Monster

Custom spatial anchor implementation and a mixed reality loading dock for a VR dark ride.

I worked with artist Brent Watanabe to implement spatial anchors, hand tracked avatars & a mixed reality loading dock for his VR Dark Ride installation 'Monster' at Cannonball Arts in Seattle. The ride presented unique challenges: users rode in carts that were not directly tracked and interfered with the Quest's built-in floor plane detection, and the total ride footprint at roughly 50' x 60' was too large to reliably attach to a single anchor. I implemented a custom anchor system that derived the user's 3D position by comparing multiple nearby anchors, and used that physical position to drive the ride's virtual cart. To ease users into the experience, I implemented a 'loading dock' in mixed reality so users could see ride attendants and their friends around them before passing through the ominous doors of the dark ride into full VR.