A passion project created as part of my XR Fellowship. The project entails creating a spatial environment using a 3D platform of my choosing.

Process

Kids museums are full of imaginitive play and out of the box thinking. I wanted to capture that in a virtual kids museum setting. Below is my thinking process guided by the XR course training material.

Moodboard of Museum Experience

Images I pulled from everywhere and anywhere across the internet I thought captured my intent in this museum experience.

This was my first time using Spline.
Luckily, one of their starter templates was a good starting point to learn the ropes quickly in this software.

Left: Spline starter template I used to save time.

Right: My first test attaching physics to 3D shapes in Spline. It worked! I thought creating a room with blocks to play with would be a great first room for my children’s museum.

Environment Creation

Once I got a good understanding of how Spline works, I started building my kids museum environment from scratch using geometric shapes.

Here’s what the exterior might look like in a spatial environment.

Below’s what an interior room with the blocks might look like once they fall from the sky.
In a real experience, the blocks would land far from the person viewing the room, of course!

I also dabbled with what the map might look like that would help navigate a user’s location in the virtual museum.

Final Prototype

Building a virtual world had so many learnings to it. Here are a few:

• Anticipate that people will want to explore upon arrival.

• Let the user explore with all senses when possible, including memories and emotions.

Users want to:
Go somewhere they would never go. Be someone they could never be. And do things they would never do!