CSE 493V Final Project Report

Bird Hunt VR

Romero Hutapea, Ho Lun Yeung, and Nok Hin Tong

University of Washington

Abstract

Bird Hunt VR is an immersive virtual reality (VR) game that offers players a unique and thrilling experience of hunting birds in a realistic virtual environment. This project aims to provide an engaging and entertaining game while raising awareness about bird conservation. Initial results from user testing have shown high levels of immersion, enjoyment, and increased knowledge about bird species among players. The project also opens up promising directions for future work, such as expanding the game's content with additional bird species, introducing multiplayer functionality, and promoting conservation initiatives to further bridge the gap between entertainment and environmental awareness in the gaming industry. Bird Hunt VR sets the stage for an exciting and impactful gaming experience that encourages players to appreciate and protect the natural world around them.

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Game Logo
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Runs on Oculus Quest 2 and Oculus Rift S
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Game environment
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Game environment
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Computer AI that help the player shoot the bird
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In-game options menu
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AI dance with player
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Small popup screen that shows the type of the bird that the player just killed
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Scoreboard screen to keep track of player score
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Fun fact board that give the player fun fact about bird
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In-person demo
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In-person demo

Introduction

Birds play a vital role in the ecosystem and have a significant presence in our day-to-day lives. Birds are essential for pollination and seed dispersal, facilitating the reproduction and survival of countless plant species.We all see birds or hear them chirping everyday, but often times we will not pay much attention about them.

Hence, we decided to create a game that will allow players to learn about different bird species and their importance in the natural world. When considering the game design, we wanted to create a game that is fun and engaging, while also being educational. We decided to create "Bird Hunt VR", where players can learn about different bird species and bird facts, such as their importance in the natural world. There exists another VR game that are doing duck shooting, but we have recreated the game with our own design and incorporated bird conservation elements into the game.

Again, Bird Hunt VR aims to raise awareness about bird conservation by providing an immersive and enjoyable gaming experience where players can learn about different bird species and their importance in the natural world. ​However, our groups think this game model can be also well applied in a lot of different areas, where we seek to combine educational contents into a fun and interactive game.

In, Bird Hunt VR, players can walk around in the virtual environment and the main task is to grab a gun in the floor and try to shooot as many birds as possible. There are also companion AI that are doing the same thing such that the game can appear to be more interactive and entertaining.

Contributions

  • The main contribution is that your Unity app can let users play bird shooting game
  • Users can interact with people and objects in the environment and are also able walk around
Method

  • Set up the development environment, such as Unity, Oculus VR headset, and Android SDK.
  • Explore how to use XR Interaction toolkit and UnityXR Toolkit to create a VR game. Basic things including how the controller interacts with the game (grab a gun, shoot, etc.).
  • Create basic scenes in VR environment, such as different blocks, background elements like a score board, mountains, and decorations.
  • Create birds that will fly randomly in the sky.
  • Create Companion AI.
  • Implement all the game logic, such as how AI detects the bird and attempts to shoot, incrementing the score by 1 when successfully shooting birds, etc.
  • Insert audio.
  • Polish the game, such as adding more birds, creating different modes, and defining different buttons for the player to interact with the game, such as resetting the game and exiting the game.
"Bird Hunt VR" is an exciting virtual reality game that allowed players to test their shooting skills against flying birds. The development environment was set up, including Unity, an Oculus VR headset, and the Android SDK, to create an immersive VR experience. The overall approach that we take will be illustrated in order below
  1. Using the XR Interaction Toolkit and Unity XR Toolkit, we utilized the player's controller to seamlessly interact with the game. Basic interactions like grabbing a gun, aiming, and shooting were implemented, providing players with a sense of control and engagement in the virtual world.
  2. To create captivating VR environments, we designed various scenes with different blocks, scoreboards, majestic mountains, and immersive decorations. These elements added depth and visual appeal, enhancing the overall player experience.
  3. The game featured birds that flew randomly in the sky, creating a challenging target for players. By implementing intelligent AI, we programmed the birds' flight patterns to mimic realistic behavior, making their movements unpredictable and requiring players to be agile and accurate.
  4. Companion AI was also introduced, adding an extra layer of challenge. The AI attempted to shoot down the birds, creating competition and excitement for players as they aimed to outperform their virtual opponents.
  5. The game logic was carefully implemented to ensure an engaging experience. The AI detected the birds and attempted to shoot them, while players earned points for successfully hitting their targets. Each successful hit incremented the score by one, providing a sense of accomplishment and motivating players to achieve higher scores.
  6. Immersive audio elements were added to enhance the VR experience. Ambient sounds, such as the rustling wind and chirping birds, combined with realistic gunshots and bird movements, further immersed players in the virtual world, heightening their senses and adding to the overall realism.
  7. To polish "Bird Hunt VR," we added more bird variations with distinct characteristics, offering players a diverse range of challenges. Different game modes were introduced, providing variety and replay value. Additionally, we defined intuitive buttons and gestures for players to interact with the game, including options to reset or exit the game, ensuring a user-friendly experience.
  8. Through these efforts and continuous iteration on gameplay, "Bird Hunt VR" provides players with an immersive and challenging adventure in the virtual world. The game combines accurate shooting mechanics, intelligent AI, stunning environments, and rewarding gameplay, delivering an enjoyable VR experience for all players.

Implementation Details

Hardware
We used Oculus Quest 2 headset in our project which it is an all-in-one virutal reality headset from Meta. It provides abilities to track our head motion and display our game.
We also used a standard graphics capable computer to develop this game which have a graphics card (RX 580) and sufficient computation power (Ryzen R5 with 100GB RAM).

Software
We used unity to develop our game which it handled all the physics and rendering and we don't need to handle too much mathematics.
For logic part, we used C# in our development which this is a powerful language for us to program all the game logic and the behavior.
We also used Oculus SDK to compile our project into a Oculus Headset compitiable game.

Implementation details:

  • First, we downloaded assets from Unity asset store and created the game environment for the game, birds model, and also AI model who will assist us in the game.
  • Then, we added some audio inside the game to enhance the gameplay experience.
  • After that, we write the game mechanics for example the projectile behavior of the bullet and also what will happen when our bullet hit the birds' hitbox, this is done via C# programmming and is relatively easier than writing it with THREE.js
  • And then, we decided to add some special effects (such as blood splatter, gun smoke effect) and implemented the animations for the AI
  • Finally, we tested it via our Oculus Headset and to make sure that user interface is working properly and also functions like picking up the gun can be easily accessed through our controller.

Evaluation of Results

We found that people need to take some time to understand our game logic and able to shoot the bird inside our game; this may be due to our introduction is not long enough to let people understand this game. Also, the interval to shoot down a bird is slightly longer than we expected; this may be due to the birds moving pretty fast, and humans cannot catch them.

Discussion of Benefits and Limitations

The key benefit of our app is that users can walk around and shoot birds virtually without hurting any real-world creature but can enjoy the fun of the game. The limitation of this game will be scene size is not big enough to accommodate people walking for a long distance (for example, in the lecture room) since a bigger game area will cause higher computation resource usage.

Future Work

There are a couple of things that we want to improve in the future. Currently, our app needs to be installed inside Oculus VR before it can run, which is slightly inconvenient for people who want to play this game. We hope in the future. We can make it able to run inside browsers, which users can play directly without installing anything. The second thing is maybe we can add more difficulty selection and make this game more challenging in the future.

Acknowledgments
  • Prof. Douglas Lanman
  • Teerapat (Mek) Jenrungrot
  • Diya Joy