Personal Reflection – Nichita Railean

Reflecting on my work in this course, especially on creating interactive AR objects and VR boxes, I've gained a practical understanding of XR technology. These projects improved my technical skills and showed me how XR can be used to make engaging and immersive experiences.

Developing Interactive AR Objects

Working on the AR project where my task was to create a AR pop up object that would show the description was interesting. Having prior unity knowledge, spawning the object did not pose a challenge, what did pose a challenge was figuring out the right dimensions. In the virtual world (unity designer) the objects might seem bigger or smaller than they would be in the real world. That’s why it took me a lot of experimenting to figure out the right sizes. I also implemented so that when you click on the object again after the description has been created, the description will be destroyed. A nice feature is that the object descriptions tack the player in real life and rotate accordingly.

This task taught me a lot about making user-friendly interfaces in AR and how AR can blend digital elements into real life effectively. It felt great to see it work properly, showing AR's promise for education and information sharing.

Creating Layouts for AR​

I was also responsible for creating 5 quests, that are spawned by our Ar app. The creating was straightforward because we already made prefabs for the tiles and the props. So I had to look at the blueprints and set it up correctly. Then test it out, how does it look in the real world.

Creating Boxes for VR Environments

On the VR side, the task of creating boxes that users can interact with in a virtual environment, the boxes should have been realistic, stackable and have a destruction mechanic that determines when the player loses the game. I got a TexurePack form the asset store and started experimenting on how to make the box interactable, luckily there were plenty of prop examples in the unity, so I figured out how to make the box so that the player can grab rotate and bring to him. I also added a nice particle effect when the box is destroyed. Added heath and damage to the box and had to experiment with that as well so the game is more balanced. Seeing objects act realistically in VR showed me the importance of precision in VR design and the capabilities of VR in simulating real-world scenarios.

Personal Reflection and Future Aspirations

Working on these AR and VR projects has greatly improved my understanding of XR technologies. They encouraged me to be creative and practical, mixing technical know-how with a focus on user experience. They've also shown me the importance of keeping up with XR advancements. Looking ahead, I'm excited about XR's potential and feel ready to keep exploring this field.