California River

AR/VR Experience

In the beginning of 2017 I was on a mission to create a VR demo that allowed for movement in 6 DoF (degrees of freedom) and was also photo-realistic. The American River in Sacramento has always been one of my favorite places to spend my time running or biking. I figured it would be cool to digitally recreate one of the look out points which oversees the river.

I created the close proximity geometry using photogrammetry and modeled the mid to background geometry using Google Earth for reference. The textures were created using projection mapping techniques. This helps makes the geometry look photorealistic, however, it only holds up within a 1-2 meter diameter.

This scene was originally created for VR but I've also experimented with having it run on a tablet with turntable controls on a touch screen, as well as in AR.

The VR experience can be downloaded here and can be viewed with an Oculus Rift on PC.

  • Created by :

    Jason Dourgarian

  • My Role :

    Project Owner

  • Year :

    2017

Rendered Screenshot

This isn't a photo. This image was captured from the game engine renderer while being viewed from a VR headset.

Photogrammetry

I created a photogrammetry model of the the area within a 30 ft radius of the vantage point and combined it with less detailed geometry which I sculpted referencing Google Earth data.

Wireframe of Scene

After having all the terrain meshes I then created separate layers of each angle from the center vantage point and projected these textures onto their corresponding meshes.

Synthetic Trees

To add some life to the scene I added trees and plant assets which animate with a wind system, along with some post processing to the camera. Getting the lighting and shadows right was key to not break the photo-realism.