PROCESS

On a personal note, I have worked in a wide range of mediums. My training began in fine art, to graphic design, then 3D design, motion graphics, and finally to VR. Each medium has its own set of standards for output but understanding the elements and principles of design is a great foundation to start with. These themes can be translated into any medium. They can be used to your advantage or be broken to compliment the composition. That’s the great ideology of design; there is no one formula for success.

From my experience, every successful creative process begins with understanding the outcome. I narrowed down three questions to start the process:

1. Which platform the product will live on
2. Its purpose
3. The viewers that will consume it

Since we are focusing on VR, I will speak specifically to this medium. Once these parameters are defined, the virtual world’s creation or elements will begin to come into fruition efficiently. VR is mainly viewed from a headset that obscures your surroundings, so it is quite exciting for a creative to have full reign on what the viewer is seeing.

The experience’s context will drive the asset’s art direction, whether it’s set in a “realistic” world or a fantastical setting. Are the assets following real-world objects, or are they alien to our experience? These are more specific questions to the basis of any design, but in VR, the person in the headset could be taken to another sensory level. The assets can sometimes set the standard of the look, feel, and occasionally inform the world’s physics.

2D/3D

The process of designing art elements to fit within an immersive experience varies. Since we are focusing on the fundamentals of a virtual art setup, it will depend on whether they 2D or 3D art assets. They contain similarities and differences in workflow and output. Let’s talk about the differences between designing in 2D and 3D for VR.

2D and 3D are just plane different. That is in the plane you perceive an object from. 2D objects exist from a flat plane, meaning they live in the X and Y on a coordinate system. 3D objects exist in three-dimension space or a three-coordinate plane system: X, Y, and Z. Being in VR, these assets will most likely exist in a 6DoF environment. This means there are 6 degrees of freedom they could potentially live in. Take the three-dimensional coordinate system, and then move it forward, backward, up, and down.

Testing art assets is essential. Viewing 2D or 3D assets on a computer is not accurate as to what they will look like in the headset; since VR is more often in DoF, seeing them in the VR setup is very beneficial.

It is also important to keep the assets as efficient as the system that can handle them. A scene with a large number of items takes a very long time to load. Briefly, here are some optimization points you can use when developing art assets. Grouping items into a singular mesh, lowering polycount, relying on textures for some details, knowing when a model or texture is necessary, and utilizing programmatic effects will all help you create a more effective library of content. Worth looking into these optimization points if they sound beneficial, but for this blog, since we speak to 2D and 3D elements specifically, let’s break down some do’s and don’ts to help for a faster and more effective workflow output to VR.

DESIGNING IN 2D FOR VR

Legibility is essential for design composition. Being in VR can somewhat be disorientating, so registering a 2D design takes a little more brainpower. As a designer, it is my goal to keep the design as simple and legible as possible. These are some points I have learned in the process of inputting 2D elements into a VR space.

LESSONS LEARNED:

The larger the font, the easier it is for more people to read.
Everyone has a different capacity of eyesight, but it is best to design with the criteria that most will have trouble seeing text in the headset. This means exaggerating the size of the text in a composition. Although it may appear text on a 2D plane will be close to a 150% zoom, in VR, it will appear a quarter of that.

Go bold or go home.
The bolder font doesn’t necessarily mean make all the font-weight black. It means the thicker the line weight, the more legible and less aliasing in VR. Thin-weighted font can appear to alias if not directly in the viewer’s point of view.

Understand the headsets DPI.
Some headsets have a higher pixel count than others, so this means more detail can be perceived. The human eye can only discern to a certain amount, so anything higher in resolution will just be a waste of space.

The simpler the easier to digest.
Of course, the design’s complexity varies depending on the context, but less text, in general, is always a user-friendly option. Reading in VR could get dizzying. Probably better to leave complex material out of the headset.

Testing is your new middle name.
Testing is essential for delivering VR ready 2D assets. The elements will look fundamentally different on your 2D screen than they look in VR.

As you are creating 2D assets for a VR experience, keep these guidelines in mind. They are not meant to be roadblocks but tools to use to make the design translate as intended from your 2D plane to a 6DoF world.

DESIGNING IN 3D FOR VR

This is a medium that involves total immersion. The viewer is immersed in an alternate reality, which can sometimes have ties to the physical natural world. Therefore, industrial design is a major part of developing 3D assets for VR. These are some points I have learned in the process of inputting 3D elements into a VR space.

LESSONS LEARNED:

Understanding the physical will inform the virtual.
In some cases, 3D design for VR is closer to industrial design than the typical 3D art. Of course, it all depends on the intention and the amount of interactivity the player will have with the 3D object. If an object will interact majorly, it is essential to design with the physics at the forefront. For example, if you understand how a doorknob works in real life, you can use that perception from your experience to make a usable 3D doorknob for VR. Some 3D assets are not interactable, so that the appearance will drive the design more than the usability. This could include background/scene setup, which is mainly there to stage an environment.

Look at it from all angles.
Yes, look at it from all angles. ALL of them. This object could exist in 6 degrees of freedom. That means if it exists in the natural world, it is important to look at the 3D object from every angle.

Just because it needs to look 3D doesn’t mean it has to be 3D.
This may be the case for other mediums, but it is also the case for VR. Easier to take advantage of the eye with 3D. You can register objects from far away as dimensional objects in the right setup that were 2D objects. In VR, you may or may not see 3D assets at all angles, especially objects farther away. This can be an optimization opportunity.

Scale it accordingly.
It may seem like a simple parameter, but it is essential. You can always rely on the 3D software’s scale setup, but sometimes there is a grey area of whether something feels sized “right” in VR.

Testing must be brought up twice.
Just like with 2D assets, viewing your creations in VR will be the only opportunity to understand how it fully translates.

3D design is a great tool to use to set up an environment for an immersive experience. Like with the 2D guidelines, these can be seen more to enhance your composition, not to roadblock it.