"Scary", is my first impression after experiencing ***Giant*** and ***In the Eyes of the Animal***. This is my first time trying haptic wearable in VR other than the controller's haptic feedbacks and I would say that the experience was scarier than any horror films I have watched in theater or at home. And I believe without the support of SUBPAC, these two projects would be completely different.
When putting on the SUBPAC, I felt like going to school when I was around 7 or 8. I was excited about what would happen and what kind of vibration I would get, as I was tightening the back straps. I was also surprised that this wearable device was wirelessly connected to the VR projects. The tethered mess is one thing that would always annoy me when playing in VR and one less cord would make me happier. However, the headphone wire and the Headset's cord were still in the ways that had tripped me few times during my experience.
I started with ***Giant***. I didn't know what kind of story it was about, so I didn't expect anything scary at all until the first deep rumble of the real giants walking came from above. The sudden strong vibration on my back shocked me so much that I almost fell. It was like jump scare but in VR, in more dimensions and more senses... which I can't really deal with... I started to grab the back straps of the SUBPAC so tight as if I was grabbing my backpack to gave me a sense of security. However, such feeling of being protected disappeared immediately accompanied by the rapid knocking sound and the dad's arrival. Every rumble from the giant and the vibration feedback from SUBPAC kept jolting me that at the end I found myself sitting on the floor all curled up. The whole story of ***Giant*** was so desperate, hopeless but also sweet. I could tell how much these three people love each other as a family and how much pain the parents had gone through lying to their daughter before they die. However, I didn't feel these emotions at all while I was watching this VR film. I only felt scared, because in the moment I was so immersed into the virtual world with the multisensory feedbacks that I thought I was in the same basement waiting for the approach of the giants to end it once for all. I was so impressed by this project and it gave me an idea of how the involvement of different senses could change the experience so much and levitate the level of immersion in a project. Yet I have to say that the scary parts in this project were really a mental torment to me.
***In the Eyes of the Animal*** scared me in a slightly different way. In the world with the dragonflies, I felt suffocated for the whole time due to my fear of insects. The constant vibration on my back and the sound of the wings flapping made me feel like living in my worst nightmare. There were few moments when the dragonfly was flying directly to my face that gave me goosebumps and out of instinct I tried to slap them off in front of me in the real world. My favorite part of ***In the Eyes of the Animal*** was when I could see the sound waves coming from a certain distance at night. This was also the part that scared me the most. I was not sure what kind of animal's vision I was looking through, but hearing the other animal growling behind me and receiving the haptic feedbacks from SUBPAC really made me believe that I was a prey in the dark and the predator was going to jump out and eat me at any time. Again, I curled myself up and sat on the floor for the rest of the project. I didn't have the courage to look what was behind me, but luckily, nothing jumped out...
These two experiences have assured me that virtual reality combined with other sensory feedbacks could really increase the immersiveness for the users, even though there are not significantly huge sensory feedbacks. The feeling of fear that I had during these two projects was almost the same with the feelings as if I were in a haunted house or escape room all by myself. And these two multisensory storytelling VR experience had also put me in thoughts about our future project for this class and what to take into considerations.
The new water system in UE4 is a little bit tricky in VR mode. I need to turn off the "Instanced Stereo" in order to properly see the water in Headset (Settings->Engine >Rendering->VR->Instanced Stereo). Not sure if this is a permanent fix for water in VR
