Travel-in-X
XR Project | 14 weeks project with team ImmerX
An interactive exploration experience where players travel across five distinct worlds using a central console. Each world features unique styles, puzzles, and interactions, encouraging experimentation and discovery.
The experience is driven by three core mechanics: launching between worlds with the Travel Console, extracting objects using the Collector, and revealing hidden spaces through the Vision Gate. Together, they create a system of curiosity-driven play filled with surprising, magical moments.
My Role
3D Modeling and Animation
Animation related programming
Interaction Design
Our Team
Nina Wang | Producer
Oliver Zhu | Programmer
Yawen Xiao | UI/UX Designer
Airan Xu | Artist
Regina Xia | Artist
Helen Yang | Artist
Tool
Unity, Maya, Substance Painter, Procreate, Capcut
Instructor
Ruth Comley
Project Goal
Team "ImmerX" explores the future of storytelling by transforming real-world spaces into dynamic, interactive stages using mixed-reality technology; redefining how and where stories are told, pushing the boundaries of creativity, technology, and guest interaction. We aim to craft experiences where guests don’t just observe but actively shape the story, creating meaningful engagement.
Project goals and How we get here
Key words we set are: spatial and environmental storytelling, and blending virtual and physical.
Being a R&D project, we spend the first half of the semester researching and second half developing, along with weekly playtest throughout the semester. Before half we did 4 rounds of sprints, experimenting with 24 different effects and interactions in AR, such as window registration and replacement, magic lens, etc. After half we discussed and picked the "best" ones to merge into a full experience: a travel machine that brings player to 5 different worlds of unique art styles and interactions.
Collector
Interaction Design and Animated Model
The goal is to achieve indirect control for the player to be able to use this unfamiliar, fictional tool, without a tutorial in advance and with minimum UI.
When designing the 3D model and animation of the "collector", I refer a lot to basic UX design principles such as affordance, feed-forward.
After several playtest and iteration, we are satisfied with this final design that turned out very intuitive among players:
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Handles pop out or retract to hint players to grab or not grab.
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Button and progress bar are animated to suggest poking or waiting
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A hologram jar shader used to encourage the player to reach through.
Here's a break down of the interaction loop.
