Construct a Virtual Reality Experience

Explore virtual reality with practical examples and build your own VR experience

Virtual reality is increasingly being deployed by a wide range of industries to allow an object to be manipulated by a user when the user can’t physically reach the object.

We’ve seen VR applied by such varied professions as surgeons, teachers, and architects to let highly-skilled workers explore objects they otherwise wouldn’t be able to.

On this course, you’ll learn what virtual reality is, and how exactly it’s used. You’ll discover how to create your own virtual reality world by coding with Javascript. In this VR world, you’ll be able to create, colour, and move your own objects.

This course is designed for anyone interested in virtual reality, such as someone who’s played virtual reality games and wants to know more about how they’re made.

It would also be useful if you’re interested in a career as a virtual reality developer and want an introduction to the topic.

You might also be interested in the other courses in the Essential Creative Technologies collection from UAL Creative Computing Institute, Lancaster University and the Institute of Coding.

The hands-on elements of the course require you to write code and build small examples as well as the main VR experience that you propose in Week 1. This requires some programming experience. While we use a light-weight approach to programming using AFrame, learners will find basic proficiency in web-technology like HTML and Javascript to be extremely useful. This course assumes you can write simple programs in Javascript, are able to understand simple concepts related to the HTML DOM and are able to use browser-based development tools to view source-code and debug errors. Firefox is our browser of choice and all examples are built and tested on it. However, Chrome should also work without issues. Remaining browsers may work but we don’t guarantee compatibility.

• Getting Started
• Welcome
• Tour of a virtual world
• Brainstorm: Your own virtual world
• Tools of the trade
• Theory and Concepts
• End of week 1
• Static Virtual Worlds
• Welcome to Week 2
• Positions in a 3D world
• Rotation
• Colour
• Self-Reflection
• Dynamic Virtual Worlds
• Welcome to Week 3
• Movement in virtual worlds
• Complex Movement
• Wrap-up for Week 3
• Interactive Virtual Worlds
• Welcome to Week 4
• Basics of interaction
• Implementing Interaction
• Finishing up your VR experience
• End of the line