Threshold Project: Still Clouds

Still Clouds is a meditative VR experience that bridges two worlds, one surreal and one calm, through stillness. Users are prompted to sit down in the middle of a giant crystalized cloud, and as they stay still in their headsets, the environment transforms into one that is more grounded in reality. Moving again brings them back to the uncanny version of the place.

Process

Coming in with no background in Unreal Engine or Maya, I learned so much through my first VR project. I started off in Maya by modeling clouds using texture deformer with noise and sculpting trees using soft selection.

Then, I imported the assets into Unreal to build my scene. I made custom materials that use animated texture media for displacement and scalar parameters to smoothly transition between textures. My blueprint function detected movement from the headset and controlled the transitions in clouds, trees, and sky sphere.