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A Guide to 3D Environment Design in Virtual Reality Simulations

Updated: May 20

Since its inception, the goal of a Virtual Reality simulation has always been to suspend disbelief in its users, masking the physical with the virtual. Over the years, the technology has evolved to feature photo-realistic visuals that blur the lines between what is real and what isn't.


This article aims to give creatives the best practices to follow when building environments in VR. The article demonstrates how one can systematically approach the design and development of a virtual environment to build a 3D environment that balances aesthetics and performance.



DERIVING CLUES FROM THE STORYBOARD


Whether you are developing an environment for a training experience or an interactive narrative experience, it is crucial to understand the project brief and its goals. In the article, Navigating the Stormy Waters of Interactive Narrative Development in VR, I mentioned how the developmental process should begin with a story that influences the design of the experience.


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At the early stages of the developmental process, an experience's design is best presented as a Storyboard, outlining key phases in the interactive experience. Storyboards can often serve as the first clue to the spatial design of the experience's virtual environment, giving the designer ideas on what the space around the user could manifest into - its layout, scale and atmosphere. Depending on the level of detail the designer goes into, the storyboard can be a preliminary attempt at designing the virtual environment.



SIMPLE AND LEGIBLE DESIGN


A clean, legible design promotes an engaging and immersive experience for users. In the context of 3D environment design, the goal is to create spaces easily perceived and understood by the audience in VR. During the experience, users must be clear on what they need to explore and where to go.


It is left to the designer to design environments that are unique and memorable with clear sight lines. Users need to be able to see their objectives in the environment without the explicit need for UI to guide them. A designer should minimize visual clutter to give as much clarity through the environment's design.



UNDERSTANDING SCALE AND SETTING REALISTIC PROPORTIONS


A designer's priority should be crafting spaces that are realistic and believable. Ultimately, the participant's belief in the reality they are experiencing depends on how convincing their respective components are. Disproportionate doors, shrunken furniture, and improper arrangement of items such as furniture and appliances can often break immersion during a simulation.


The best (and only) way to design for VR is to study the world around us. As random as things might appear around us, there is still logic in all the madness. When designing and developing the character of the space, it is crucial to begin with reliable references over which new and unique designs can be made.



EMPLOYING SUBTLE CUES FOR NAVIGATION


It's crucial to keep the participant or user engaged and aware of where they need to navigate in VR. The goal of an XR Designer and Storyteller is to inform the user of their objectives in VR without being explicit about it. It is about subtly guiding the user through the experience using cues embedded into the environment, i.e cues that do not crowd their vision and break immersion in the space.


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Contrast in Environment Lighting: Areas that are required to be explored and interacted with by users can be lit more brightly or with different colours and temperatures, guiding the users towards them subtly.


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Using Accent Colours in 3D Space: In Mirror's Edge (shown above), following the red streaks painted across surfaces in the city helps the user progress through the level without explicitly stating where they are to navigate to, eliminating the need for generic UI that can crowd their vision.


Dynamic Materials: Designers can program dynamism into materials to guide users' gaze towards interactive objects. Examples of this can be materials that pulsate or holographic animations.


Using Spatial Audio to guide the user's movements: While this is not a visual cue, spatial audio technology in XR mimics how sound is propagated in the physical world. Spatial audio cues can guide users from one point in the level to another without being too obvious.



ADOPTING A LAYERED APPROACH TO ENVIRONMENT DESIGN


In my experience developing environments (among other things) for Virtual Reality simulations, I have found it beneficial to adopt a layered approach to the design and development of the space. The design of the space and its respective details take place in increments.


For example, if I were designing a city with full knowledge of the sequence of events in the VR experience, I would adopt a "macro to micro" approach. In this approach, I first establish the scale and proportions of the environment, blocking out the environment.


The environment's components are represented as primitive 3D forms and give an approximation of scale (for example, buildings are visualized as cuboidal primitives that match their floor area and height). These blocked-out spaces serve as placeholders and are often the first iteration of the environment used by programmers to begin implementing functionalities in the early stages of development.


Following the establishment of scale in the scene, subsequent iterations of the environment will feature more detailed versions of the scene's elements. Simple 3D forms will morph into more detailed profiles, appearing more and more intricate. Adopting a layered approach, as stated earlier, allows the development of all aspects of the simulation at a given point, i.e., the development of the environment, the mechanics, sound design and so on. The programming team can use the blocked-out version of the space to test the game mechanics while the 3D team can chip away at the environment's aesthetics without stalling progress made by other departments.



A DESIGN THAT PROMOTES SMOOTH PERFORMANCE


Unless systematic, developing environments for Virtual Reality can be daunting. Designers must aim for a clean and efficient design and one that is also aesthetically pleasing and performs smoothly in runtime. Hence, when making a design decision, one must consider the cost of developing and implementing it.


Unlike developing interactive experiences for PC and Console devices, Virtual Reality devices have limited processing power. Hence, it is necessary to prioritize particular designs, art styles and visual effects over others, depending on the simulation's narrative or objective.


Whether you are the sole creative and developer on the project or a part of a team, it is necessary to share design and aesthetic decisions amongst your crew to avoid blindsiding them later on in the development process. Brainstorming ideas with the rest of the team ensures the implementation of informed decisions concerning the project's design and development.


REGULATING LEVEL OF DETAIL ACROSS AN ENVIRONMENT


As stated earlier, Virtual Reality devices lack the processing power of PC and Console devices and do not demonstrate detailed graphics. Even the slightest drop in performance during a simulation can, at the very least, break immersion and in severe cases, cause the user to become sick. Hence, in VR development, smooth performance takes precedence over everything else.


When assigning detail to a space, the complexity or detail of a 3D object should diminish the farther they are from the player. Set high levels of detail to areas closest to where the player is currently situated.


In scenarios where the player can navigate across the environment, utilizing LODs (Level of Detail) ensures that the 3D object's polygon density is regulated based on its distance from the player.



With assets repeated across an environment, Geometry Instancing helps reduce the computational load by batching them and rendering them as a single draw call. This tool is crucial for spaces such as outdoor environments.


Concerning Texture Resolutions, prioritize the "hero" components in the scene over background elements. As processing power is limited and should be used judiciously, relegate lower texture resolutions to meshes that occupy smaller percentages of the user's field of view and are generally not something a user would be compelled to linger next to during gameplay.


For VR, do not exceed 4K (4096 x 4096) texture resolution for 3D assets in an environment. Relegate the highest resolution for assets that the experience is built around or components so massive that lower resolutions will render them poorly. This, of course, varies from one design to another. Note that this is even more crucial when developing Mobile VR experiences as processing power is even less than that in PC-VR experiences.


Employ the use of Texture Atlasing to consolidate multiple materials rendering a single prop to significantly reduce the number of draw calls. This method is crucial when developing for platforms with limited processing power such as Mobile-VR, AR and WebXR.



Texture atlases can be generated using specialized software such as Substance Painter and even more accessible 3D development applications such as Blender. The above tutorial demonstrates how texture atlases can be generated in Blender.


SEGMENTING EXPANSIVE ENVIRONMENTS


Rendering large expanses of a world can often lead to low frame rates and stuttering visuals in VR. This is usually encountered in outdoor environments that require a high density of assets.


Employing Level Streaming in a project can remedy this by loading specific parts of segments of an environment only when the player is in close proximity. These segments, often known as Sub-Levels can be loaded when the player interacts with a collision volume in the scene or through programming that spawns it following a specific sequence of events or interactions.


Level Streaming is crucial to ensure that an experience's performance runs steady and smoothly across this duration.


BAKED LIGHTING AGAINST REAL-TIME LIGHTING SETUPS


Lighting is a crucial element of an environment. Minute alterations to its nature can change how people interpret the environment in VR. Unlike developing interactive experiences for PC and Console devices, a scene in VR should be lit using precalculated lighting to ensure smooth performance during runtime.


In extreme cases, dynamic lighting workflows may be required to push the simulation's narrative. Even so, one can disable real-time shadow casting if they do not significantly diminish the experience.


Light Probes store environment lighting data and project it on dynamic objects in the scene. This approach is useful when lighting dynamic objects without real-time lights, reducing computation costs during runtime.


BEING FRUGAL WITH COMPLEX VISUAL EFFECTS


Depending on the nature of their setup, developing dynamic visual effects such as particle systems and post-processing effects often demands heavy processing power and can deteriorate a simulation's performance.


Effects such as Volumetric Lighting, while a powerful tool to build atmosphere are expensive for VR and even render incorrectly when viewed through the headset's lenses. This is due to its incompatibility with stereo rendering. Hence, alternatives such as using Post-Process Materials to render fog can remedy this while offering a computationally less expensive solution.



The above tutorial by Sujay Chand demonstrates how a post-process material in Unreal Engine can render distance fog suitable for VR.


When designing spaces and their respective components, query the inclusion of every element in the composition. Question its necessity in the grand scheme of things and verify if its inclusion would elevate the quality of the experience.


This query, of course, is not limited to just visual effects in a VR composition and should be used on any element, be it a lighting component, a narrow alley or even a particular species of tree.



FINAL THOUGHTS


As with other mediums, environment design and development for VR simulations requires constant refinement. No design is perfect and will always afford room for improvement. Much like in life, simplicity is the ultimate sophistication, and the motivation for developing a VR simulation should never stray from the objective of creating impactful and immersive experiences that engage audiences.



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