The Mark Cuban Center for Sports Media and Technology has developed its first virtual reality game since officially opening its doors in Oct. 2016. Catherine Onofrey, a senior majoring in informatics and an intern with the Cuban Center, spearheaded the development of the basketball game which allows those playing the opportunity to feel as though they are shooting baskets inside of Simon Skjodt Assembly Hall.This is a major milestone for the Center and its purpose of partnering with academic units on campus to provide opportunities for IU students in various media and technology disciplines. The partnership allows students the use of cutting edge technology and equipment to hone their skills to produce high-quality professional content.Onofrey, a native of Carmel, Ind., developed the game as part of a capstone project within the School of Informatics and Computing. The student-driven project earned Onofrey credit toward her degree. Over the course of the 2016 fall semester and into January, she worked on building the game while giving bi-weekly updates and culminating with the game's completion for review."I presented the idea to (the Cuban Center) and we kind of came up with the idea of doing a basketball fan experience," Onofrey said. "So then with that, we just kind of ran with creating Simon Skjodt Assembly Hall in a VR environment."The development of the game would not have been possible if it were not for the technology and equipment provided by the Cuban Center. An array of software was needed to develop the game. Maya, Unity and Steam are the programs Onofrey used and continues to use to create and run the game and all are available for use through the Cuban Center.The Cuban Center also provides an HTC Vive, which is needed to equip players to play the game. The HTC Vive is a virtual reality headset. It is designed to utilize "room scale" technology to turn a room into 3D space via sensors with the virtual world allowing the user to navigate naturally with the ability to walk around and use motion tracked handheld controllers to manipulate objects, interact, communicate and experience immersive environments. The product was launched less than a year ago in the spring of 2016.IU is a leader in providing this technology to students as HTC Vive headsets are now available in the School of Informatics and Computing as well as other deparments throughout campus.Once equipped with the HTC Vive and hand controllers, players are transported on to Branch McCracken Court inside Simon Skjodt Assembly Hall and given the ability to move around to pick up basketballs from ball racks to shoot on either basket. Using the controllers, players can relive their favorite IU basketball moments, shoot a free throw or launch from half court all while feeling like they are virtually standing on the legendary court. Surrounding the court, gamers can glance around to find information and stats on legendary players from Indiana men's and women's basketball.Onofrey and the Cuban Center are now working toward making the game available to the public. The hope is to make it available by download for anyone who has an HTC Vive and the Steam software.Onofrey began development of the game using Maya where she modeled the basketball goals as well as the objects within the game players see or interact with. She also used a program called Unity, which operates the game while being played. That's how she set up the surroundings to make it look like Branch McCracken Court.Her interest in virtual reality began when she took 3D Computer Graphics, a 300 level class in IU's College of Arts and Sciences (FINA-D 318)."We learned how to build objects and put textures on them," Onofrey said of the class. "It was more of supposed to be like an art piece at the end, but I realized I could make games. This is how they make video games, this is how you would go about creating levels and different types of things. Then as I did a little more research, I realized that you could make that stuff and make it work for HTC Vive or the Oculus and different platforms."Onofrey then took a 400 level class (FINA-D 418). It was during this course that she dove into creating the basketball VR enviroment in partnership with the Cuban Center.Upon graduation in May, Onofrey already has a job lined up with General Motors in Atlanta working on software development for the company. She will help GM and its focus on the development of autonomous cars.