OlivierJT talks about his musical maze VR experience called Synthesis Universe. He’s been working on the game for over three years now, and the VR portion for over two years. He’s collaborating with a musician, and talks about the sound design considerations of integrating the music to give clues about navigating the maze.

OlivierJT is from France, and talks about his experience with the VR community there, and his involvement with various VR community events including Cymatic Bruce’s livestream chats & then gatherings afterwards in Minecrift or VR Chat. He also mentions a couple of the Riftmax Theater events including Karaoke night and Gunter’s Virtually Incorrect show.

He also talks about how 85% of his work and reading material is in English, but that he had started to loose a lot of his English-speaking skills because he wasn’t using them. But since participating in the VR chats, he’s noticed that his English-speaking skills have started to flow a lot easier and better.

Finally, OlivierJT talks about how he’s investing all that he has within VR development, and that it’s a one-way ticket for him. He’s looking forward to more games, educational experiences and virtual tourism, and intends on continuing his involvement within the various VR community events even though a lot of them are in the middle of the night for him.

Reddit discussion here.

TOPICS

0:00 – Intro. Come from France to meet the VR community.

0:28 – What is the VR scene look like in France right now? A lot of academic VR people, but not as many VR game developers

1:04 – Getting involved with VR Chats. Bruce’s stream and has an accessible community, and then go into VR Chat or Minecrift, which is how he met a lot of the VR community. Riftmax Karaoke night, and Gunter’s Virtually Incorrect show with other guests from around the world. Time schedules are in the middle of the night in France

1:51 – How VR community has impacted your English-speaking skills. His flow is a lot better now thanks to VR Chat.

3:33 – First heard about Oculus from a gamer sites. Create animation and games for a long time. Living in 3D.

4:08 – Getting into virtual reality development. Know the entire pipeline from modeling to integrating into a game engine. Integrated with UDK.

4:56 – What were you trying to create with Synthesis Universe? Inside a very musical project, and wanted to release it with CV1. Expanded it to adapt to the CV1 release schedule.

6:02 – What do you want people to get out of it? Keep it simple. The game is about getting the work done. It’s a maze game, and you’ll get lost. It’s really about music. You have goals to achieve.

6:48 – What type of considerations do you have with the sound design? It’s a musical sequence, and everything has musical tunes. When you’re in the maze, then the music will help you find your way to stay on your path.

7:34 – Potential of VR? It’s a one-way ticket for him. Putting everything he has into VR. Interesting in the gaming part, but also education and tourism. VR community led him to be at SVVRCon.

Theme music: “Fatality” by Tigoolio