Honing in on a video game or other immersive environment pursuits takes on a new meaning when the activities are encased in the creative housings developed by a class of fourth-year students in SFU’s School of Interactive Arts and Technology (SIAT).

The students recently completed and showcased their projects while wrapping up a course on creating immersive environments. Led by SIAT assistant professor Bernhard Riecke, the students were challenged to use the popular unity3D game engine to create their projects. 

The newly developed course is one of the first offered in Canada where students learn how to use an immersion framework to create an immersive interactive experience on their own mobile devices or immersive displays.

“Students learn how to design, build and interactively refine a cool, immersive and interactive virtual environment that should blow the user away,” says Riecke, who oversees SIAT’s iSpace Lab housed at the Surrey campus.

“They learn that if they manage to implement this on their mobile phone/tablets using a simple cardboard view like the FOV2Go, they’ll be able to showcase it wherever they go – including job interviews and parties.”

Riecke says the students’ learning progress and projects will directly feed into their e-portfolios, helping them further to improve their marketability.

Student creations include everything from elaborate mobile phone frameworks to life-size “black-curtained” immersive enclosures and even a paper mache headgear.

For examples, project videos and more information see: http://iSpaceLab.com/Riecke/teaching/#445