotic squirrel but regardless, it was amazingly easy.

I need to figure out how to import the blender objects into UDK. It looks a bit complicated. You have to create the object and then a clipping model of the object that defines how it will be interacted with. I will start with something simple and then see if I can get it into UDK including textures on the object.

Qbeh

June 4th, 2013

Throw iloMilo and Fez into a bag and Qbeh might just be what you pull out. This is the first full fledged demo I've seen on the Rift that felt like something unique and well fitted to the Rift.

The game uses the same block mechanic of iloMilo but does it in an atmosphere that is very reminiscent of Fez. It also doesn't get impossibly difficult as iloMilo (which was a relief).

There are 6 levels and a bonus Sandbox at the end. In the sandbox you can build whatever you want. I started building a pyramid but quickly changed course and tried to see how high I could go. I experienced no limit and eventually quit when I felt like I was about 50 stories high:

I really enjoyed this game. Once you finish it you can pick which level you want to replay which is very  nice. During game play if you fall off an edge you have to restart the level. That made me be extremely cautious towards the end of each level.

I highly recommend this to everyone.

You can download it here:
http://tinyurl.com/mnwxvyj