Zombie Apocalypse, Killer Robots or Destruction Drones? Roam Free in Zero Latency’s virtual world powered by Unity Technologies

Zombie Apocalypse, Killer Robots or Destruction
Drones? Roam Free in Zero Latency’s virtual world powered by Unity Technologies

Imagine pitting yourself
against undead hordes and outwitting rebel raiders, to transforming into an
ethereal, ancient alien that craves a reunion with your tribe. Zero Latency, a
pioneer in free-roam virtual reality gaming, builds all-encompassing VR
entertainment experiences that are pure immersive mayhem, powered by Unity.

Founded just over four years
ago, Zero Latency was set up with a goal to introduce a unique take on
blossoming VR technology: a free-roam virtual reality experience. Following the
success of Oculus Rift’s Kickstarter campaign, Zero Latency released a
single-player game called Inversion VR, in early-2013. “We were inspired by
Patient Zero, where they got people into a room which had real-life actors
posing as zombies, to simulate a zombie invasion,” said Scott Vandonkelaar,
Chief Technology Officer, Zero Latency. “We had this crazy idea – to create
something better, to create a VR world that enabled players to walk around a
real-world, physical space whilst wearing a head-mounted display; having their
body as the controller, and mind believing it’s real.”

With this vision, Scott and his
team looked to Unity Technologies for the means to develop this new form of
entertainment. Using Unity’s industry-leading engine, Inversion VR was initially
integrated and operated through the team’s PlayStation – a device never
intended for VR. Using Nerf guns as the base, the team slapped on both
PlayStation and PlayStation Move motion controllers to mimic virtual weapons.
An array of PlayStation Move cameras tracked the subjects in real-time to
capture the player’s actions and translate them into virtual movements.

Zero Latency spent the next
three years upscaling this new free-roam VR experience through a sophisticated
and complex process. With little background in professional programming and
development, the team was challenged by the lack of advanced technical
knowledge that would let them bring their vision to life. “Initially, we had a
team of six full-time staff with little experience in programming and game
development, and we wanted a platform and engine which was simple,
user-friendly, and easy to learn so we could get our idea kick-started,”
Vandonkelaar recalls. They turned to Unity for accessibility and ease of use,
as well as the familiarity of code used within the Engine (C#). Unity’s simple
coding language commonly known and used among developers was a plus for Zero
Latency. With Unity’s introductory courses for absolute beginners, participants
learn the most common of Unity’s built in functions, and when to use them and
when to write their own, gaining hands on practice through sample projects such
as Roll-a-ball and Space Shooter. Unity’s large, active community provided
valuable support and advice as the Zero Latency team continued to develop and
refine their skills.

Free roam VR experiences,
nevertheless, come with another challenge – that of free movement within a
physical fixed space. The team needed to rely on perceptual tricks such as
“Change Blindness Redirection” to create the illusion of a virtual
environment larger than what is physically available. It’s a process that
requires meticulous detailing, iteration, and testing of UI to ensure physical
representation matches visual, e.g. that the objects you touch in the virtual realm
match ones in the environment. “Thanks to Unity’s versatile UI platform, we
have been able to rapidly prototype our ideas in a changing environment, and
manage massive amounts of content to overcome physical constraints,”
Vandonkelaar said.

And with each new prototype,
Vandonkelaar saw the team progressing closer to a full realization of their
vision, and Unity’s flexibility a key part of that. “Unlike other game engines
which sometimes feel more like a template, Unity provided us with a blank canvas,
which enabled us to create whatever we wanted. With multiple Unity resources at
hand, including video tutorials and the user manual, we were able to build the
first working prototypes of the technology in 2014,” Vandonkelar concurred.

To further accelerate
production, Zero Latency utilized Unity’s Asset Store. Editor extensions,
scripts, 3D models and anything exportable in Unity proved useful to the team,
as they were able to seamlessly download and import from the store, straight
into the editor, saving time and additional effort. “We were able to tap on the
Asset Store for prototypes and other items throughout our entire development
journey, from conception to final product. Various visual effects that helped
us shape the environment, from trees, to fog, to water effects, were quick and
easy touse. More importantly, we were also able to download and integrate a
360-recorder, which gave us the ability to monitor and record movement and
videos of our players for analytic purposes.”

And years later, Zero Latency’s
immersive VR experiences grew to be a great hit with the crowd. As their game
scaled from a single player experience to a 6-person multi-player RPG, they
continue to require more advanced tools from Unity for creating and managing
content. The future remains bright. Currently based in six locations all over
the world, including Australia, Japan, Spain and the United States, Zero
Latency is set to launch two further locations in the coming months, in Boston
and Philadelphia.

Although VR is still a heavily
unexplored medium, Vandonkelaar advises new, aspiring developers to not be
afraid to follow their dreams. “Developers should not be afraid to try
something new, to prototype their ideas, and just see what happens. There is no
one out there who knows everything about VR, and there’s no one who can say
what will succeed or fail until it is actually completed. But most importantly,
it’s about learning with a little help from Unity – about the platform, what
you can do with it and create your own future.”

About Zero Latency