Project AMELIO
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Project Amelio is a school project and a collaboration between the NHTV: University of Applied Science, TIAS Business School and Tilburg University. The project consists of several elements including:-
I worked on this project for 20 weeks. My roles during the project include researcher, team lead and client liaison. The gameProject Amelio is a group-based serious game, with as goal to improve collaboration and management analogies (e.g. communication, leadership, task prioritization). The game is based on the concept of an Escape Room; the participants have to collaborate to solve puzzles and complete the game.
The game is playable in a so called CAVE, which stands for Cave Automatic Virtual Environment. This can be described as a closed room with projectors facing each wall. These projectors project the Virtual World (VW) on the walls, creating a Virtual Reality effect similar to other VR-Headsets. The CAVE at Tilburg University is equipped with WorldViz Technology. This technology provides stereoscopic view (enhancing the immersion) and remotes to interact with the VW. The advantage a CAVE has over VR-Headsets is that it enables natural communication in a virtual world. That is why the team made the choice to base the game on an Escape Room; good communication is essential for an escape room, and the team could use the Virtual Environment to create situations which would be impossible in the real world. In the game, 3 to 6 participants are dropped at a damaged base on a distant planet. They have to solve puzzles to get the base working again, and to rescue possible survivors. Participants can take up 3 different roles:
My Contributions |
Demo trailer from early 2016
360 degree showreel from mid 2016
Design for Collaboration in Mixed Reality: Technical Challenges and Solutions
The paper was accepted for the VS Games 2016 conference and will be published under the IEEE regulations soon. Abstract - One of the key challenges in the rapid technological advance of Virtual Reality (VR) and Mixed Reality (MR) concerns the design of collaborative experiences. VR systems do not readily support team collaboration because they tend to focus on individual experiences and do not easily facilitate naturalistic collaboration. MR environments provide solutions for collaborative experiences, but establishing smooth communication between hardware components and software modules faces a major hurdle. This paper presents the background to and main challenges of an ongoing project on collaboration in an MR lab, aiming to design a serious ‘team collaboration’ game. To this end, we utilized a common game engine to engineer a cost-effective solution that would make the game playable in a configuration operated by WorldViz and Volfoni equipment. Evaluation of various solutions in the development process found a Unity 3D Cluster Rendering Beta solution to be the most cost-effective and successful. Authors: Erwin Peters, Bram Heijligers, Josse de Kievith, Xavier Razafindrakoto, Ruben van Oosterhout, Carlos Santos, Igor Mayer, Max Louwerse |
Researcher
When I joined the team, the project had been in development for half a year. The team already had created a working demo during that time. From the moment I joined the team, it became our task to polish the demo, create more content and to write a position paper about the project. I already had some experience with doing research and writing in paper format, so for the first 10 weeks, I worked mainly on the position paper. Because I missed the first half year of development, my role within the research team became to gather most of the background research and to support the other team members with my knowledge on research and academic writing. Later on, I helped our internal client Igor Mayer to edit all the pieces together and to ensure the content was still correct.
I also dealt with some communication issues between the team lead and design lead. I regularly sat down with both of them to talk about the issues and to clear up misunderstandings.
Team lead and Client Liaison
After the first 10 weeks, I took over role of team lead and client liaison because the former team lead had to leave team. That meant that I was in charge for the last phase of development before the summer break started. Because the team already had a project manager, I my role of team lead was mainly filled in with being the creative director.
I had to deal with several development issues, as the project was way behind on schedule and the scope was too big. I had to make some difficult decisions for content to be cut, or to be at least delayed until the following year. This had to be communicated with the client, and though they didn't like the news, they understood why we had to make those cuts.
Furthermore, I continued to deal with miscommunication and conflict situations. There were several incidents during the last 10 weeks which I wasn't always able to solve, but at least I was able to reduce the damage. The supervisors who gave me feedback during this period admitted it was a difficult team to deal with, and told me I did a good job with managing the situations.
For me it was the first time I was in charge of a project, and I think I did a reasonable job. I was able to make some difficult decisions, and I was also able to keep one vision in mind. The team appreciated my efforts of trying to solve the conflict situations. The biggest learning point for me is that I need to be more strict with other team members. Of course it depends on the team, but I should be able to be strict when the situation calls for it. That is definitely something I am going to work on!
When I joined the team, the project had been in development for half a year. The team already had created a working demo during that time. From the moment I joined the team, it became our task to polish the demo, create more content and to write a position paper about the project. I already had some experience with doing research and writing in paper format, so for the first 10 weeks, I worked mainly on the position paper. Because I missed the first half year of development, my role within the research team became to gather most of the background research and to support the other team members with my knowledge on research and academic writing. Later on, I helped our internal client Igor Mayer to edit all the pieces together and to ensure the content was still correct.
I also dealt with some communication issues between the team lead and design lead. I regularly sat down with both of them to talk about the issues and to clear up misunderstandings.
Team lead and Client Liaison
After the first 10 weeks, I took over role of team lead and client liaison because the former team lead had to leave team. That meant that I was in charge for the last phase of development before the summer break started. Because the team already had a project manager, I my role of team lead was mainly filled in with being the creative director.
I had to deal with several development issues, as the project was way behind on schedule and the scope was too big. I had to make some difficult decisions for content to be cut, or to be at least delayed until the following year. This had to be communicated with the client, and though they didn't like the news, they understood why we had to make those cuts.
Furthermore, I continued to deal with miscommunication and conflict situations. There were several incidents during the last 10 weeks which I wasn't always able to solve, but at least I was able to reduce the damage. The supervisors who gave me feedback during this period admitted it was a difficult team to deal with, and told me I did a good job with managing the situations.
For me it was the first time I was in charge of a project, and I think I did a reasonable job. I was able to make some difficult decisions, and I was also able to keep one vision in mind. The team appreciated my efforts of trying to solve the conflict situations. The biggest learning point for me is that I need to be more strict with other team members. Of course it depends on the team, but I should be able to be strict when the situation calls for it. That is definitely something I am going to work on!
Credits
Project Amelio was made possible by the following organisations:
NHTV Breda, University of applied sciences
Tilburg University
TIAS Business School
Development Team: Benjamin Drees, Floris Hagen, Bram Heijligers, Chris Helmerhorst, Jeroen van den Hoogen, Paula de Jong, Josse de Kievith, Jeroen Koevoets, Marijn van Krieken, Benjamin Lalleman, Mounim el Meziani, Ruben van Ooserhout, Erwin Peters, Xavier Razafindrakoto, Nita van der Velden, Alex Williams.
Igor Mayer (Professor at NHTV and Internal Client)
Aart Goud (representative TIAS Business School)
Dineke Kolen (representative Tilburg University)
NHTV Breda, University of applied sciences
Tilburg University
TIAS Business School
Development Team: Benjamin Drees, Floris Hagen, Bram Heijligers, Chris Helmerhorst, Jeroen van den Hoogen, Paula de Jong, Josse de Kievith, Jeroen Koevoets, Marijn van Krieken, Benjamin Lalleman, Mounim el Meziani, Ruben van Ooserhout, Erwin Peters, Xavier Razafindrakoto, Nita van der Velden, Alex Williams.
Igor Mayer (Professor at NHTV and Internal Client)
Aart Goud (representative TIAS Business School)
Dineke Kolen (representative Tilburg University)
