For those curious about the purpose of this experience, here’s a brief introduction: I’ve created a VR fashion gallery designed to offer the fashion industry a more innovative way to market and advertise their brands. This experience also aims to provide a more immersive shopping experience, featuring art pieces, sculptures, and clothing.
1. Conceptualization and Idea generation:
The idea behind this VR exhibition project was to rethink the traditional limitations of experiencing fashion and art. My main goal was to design an atmosphere that was not limited by the physical space, providing an immersive, adaptable and environmentally friendly way for audiences of all physical abilities to interact with art and fashion. Therefore, I came up with the idea of making a Virtual Fashion Gallery. The concept was born from an understanding of the limitations of traditional galleries and fashion shows, I envisioned a platform that was built with inclusivity as its foundation, not just an add-on. This inspired me to create a virtual space where art, fashion, and commerce merge seamlessly.
2. Idea Development & Practical Benefits:
By looking for some references for art gallery pictures, I built some sample scenes based on some assets I found online. from my past experience of shopping and often going to art galleries, I choose minimalism and futuristic design movements, For the interior, I prioritise less is more. On the business side, this VR experience aims to reduce the number of returns by allowing customers to “try before they buy” in a virtual environment. Without the physical constraints of size and fit, they can see how the garment fits, try on different looks, and make informed decisions, reducing the inefficiencies and environmental impact of returns. and could be used as an innovative marketing tool for companies and artists. Businesses can showcase their products allowing for interactive customer experiences, and potentially transforming conventional shopping habits. Artists can use VR galleries to display their works, from paintings to sculptures, without the constraints of physical spaces.
Here is what we did to identify and acquire the necessary resources, tools, and assets.
Below are the items needed for my exhibition space:
List of Furniture and Decorations
• One table, 71 cm*68 cm*158 cm
• One chair
• One Lamp (I will provide my own)
• Some postcards
List of Hardware
• One monitor with a computer
• Keyboard and mouse
• VR Quest 3 from UAL or VR Quest Pro from me
List of Software
• Oculus
• Unreal Engine
The total required area is 1.6m by 1.6m
The gaming experience will be in a standing position
Only one chair will be provided for safety reasons. in case other people got hit by the player by accident, On the next page, I’ll provide front and side views along with detailed dimensions and annotations.
here is the top view of the exhibition space.
For the second page, I’ve included the space I’ve designed in Unreal Engine, showcasing the side view. It illustrates the dimensions of the table—71cm in height, 68cm in width, and 158cm in length
the second picture demonstrates the dimensions of the chair, including the length, width, and height. The player will start in a standing position where they will be able to orient themselves within the experience. After the experience, there will be a business card available if they wish to contact me or learn more about the experience.
Exhibition Purpose: The purpose of this exhibition is to show others how fashion and art can be experienced in the future. The implementation of immersive technology allows for the fusion of art and fashion in a unique way that complements each other. Not only am I focusing on the purchasing aspect, but I’m also seeking to push the aesthetic bounds of what’s possible. By going through this experience, users will be forced to think about how fashion will evolve with technology, from purchasing to runway shows, and everything else in-between.
Working at the VR Fashion Gallery gave me a growing experience, an opportunity to stretch my VR knowledge and experiment with techniques that could add to the fashion industry. The challenge of creating an immersive VR fashion gallery that would seamlessly transport users into a virtual world where the user could engage with a curated collection of virtual clothing, sculptures, and paintings without ever leaving the physical world. The proposed application is mainly designed for fashion houses and influential people in fashion, aiming to show them how VR could offer value to the industry. What worked excellently?
As the VR clothing gallery was the main focus of the project, special attention was paid to ensuring it was easy to navigate and felt similar to real-life fashion spaces. To do this in the most effective way possible, I wanted to show realistic clothing that moved with cloth physics. I tried to use the stock clothing in Unreal, as well as some 3D models that I found online. However, I found that these items just flatly stayed attached to the model, so this led me to use Marvelous Designer, which offered realistic and amazing clothes. There were also features inside of Unreal that allowed me to integrate these assets and edit how much they moved.
As a VR experience, it was important for me to create something interactive and meaningful. These interactions should promote exploration of the environment, and be extremely intuitive for the user to pick up. This also involved high-level features, such as Metahuman, motion capture, and 3D scanning, which furthered the level of realism. To increase presence, I looked at the features of the metahumans, allowing users to change their face and height to better reflect them as a person.
Overcoming Challenges and Finding Solutions:
The significant challenge was to bring realism from the physics of the garments, which I overcame through the persistent use of tools such as Marvelous Designer, I watched several tutorials before I finally learned to use the software. This was something completely new for me, and I had to learn how to navigate and use the software.
I also faced a large amount of difficulty in the interactions, getting them to move smoothly, teleport a certain distance, and implementing some custom controls caused me several errors. Initially, I started from using the keyboard, navigating the scene with the arrow keys as a placeholder. When I began testing in VR, I noticed that the controls didn’t work, I previously thought VR would automatically be implemented since I developed using the VR kit. With this not in place, I looked at tutorials to implement controls and finally got smooth locomotion working.
As a VR user, I found the movement fairly comfortable. However, when testing with others I found they easily got motion sickness from the smooth mode, so I decided to implement teleport. I had a hard time getting the user to move around the environment efficiently as the cursor did not more than a few steps from the user’s body. Natalia helped me implement the navmesh bound which allowed the user to freely move around the environment.
Lighting became a large issue when I began testing in VR as well. There was a huge amount of unbuilt and unnecessary lighting which added a lot to the size of the game. I knew I needed to take a large portion of the lighting out, but I had a difficult time figuring out what to eliminate. I went through the environment and saw that many of the lights were redundant. I decided to raise the intensity of the lights that I kept. This helped keep the light count low, while also maintaining a well-lit and aesthetically pleasing environment. Starting out, I had over 2000 lights and by the end, I had just a little over 200. this increased my frame rate from 40 to 60.
I iterated several times, deciding to alter the plan and simplify certain aspects of the project. YouTube helped me understand a lot of the interactions I wanted to implement, I got to a functional point with tutorials, but ultimately the experience wasn’t perfect. To perfect this, I spent a weekend combing through the project to identify any errors or possible deficiencies. I found multiple minor issues and solved them via YouTube tutorials and the general knowledge I’ve acquired of Unreal.
Addressing Industry Concerns and Crafting Solutions:
During the creation of the project, I kept in mind some of the major issues discussed in the industry concerning the accessibility and applicability of VR technology, specifically in fashion.
With skepticism of VR in the fashion industry, I have tried to prove how relevant and full of potential VR is in the fashion landscape. With this concern in mind, I knew I had to create something which was extremely straight forward and easy to understand for the industry. The VR Fashion Gallery was very straightforward in terms of functionality and the task of educating the user. Its aim is to dispel the myth that VR is not capable of reshaping the way products are presented and sold in the fashion industry.
Conclusion: A Vision Realized and Future Prospects:
An interactive VR Fashion Gallery can be transformational within the fashion industry. The project expands on just the virtual experience and proposes real material solutions for industry challenges, by drawing on cutting-edge tools and design innovation. It explores how VR could be integrated into the industry with attention to detail and the specific needs of brands. I built this in a way where it could be used as an actual product offering to fashion houses that will want to tap into the immersive power of VR.
Not only focusing on interaction and beauty but also prioritizing ease of use for people who were not used to VR. As a fashion enthusiast, I’ve always kept in mind that this project is something I would like to commercialize. I feel it would add a lot to the shopping experience for me, as well as many others who are into the buying the latest collections from designer brands. I’ve tested this with friends as well as my Dad and his shareholders who encouraged me to continue working on this, as they feel it has commercial potential.
As I continue to polish this experience, I will begin to look for funding. I did a large amount of market research in China, where I found that while VR is a well-funded and growing industry, it has not yet permeated fashion in a way that allows consumers to comfortably shop. In addition to this, I found that the return rates for online shopping in China are extremely high, I feel that VR can reduce business expenses for fashion brands and increase customer satisfaction with items ordered.
In general, this project was extremely enlightening as I started with an idea and worked on it to fruition. I would love to thank my friends and tutors for helping me through this project. I was very nervous as I was using Unity for my entire school career, I was fairly nervous about using Unreal Engine and having to create an entire project around it. But this project gave me a huge amount of confidence in my ability to create something from scratch using new technology. I’ve even used a 3d scanner to create a realistic scan of my face in metahuman, as well as a 3d scan of a room which helped me organize assets inside of the Unreal scene. I feel an extreme of gratitude for myself and everyone who helped see this project through to the end, I’m excited to continue building upon this in the future.
With pre-production finished, it was time to begin working on the experience itself. I wanted to start by creating the environment as a base for the experience, this allowed me to see how users would interact with it. The experience would borrow from the Burberry/Harrods web scene that had doors that opened to beautiful experiences, allowing users to shop inside of a store. I started with this, building a very basic and beautiful experience that acted as an introduction to the fashion gallery.
Users would enter the experience, and be met with the main menu, which acts as a training scenario for how VR works. There is a voice telling them the instructions on how to use the VR controls, as well as the purpose of the next scene. Upon learning this, the user can click the play button, which opens the doors into the fashion gallery.
When the user enters the fashion gallery, they see models walking around with weighted clothes. There are signs on the ceiling, showing the user how to properly navigate the scene. There are five parts inside the gallery: The future-realistic Clothing Section, the Made To Measure Section, the Metahuman Tailoring Section, the Sculpture Section, and the Art Piece Section.
Here is a list of each section and its purpose. The sections are paired with audio clips that tells the user what the purpose of the area is, as well as how to interact with it.
https://emperiavr.com/project/harrods-x-burberry/
Future-Realistic Clothing Section:
The clothing is designed to look futuristic and showcase the possibilities of materials and cuts in the future. These are items that could be runway items in a few years and help to show the users how designers are trying to innovate fashion. In the future, this will be an AR section where users will be able to take these articles of clothing and put them on their real bodies. This would use some type of filter such as Snapchat or Instagram, to identify the person by body type and face recognition.
Made to Measure Section:
This section is for beginners, the users will be told how to interact with the items throughout the environment. They’ll be able to pick up the clothing items and put them onto a metahuman model, so they can visualize how these assets would look on their bodies. A widget will appear on the clothing, that allows thew user to view the item on-site or potentially purchase it.
Metahuman Tailoring Section:
This section is for VIP customers, and the audio will explain how users can get their body and face scanned to create custom clothing for their body size and shape, to be more precise. In the future, this could be used to try on different clothes in a virtual setting, then purchase those clothes knowing they perfectly fit their body. In this section, there are 3 examples of different metahumans, including one of myself. I created this with a 3D face scan, but others would be able to use a mobile application to create a model of their own face.
Sculpture Section:
This section adds to the artistic value of the experience, using sculptures from different artists to create a unified aesthetic for a beautiful art show. This differs from reality, as you’re able to pick up the items and closely examine them before purchasing them. You can see the intricate details of the item without damaging it or breaking the rules of the gallery. My research showed that fashion and art shows are closely connected, so this sculpture gallery adds an essential element to the fashion gallery experience.
Art Piece Section:
This is a section that showcases paintings and drawings in an extremely immersive way. Users are able to pick up the art pieces and place them in different areas and positions to see how they would potentially look in their homes. They’re also able to get a close up view, and artists are able to showcase their work safely without having to worry about shipping or potentially damaging their art pieces in galleries. In the future, this could be used by artists to sell their art to a wealthy clientele and build relationships with fashion brands/galleries.
The mechanics in a VR experience are the rules and interactions that define how players can interact and move with the virtual environment, and achieve goals. The purpose is to make the experience more immersive and entertaining, and most importantly, easy to use.
I implemented the walking mechanics in the second scene, except for the Main Menu. At first, it was very confusing, and I had to get rid of some global volume in the environment, which I used to filter the sky. In the Main Menu, the walking mechanic was deactivated as it was deemed unnecessary.
3D Interior Design and Documentation (Production: Development), -Metahuman & 3D Scanning
For the gallery itself, I wanted to do something that mirrored the fashion shows and art galleries I had been to. This meant, things needed to be minimalist, focusing on either monochromatic or duotones at the absolute most. After trying multiple colour patterns, I found that black and white looked the simplest, and also the most beautiful. This needed to be very simple because there were a lot of different ideas happening within one scene. If the colours were too busy, they could distract the users, making it difficult to navigate.
For the character design, I wanted to keep things simple, as I saw very early that using high-poly models could drastically slow down the experience. This meant the entire scene could not be metahumans, I had to find alternatives online. I used Mixamo and the Unreal Asset Store to find models which looked nice and fitting to the experience, without sacrificing a lot of power. I decided to use the basic Unreal mannequin and some models I found online for the fashion walk. The unreal skeletons would act as the audience since these models didn’t need to have clothing, they were just there to fill out the experience. The models needed to have clothing with weight on them and walk through the experience as if they were in a real fashion show.
Not satisfied with the animations I found online, I decided to use the motion capture room to create a custom catwalk animation. I used the Rokoko suit along with my friend who did the catwalk, I then took this animation and put it inside of Unreal on my two characters. I ensured those clothes were weighted so the animations would look more realistic and interesting to the user.
-Fashion Digital Assets
The clothing assets were found online, and I looked to model them after the Burberry experience, which had a collection of handbags and shows. Polycount wasn’t a huge concern for this aspect because the items were fairly small. I used a basic hat, which I changed the material on to make different versions, I also found a bag and jacket that I felt would go well on the model. These were paired with blueprints, allowing the user to pick them up and place them on the nearby metahuman.
The items on the model were from the asset store, these were stock models with no weight added onto them. With the help of Natalia, I was able to paint the weight on these clothing items, making them much more realistic and engaging. On one model, there was a simple skirt that bounced up and down as the model walked, on the other model, there was a skirt that blew in the wind behind the model.
For the experience, the brand mentioned earlier, DicksonLim.com, was supposed to provide some 3D clothing assets, including a blazer, waistcoats, pants, and iconic looks from red carpets all over the world. This wasn’t able to come in time, so instead, I opted to use assets I found online. In the future, I will implement these assets so users will be able to see excuse items.
I created blueprints for all the assets including sculptures, art drawings and clothes assets, this is quite time consuming. I keep play testing during the process, to ensure that all the items have interactions and grabable, i created notes for each items (name and description), however, becasue of the lack of space on my laptop and lagging during the VR mode. therefore, i made few examples showcase inside of the Made To Measure section.
this is the microphone that I use for the robot voice.
For the sound design within my project, I selected the background music from one of my favourite tracks. This music choice helped me to establish the mood and ambience of the gallery space, with contemporary beats give an energetic vibe. I created introduction voices for each section, which play a crucial role in the project by giving players or users a clear introduction to the experience. I used a karaoke speaker to produce a robotic voice and enhanced the futuristic feel by adjusting the pitch for each section.
For testing, I wanted to create this experience for fashion brands and consumers. Though I based it off of previous experiences I found online, as I showed it to people unfamiliar with VR, I began to see how complicated they found it. This lead me to rethink the experience and focus solely on the VR aspect and making it simple for all users.
With this idea in mind, I tested in class with tutors, the first being Herman, and second being David. I also tested with group members and different friends who gave me viewpoints from VR enthusiasts and non-VR users.
Upon testing, David commented that I should put female characters in the game as way to make it non-biased. Then when I tested it with Herman, his feedback involved player mechanics and environment design. It was mentioned that the player should start in a position that makes the environment easy to understand and navigate. Each of the items spread around the environment should be grabbable because it’s an immersive experience. It’s important for users to be able to use VR and it’s many mechanics when going through the experience because if not, the experience would be better on a PC.
I also received feedback on how large the environment is. Though it’s very beautiful, the size could cause users to become lost and confused. Because of this, Herman suggested that I add a minimap which allowed users to understand where they were going, and where key areas were located in the world. I found the minimap to complex to integrate in a short amount of time, so as a happy medium, I found that creating signs on the ceiling would help the user navigate the experience. These showed the different areas and what the purpose of each one was. In the future, I will add the minimap to make navigating even simpler.
Credit Page: Final Work Distribution
Scene
Layout & Coding
Sound
– Main menu
Jason, Carlos, Natalia
Jason, Jenny
– Fashion Gallery
Jason, Carlos
Jason, Jenny
-Metahuman Tailoring
Jason, Carlos, Sunni
Jason, Jeny
– Art Gallery
Jason
Jason
– Sculpture Gallery
Jason
Jason, Jenny
– Credit scene
Jason, Carlos
Jason
Feedback from Natalia and Conclusion
This project provided a large amount of flexibility turning my idea into reality. As a person who loves fashion and prioritizes the shopping experience, it’s very difficult for me to get the same feeling shopping online that I get from an in-person experience. The process of pressing a button and getting something shipped does not compare to interacting with the staff and being able to see and touch the clothing. In addition, there is a lot of gorgeous design inside of these stores that can only be experienced by going to them in person.
By using Unreal Engine to make a virtual experience, I felt I would be able to replicate this experience and add a new element to shopping. Recreating this in Unreal was difficult and unprecedented, as I had to learn Unreal by myself and create an entire experience from scratch. Initially, the task was somewhat scary, but having Natalia and my friends help me made the situation much easier. I’m extremely thankful for all of the assistance, help from the tutors was instrumental in creating the experience as well. They helped me not make my project to complex, and keep it simple for myself as a developer, as well as the users.
Additionally, I want to note that I made some updates based on feedback from my tutor. These include adjusting the player’s starting position, the camera angle, adding more grabbable clothing items to the shelves, and repositioning the note along with the length of the ray cast. Although I haven’t had the chance to update the showcase video, I encourage you to try the game for a greatly improved experience!!
Inspiring Videos
I made this smoke and fur effect from Blender last year, collaborating with some dancers from the London Contemporary Dance School, I thought would be cool to put it inside the gallery dancing with the beat.
Or maybe even include some robot dance in the scene.
