Tools and libraries like three.js, BabylonJS and PlayCanvas have made my journey exploring WebXR for prototyping interactions possible. In addition to being quite powerful, rivalling even native VR development options, these libraries are open-source! My recent explorations using them have renewed my appreciation for open-source software, as it is not just about the code out in the open, but also the strong community of contributors and collaborators that form around them. I try to consciously open-source most demos, examples and personal projects I work on as my way of giving back to this community. VR/AR APIs change rapidly, so most things I was able to learn while working in this domain was by reading others’ code. I hope through open-sourcing my code, I inspire people to try out WebXR and quicken its adoption even by a bit. This also encourages me to write better code and document my process clearly.

Approaching XR as a traditional Unity game developer, I was getting tired of switching between different plugins and workflows in the rapidly changing XR world. WebXR seemed like an interesting way out of this, and what better way to learn a new technology than participating in hackathons? Steampunk Digital organized a series of XR hackathons / challenges between February and July, 2022. I participated in all of them and created three different experiences within short timeframes! A big shoutout to PlayCanvas which made this possible! You can find details of the entries in the corresponding blog posts.

While I created some of these during the IAT 806 Interdisciplinary Design Approaches to Computing course, I enjoy making simple, creative doodles with p5js whenever I can! It is my way of exploring the wonderful world of creative / generative programming. I even participated in a few weekly p5js design challenges (themes from “genuary 2022”) on the official p5js Discord group! See the entire Glitch playlist here.

Technologies used: p5js, Javascript, Processing

I created a simple puzzle editor for Cubism VR in Unity! Using this, you can create custom levels for the game, which are saved in the JSON format expected by the game. Thanks to the creator of the game, Thomas Van Bouwel, for the special mention on the official modding repository for Cubism on GitHub!

Find more instructions and the entire source code on the project’s GitHub repo!

I challenged myself to create VR experiences for WebXR using aframe.

And what better way to learn than trying to make a clone of your favourite VR app? I love Cubism VR for its minimalist, zen vibes and wanted to create a similar experience using aframe and Javascript. This is what I created over the span of a week.

{% include youtube.html video=“pErf2HzZjDM” %}

Play the demo hosted on GitHub. The full code can be found in this repository.