PROJECT:EXOPLANET started out as personal concept I made back at the start of 2021, with the idea of creating an interactive and immersive experience
that would show the visitors how life as we know it on earth could adapt to extraterrestial habitats.
This concept went through a few revisions te eventually be used as the main concept for my graduation project.
The images below show the concept as it was at the beginning of my graduation project.
The eventual interactivity was driven by a kinect v2 connected to Unreal Engine 5.
I mounted the kinect in the roof, and by making smart use of the distance sensor of the kinect, I made a positional grid system using
the resolution of the distance sensor itself. This way I could track the positions of multiple people at once without any issues (for example one person standing in front of the other,
resulting in the sensor not being able to track everyone anymore.)
To create the interactivity I made a blueprint in UE5 that checked if all the people were at the correct locations and if that was the case,
an animation would be played and we'd progress through the story.
With this fairly simple solution, I was able to make use of the physical space and add interactivity to the immersive experience.
The video below was the final demonstration video of my graduation project, for this demonstration I adjusted the interactivity to work with only 1 person, instead of multiple that are originally needed.