HMS Unicorn Virtual Museum

In association with PiratesAhoy! and The Unicorn Preservation Society we are proud to present the HMS Unicorn Virtual Museum project. Our goal with this project is to create an interactive and ‘living’ ship that can be explored using VR devices such as the Google Cardboard, Saumsung GearVR, Oculus Rift, and more. We also plan to build a web front version for browsers as well for those without a VR device.

The model for the HMS Unicorn is being built in-house by our very talented modeler Christian Tornholm-Lehn for PiratesAhoy! for both the VR Museum project as well as the project Hearts Of Oak: Conquest of the Seas. Due to the detail of the model needed for both a museum quality replica and use for gaming it will be one of the most accurate 3d ship models made to date. Because the real HMS Unicorn is ‘in ordinary’, meaning it has a house over the deck and does not have rigging, we are using the sister ship HMS Trincomalee as the base of the rigging portion. Both are Leda class ships, with minor variations in design so the rigging should be extremely similar.

Planned Builds:

• Android (with and without Google Cardboard or GearVR)
• iOS (with and without VR)
• Windows (for VR devices and without)

Goals:

• Create a set of interactive displays to allow users to understand the function and correct nomenclature of shipboard items and tools
• Allow users to freely explore a ‘living’ ship as it would have been outfitted during the period
• Teach users how life aboard a ship was lived through representation of crew and officers for certain displays

Windows x86
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Windows x64
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Spoiler: In Game Screenshots

 

Really cool.
What is that crest thing hanging from the Unicorns neck?
The one thing I think is missing is dirt and aging on everything. I know they tried to keep the deck very clean and tidy, but this looks very CG because of the lack of dirt and aged timbers.
I think it would be nice to add some rats down below deck also.

The framerate wasn't good on fantastic or beautiful 1920x1080. I dropped down to 1600 on beautiful and it seems to improve but it didn't get anywhere close to 30fps. Might be because I have several other apps open at this time though.
Also - the mouse movement is extremely sensitive. Consider reducing the sensitivity by half at least.
I think the depth of field - near blur plane is a bit over exaggerated. When I was getting ready to walk down below, the near lip of the hatch was blurry while the portal was in focus and then the far edge of the ship was blurry. Might consider reducing the near plane blur a bit.

Overall very nice visual quality.

 

Thanks for the detailed feedback!

Oh yes, the whole ship is VERY clean right now. We aren't going to be aging the wood itself (damage or such) or deck much as we are representing the ship as it would have stood in 1824 after launch, so the materials themselves would be pretty 'new', but the dirt will be getting put in sometime in the coming weeks. Our modeler is working on the decoration components for the Captain's cabin, and a whole lot of other simple models to scatter about the ship such as line and rigging pieces, hammocks, dining tables above some of the guns, barrels with supplies, some candles, etc. We really want to break up the 'perfect' appearance as much as possible. We are also going to be adding in a few characters to help give the ship a sense of scale, since as it is now there really isn't a way to know how big everything really is.

The coming release has a number of technical changes, mostly in the lighting and effect section. What GPU are you running? Currently there are no LOD or culling zones created, so when you are above decks the lower guns are still rendered, and when below, the rigging is still rendered so there are a number of poly being done that really don't need to. Unfortunately the model itself is massive poly The depth of field has been negated quite a bit and the next one that releases will have the option to adjust and also disable the function. I will bet the mouse sensitivity is related to the framerate. I used a simple free cam script and I think it might be in the Update() and not in FixedUpdate() which would cause the mouse go a bit crazy. The new one will have controller support and should have options for changing the quality settings in the game itself so there won't be a need to restart to make changes.

 

I'm running dual GeForce GT 730s.
I also tried to get in the crows nest to yell land ho, but I couldn't.
Don't know if there is a way to get up there - or - maybe that could be considered.

Yeah the lag was probably due to me having a couple other apps open. Unity, 3D Max, Mudbox, Photoshop and a couple tabs in the browser, in addition to the no LOD and high polygons.

 

The current camera controls should let you fly around at will. It goes any direction the camera is pointed and can even go underwater (which I recommend just for the effects). I am running an older 660GTX and sit around the 50fps mark, so I imagine those apps had something to do with it, but it does still need a ton of optimizing.

 

A new version is available in both x86 and x64. It has all new lighting, controller support, updated water, updated textures, a new character model, updated UI, updated settings controls, added terrain, new LOD's on some models. It is the framework for the next set of changes which will include a couple of interactive displays to test the system and possibly VR being enabled with the new controls.

Windows x86
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Windows x64
Download

 

Hello ladies and gents! We have been hard at work on the Unicorn of late and have just released another new version. The largest interesting addition is the ability to use VR! It is not exactly 'smooth' just yet, so be sure to get your settings ironed out BEFORE turning on VR as the gaze controller is just not wanting to work right now.

On another note, we had to remove the Ceto water system and switch to a new one as the developer has stopped working on it. That ate up a good chunk of time but is finally complete. We also updated the image processing stack to be much more efficient and have more amazing graphics!



Lastly, if you do not have Itch.io installed, we HIGHLY recommend it. We are now distributing the Unicorn game on Itch.io with automatic patching through their client.


HMS Unicorn Virtual Museum by Wolf Pack Games Co

Have a go at the underwater section and meet our new friends there.


Be sure to try it out and expect quite a few updates coming in the next couple of weeks, including a few model additions and more interesting weather changes.

 

After many long nights and busy weekends we are proud to announce the release of the HMS Unicorn Virtual Museum version 1.2!

What’s New

• The model has been heavily updated.
• 2 entirely new decks have been added.
• User controls have been reworked to be more ‘character’ like for the better usage in VR.
• Particle effects are completely overhauled.
• VR performance is greatly optimized.
• Overall performance is much better
• Lighting is completely overhauled
• Water is updated and improved for performance
• and much, much more…

We are closing in on being able to add in the information placards, audio tracks, guided tour points, and other museum style interactions. We look forward to the feedback on the new model!








Download from Itch.io now!

 

Great job on the model. Have to spend some more time walking around.

Do you plan on doing more ships in the future?

 

We are looking at doing our HMS Ontario next as it uses a lot of the same detail components. You can actually see our low poly version of the Ontario in the captain's cabin on a model stand (the one in Nelson Yellow).

 

That is good news. I did spend some time looking at that ship. It is nice to be able to navigate all of the decks too.

You always have to press the space key for some real action.

 

Ha, yes, you do. We are starting the process of gathering the interactive display list so we can put in some floating placards that describe pieces of the ship and life aboard. We really want it to be a good learning experience eventually.

 

You could increase your pre-order sales over 9000% if you include a "unicorn in a row boat" as a plushie to anyone who pre-orders ^^.

All jokes aside, very nice project!

 

Looks amazing, my admiration to you and your team on an outstanding job.
Really brings the HMS Unicorn to life, any plans to bring to iOS and Android, would be fab to have it on my phone for those virtual tours.

 

Do you plan on having a "guided" walking tour option? For example you press a key (for example G) and it takes you to the starting point. Pressing G again will take you to the next point of interest. You keep pressing the G key until you view the entire ship's major points of interest. This would be in addition to the current mode that you have now.

 

We are looking at something similar, but by using an indicator, ala RPG style. The problem with auto-moving the camera is that it kills people in VR with motion sickness and also cuts the size of the ship down for everyone else. We had done some simple testing with automating camera points and it makes the ship seems a lot smaller and less 'grand'. So our idea is to still allow the player to wander through, but give them an idea what to walk towards next by highlighting a path and the object to look at next.

 

I like that idea of the highlight a path.

 

Nice project. A mobile version would be nice!

 

Released a new video showing off the model and talking about some of the additions while giving a quick tour:

 

@CaptainMurphy

Any plans about being able to climb into the crows nest? If you just walk off the side of the ship (and into the ocean) it automatically puts you back at the starting point. Is that expected behavior? I was wondering how to get to the underwater and stay underwater looking at the bottom of the ship.

 

The end design will have points that allow you to teleport to the fighting tops, as well as a point at the sides to allow for a free fly camera. Right now we have a simple char controller so if you hop off the side it puts you back on the deck since there is no mechanism for flying around anymore.

 

We have started a full rewrite of this project. Mostly due to changes in the lighting for Unity and us making better cannon/carronade models to use in the project.

Here are a couple of WIP shots of the new guns/lighting.

 

Is this with Unity 2018.2? Did you change the water to different asset or it is the same one?

 

Yes, it is 2018.2.6 right now. I am using the Ultimate Water System for this go round.

Finally got all the guns back in place and finished a few more bakes with better light cookies as well.

 

Are you using that new baking asset also?

 

Yes, I am using Bakery now. It seems to be about 1000% faster than Enlighten.

 

That is a huge improvement in speed.

 

As much as that sounds like an exaggeration, it isn't. A full scene bake with Enlighten would take between 28-31 hours (around 1800 minutes) including the AO step and Final Gather. The full bake now takes less than 2-5 minutes after the initial calculation for meshes is done (which takes about 10-15, so a total of around 17-20). So even at the longest bake in Bakery it still ends up almost a literal 1000% faster. It has essentially saved this project as we could never get the scene lighted correctly using Enlighten to a satisfactory level to continue working on it.

 

Amazing. It is great that you can actually be productive again.

With performance numbers like that someone should stand outside of GDC with a big sign advertising these capabilities.