Virtual Reality and Perception

Catalog description

An understanding of perception is crucial in creating digital interactive experiences ranging from immersive art to video games and user interfaces. Design solutions in art, video games, and user interfaces can also offer insights into the nature of perception. In this course, we will study ideas and experiments in Visual Perception and how they relate to digital interfaces and experiences, and create our own XR (Extended Reality) projects that explore these ideas. We will produce XR art, games, environments, and interfaces using open-source software (including Blender 3d, Godot Engine, and Three.js). (Students may also use commercial software such as Maya3D and Unreal Engine) These projects will recreate historic perception experiments and optical illusions, build new experiments, and incorporate lessons of perception into original art and design projects. Students will leave this course with an introduction to the study of visual perception and a skillset in 3d Modeling and XR application/game and UX (User Experience) design. Students will also learn to initiate original projects that combine creative and analytical thinking.