OlivierJT talks about his musical maze VR experience called Synthesis Universe. He’s been working on the game for over three years now, and the VR portion for over two years. He’s collaborating with a musician, and talks about the sound design considerations of integrating the music to give clues about navigating the maze.
OlivierJT is from France, and talks about his experience with the VR community there, and his involvement with various VR community events including Cymatic Bruce’s livestream chats & then gatherings afterwards in Minecrift or VR Chat. He also mentions a couple of the Riftmax Theater events including Karaoke night and Gunter’s Virtually Incorrect show.
He also talks about how 85% of his work and reading material is in English, but that he had started to loose a lot of his English-speaking skills because he wasn’t using them. But since participating in the VR chats, he’s noticed that his English-speaking skills have started to flow a lot easier and better.
Finally, OlivierJT talks about how he’s investing all that he has within VR development, and that it’s a one-way ticket for him. He’s looking forward to more games, educational experiences and virtual tourism, and intends on continuing his involvement within the various VR community events even though a lot of them are in the middle of the night for him.
Reddit discussion here.
TOPICS
- 0:00 – Intro. Come from France to meet the VR community.
- 0:28 – What is the VR scene look like in France right now? A lot of academic VR people, but not as many VR game developers
- 1:04 – Getting involved with VR Chats. Bruce’s stream and has an accessible community, and then go into VR Chat or Minecrift, which is how he met a lot of the VR community. Riftmax Karaoke night, and Gunter’s Virtually Incorrect show with other guests from around the world. Time schedules are in the middle of the night in France
- 1:51 – How VR community has impacted your English-speaking skills. His flow is a lot better now thanks to VR Chat.
- 3:33 – First heard about Oculus from a gamer sites. Create animation and games for a long time. Living in 3D.
- 4:08 – Getting into virtual reality development. Know the entire pipeline from modeling to integrating into a game engine. Integrated with UDK.
- 4:56 – What were you trying to create with Synthesis Universe? Inside a very musical project, and wanted to release it with CV1. Expanded it to adapt to the CV1 release schedule.
- 6:02 – What do you want people to get out of it? Keep it simple. The game is about getting the work done. It’s a maze game, and you’ll get lost. It’s really about music. You have goals to achieve.
- 6:48 – What type of considerations do you have with the sound design? It’s a musical sequence, and everything has musical tunes. When you’re in the maze, then the music will help you find your way to stay on your path.
- 7:34 – Potential of VR? It’s a one-way ticket for him. Putting everything he has into VR. Interesting in the gaming part, but also education and tourism. VR community led him to be at SVVRCon.
Theme music: “Fatality” by Tigoolio
Rough Transcript
[00:00:05.452] Kent Bye: The Voices of VR podcast.
[00:00:12.019] OlivierJT: Hello, I'm Olivier GT, creator of Synthesis Universe. And I came here from France to meet the VR community that I discovered through Brewstream and VRChat and RiftMax. And I really wanted to take the V off from VR reality and meet the people for real.
[00:00:28.357] Kent Bye: I see. And so, you know, what is the VR scene like in France right now?
[00:00:32.238] OlivierJT: I don't have good things to say about it because there's a very strong VR scene from the traditional VR people who are researchers and people who spend time in caves with strange peripherals, you know, the researcher type. But the gaming area, I feel pretty much alone. I did not meet anybody. Nobody came out to the light and show their stuff. So since the quick starter, I'm the only one on the Paris map and I feel pretty much alone. So because I've met many people here, I'm reaching for the community and people I know.
[00:01:04.045] Kent Bye: I see. And so with all these social VR spaces, it sounds like you've been involved with a number of these sort of VR chats in the Rift Max. Maybe talk a bit about, you know, your experience of being isolated in France, but being able to still participate remotely through these environments.
[00:01:19.384] OlivierJT: Yeah, it's something really nice because there's some people who, like Bruce, who's making a stream and there's a chat on the side. And Bruce, there's a very accessible mood and he's very friendly and the people on the chat are the same. And we met after we do a little meeting, okay, let's meet on Minecraft or let's meet on VRChat, which is an application where you can just have your Oculus and talk with people and that's how I met most of the community over there. So VRChat is one thing and there's also Riftmax which is really cool because it's like a movie theater. People are organizing very nice events which are karaoke night or Gunter who's doing like Virtually Incorrect and that's really amazing because I was at the first show And the first show, I was in a table with four people, and Gunther was the host. It was like, oh, I'm in a table with these guys from Canada, these guys from America, and these from Florida. And I'm right here. And it's very unusual, mostly because the time scale is also a little strange. So after Rift Max, that begin usually for me, it's 4 a.m., 5 a.m. in the night. When I take off my Rift, I'm back to reality, which is, oh, it's daylight.
[00:02:34.711] Kent Bye: So yeah, being English as a second language, I'm just curious about, you know, how being involved in all of these virtual environments and being able to speak English with them, how that impacts you.
[00:02:45.715] OlivierJT: I'm a special case because I spent two years and a half, like nearly 10 years ago in Los Angeles at Norman School of Visual Effects. And I met a lot of people and my English got a little bit more fluent. But language, if you don't use it, you lose it. So, 10 years after, I'm using everything I use is in English. The software I use, 85% of what I read is in English. And so, when I was in VRChat, the first talking was a little bit... I was looking for my words. And the flow is getting a little bit better today, thanks to VRChat. Today, I'm here talking in English and having an interview, and the flow is getting better thanks to VRChat and the community interview. Really nice.
[00:03:30.186] Kent Bye: Thank you, VR. Oh, wow. And so, how did you first hear about the Oculus Rift, and how did you start getting involved in this community?
[00:03:38.488] OlivierJT: The Oculus Rift came from a quick starter in a gaming site, maybe Kotaku or something like this, where they say, hey, there's a quick starter. A young guy is making a virtual reality coming. And I've been living in 3D for my whole life and creating emotion and environment and games and things. And virtual reality for me, I was already living in 3D. I live, I see the world through wireframes and polygons already.
[00:04:06.554] Kent Bye: Awesome. And so yeah, maybe talk a bit about the process of getting into development for virtual reality.
[00:04:12.338] OlivierJT: For me, it's what I do as a work. I help people going through the 3D process. So I know the whole pipeline of 3D, which is from game design to the technical aspects and modeling and animating and integrating into an engine. So I'm not much of a coder. That's the only thing I don't do very well. And there was support from UDK. The Oculus team released a special OUDK, Oculus UDK, and Oculus was somehow implemented. And it was an easy step for me. So you just have to say, OK, I'm using Oculus. And after, it's just a question of game design and how are you going to interact with the world, what kind of input control. So it's more on the game design type of thing than the technical aspect of it.
[00:04:57.144] Kent Bye: I see. And so what were you trying to create? What type of experience were you trying to create with the Synthesis Universe?
[00:05:03.800] OlivierJT: Well, Synthesis Universe, I pronounced with the T the French way, sorry, but it works that way too. For about three years, I was getting ready a game that I wanted to release on Steam or on PlayStation or things like that. And then came Oculus. So my game was a little love story inside a very special civilization with its own reality and set of rules in a very musical environment. And I wanted to release a project for Oculus that was ready for CV1. And at the time of Quick Starter, it was, yeah, it's going to be released. CV1 is going to be released maybe in one year or pretty soon. But the time extended, so my little project, I wanted to make a project for six months. and then the little projects I had to change it to adapt to what was happening with the SDK and so with time going going and things are being pushed I released the game I have today.
[00:06:02.938] Kent Bye: I see. And so what do you hope the best experience that people can have from experiencing? What do you want people to get out of it?
[00:06:09.320] OlivierJT: I have to keep things simple in terms of game design because I'm managing absolutely everything. So the way is to keep the game itself is really about getting the work done. It's a maze game, so it's something where you will get lost. for maybe a long time. Not necessarily everybody will arrive at the end because it's really huge, but the particularity of it, the civilization is really about music, so you have some goals to achieve during the maze, and each goal is a music track. So it's a musical experience also, which is very important for me, the music part.
[00:06:47.096] Kent Bye: And so talk a bit more about the audio. What were you trying to do with the sound design of your VR experience?
[00:06:52.308] OlivierJT: Yeah, I'm lucky enough to have found a very nice guy who is in France and we're working together, we're friends and we're working on the audio parts as really a very strong connection from the game design. From the maze, you don't have sound design in terms of when you're near a machinery, it doesn't do a machine sound, it's a musical sequence. Everything has a little musical tunes, and a real musical reality. So when you're in the maze, the music itself is helping you. It's a little bit of a hint. If you're off path, the music gets glitchy or a little broken or changes in terms of frequency. So it's helping you to get where you want to go.
[00:07:34.015] Kent Bye: Awesome. And finally, what do you see as the potential of VR and what it could be and where it could go?
[00:07:41.120] OlivierJT: I would love the VR to succeed like everybody. I threw everything, all I have in there. So for me, it's a one-way ticket. We'll see when CV1 will be released. And I was planning to release my game two months before CV1, which is, I don't know. So I'm very interested in what people are doing with VR, which is just the gaming parts, which is what I do, but also things about museum, exhibition, and virtual tourism. But mostly the thing that lead me here today is the VR community and meeting people and knowing people. I spend more like 40 hours talking to people and say, hey, this is you. Hey, this is me. So it's very unusual moment. But the communication and the multiplayer on the gaming side is very, very key for me.
[00:08:27.609] Kent Bye: Great. Well, thanks so much.
[00:08:29.090] OlivierJT: Thank you so much.
