Briefing

We were challenged to create a thrilling adventure in the jungle for the water park visitors to experience when they descend the slide in a toboggan. We had as a top priority for the excitement of the experience to match the movements of the slide. This synchronization was possible due to Ballast VR technology, and provides guidelines for our virtual reality experience to be perfectly synchronized with the real slide.

We worked on the narrative, design and CGI production of this virtual reality experience, using Unity's real time rendering engine.

Virtual Environment

We started with a path and creating the world around it. First focusing on creating the illusion of movement and speed through object scale and position and after going through thin detail.

The challenge was in creating a story and world with diversity in such a short time was because of the already established movement trajectory of the physical slide. To turn this around we created a system to control which parts of the scene where shown and points that would allow for a seamless transition. This allowed to include much more variety using only 160m of physical and virtual space.

The environment was designed with inspiration in tropical rainforests and jungles and we created different scenarios to give variety to the five minute length experience.

Adding the Fantasy

When trying the first versions the client noted that the experience was too realistic, the trees, the foliage, the wind… it might get scary for children. Adding fantasy elements, magical crystals, flying particles, allowed us to create this tropical version of a Wizard of Oz universe. We see great potential in using virtual reality to create new worlds.

When talking about virtual reality one of the big questions is: in which direction will the user look? And this is why it was important create a character that fits the context of the experience and gives direction to the user.

Results

This experience provides an alternative to traditional slides and virtual reality allows to recreate any possible scenario. This experience was not the only VR content for the slide and together they resulted in a new attraction for the water park and more revenue.