noPhob Mixed Reality
Overcome the fear of spiders
Introduction
What is this project about?
For this project, our team implemented a Mixed Reality app for the Meta Quest 2 targeting end users who suffer arachnophobia, the fear of spiders.
Our main focus was to gradually expose the user to spider stimuli in safe and user-controlled AR and VR environments.
Our main focus was to gradually expose the user to spider stimuli in safe and user-controlled AR and VR environments.
For the sake of time, we wanted to finish a small MVP in just 2 weeks.
Considerations
The user should be able to stop the exposure immediately and at any time.
The user has the option to track the progress, for example to measure the time for how long one was watching at a spider stimulus.
Another goal was a clear and easy to use UI in order to communicate further steps and other information in advance, especially before seeing any spider.
Upon scene start, the user enters a VR therapy room where an interactive menu is placed.
Other levels and scenes continue in VR or in AR.
Statement of Purpose
Overcome arachnophobia
„noPhob Mixed Reality“ for the Meta Quest 2 shall help users overcoming arachnophobia by gradually exposing them to spider stimuli, in a safe and user-controlled AR and VR environment.
Design & Development
Phase 1
Prototyping
Persona
Chris is a person who wants to overcome arachnophobia. He does not want to consult a therapist, but try some exposition therapy on his own. Chris is curious and eager to learn new things. He is somewhat familiar with VR and AR.
Planned core features
- AR/Passthrough & occlusion
- VR room for a level menu and for an interactive information desk
- Hand Tracking
- Voice Over
- Spider animation & interaction
Levels of exposure to spider stimuli
Level 0: Start scene in a VR therapy room with interactive menu to choose a level from
Level 1: Look at images and anatomic illustrations of spider species in VR
From level 2: AR passthrough mode.
User maps out the real room environment, places and aligns virtual occlusion models to the real furniture. User can "draw" custom cubes as occlusion models to occlude virtual spiders.
Level 2: Watch at a realistic looking spider that is placed far away in a terrarium, and get as close as possible. User has to look at spiders for a certain amount of time.
Level 3: Observe virtual spiders crawling on the real furniture, the mapped walls, the floor and the ceiling.
Level 4: Let a virtual spider move over the hand, and challenge the user to stay as still as possible.
Pictures below:
First sketches for a level scene,
shots of the prototyping session in VR in ShapesXR,
a color palette
Design development details
Player movement
In order to avoid simulator sickness and other uncomfortable feelings, we attached importance to smooth, linear movements in continuous speed.
Visuals
In order to avoid sticky app performance, we worked on finding the right balance between low-res textures and good visual quality, low-poly 3D models and more or less realistic appearance.
Lighting
We spend much time on the lighting setup to achieve a relaxing ambiance.
Interaction
While using the app, the app gives visual and audio feedback on interaction with UI elements and completed tasks.
Audio
Voice-over to inform about next steps, to give feedback to the user as well as instructions
In order to polish up the general ambiance, background sounds are played.
Phase 2
We started the app implementation by tackling the most challenging app features first: AR/passthrough feature, room mapping, and occlusion render materials.
We also set up a spider 3d model with procedural inverse kinematics techniques. This allowed us to let the spider crawl anywhere across surfaces without playing a predefined, static animation.
The following GIFs reflect the basic state of the app's core features, after one week:
- room mapping, place & align occlusion models, crawling spider
2 color palettes for the UI, and a sneak peak into our team's task board:
Phase 3
We added:
- The other exposure levels
- Exit button to stop seeing spiders
- A stopwatch to inform the user for how long he was looking at a spider etc. as well as the menu level.
- Finally, much of polish in regards to SFX, VFX, interactivity and UI design. Especially, an interactive multi-media encyclopedia that explains some spider species
- A fully interactive level menu with ahead information about each level
- Voice-over / audio guide, a color palette etc.
Even Meta Quest got "fooled":
Conclusion
While working on this project, we kept an eye on making the user experience as comfortable as possible. We took also efforts on design an interesting, good-looking appearance with low-budget assets.
App features of the most recent app version:
- Mixed Reality, Passthrough
- Procedural Inverse Kinematics
- Room Mapping & Occlusion
- Voice Narration
- Oculus VR Integration
- Hand Tracking, Physics Hands
- Hand Pose Detection
- VFX, SFX
- Finite State Machine
Next Steps
Get advices about exposure therapy from psychotherapists, scientifics.
More exposure levels alongside other interaction mechanics, to get to know spiders in a more interactive way.
Plan more ways to perform user engagement analysis
Testing, improving the app based on feedback from therapists and users
Special thanks to: Ian McKenzie, Lucas Martinic, Ambica Keshvara, Astha Kapila, Agnieszka, Suzanne, Ahmed, Jonathan
Credit: spider asset Peter Andrew
