jackie robinson virtual reality experience
This virtual reality experience allows participants to revisit moments from Jackie Robinson’s life and the history of baseball through an interactive house museum. Users can navigate through Robinson's home and interact with artifacts that reveal information about his personal life and historical impact.
Software: Unity Game Engine, Meta Quest, Autodesk Maya
Designers: Megan Feeney, Delaney Brown, Nik Brannon, Jack Seal-Roth
Virtual environment
Our virtual environment is inspired by Jackie Robinson's home in Brooklyn. Since we were limited in time and resources, we weren't able to recreate a replica of his home, but instead used/modeled assets that reflected the style of homes in the 1940s
Interactive artifacts
Virtual house museums allow participants to interact with historical artifacts in a way often prohibited within real museums, creating a richer sense of immersion and presence. To make this experience interactive, we incorporated user interactions into a few artifacts. The hats, bat, and magazines are able to be picked up by the user and the TVs include a button that can be pressed to activate a video with audio.
THE HATS
Each hat was created using a model from CGTrader and customized with UV map textures designed in Photoshop. They’re interactive so that the user can pick up the hat and look at it while holding it in their hand. When the hat is picked up, there is also an audio that plays, immersing the user further into the baseball experience.
3D models
When designing the artifacts for our experience, we used a mixture of downloaded models from outside sources as well as ones we modeled in Maya.
JERSEYS
The baseball jerseys were the largest artifact in our experience. We imported the 3D model from an outside source, CGTrader, and a team member designed each specific jersey as a UV map texture. Each jersey was then displayed in a display case and accompanied by a video describing historical events related to Jackie's time with that specific team.
PLAQUES
THE TVS
Each TV model was imported from CGTrader. We sourced videos that all came directly from interviews or historical documentaries about Robinson, which were activated to play when a red button was pressed by the user.
