Image gallery, upload to server

I made my first attempt at uploading to the MM server yesterday, and it worked perfectly. I had a few more bits and pieces to correct in the meantime, and now I have all that done and the project is uploaded. Mission: complete!

I created an image gallery for the about page because I thought the text needed to be broken up a bit. I used a simple solution using the CSS box model rather than using any jQuery. Again, I just wanted it to be nice and simple, as the Unity application is the main focus of the website and, if scaling this out, it would be affiliated with an official site and would not need this page, other than to explain the concept of the museum.

I am very happy to be finished, now I just need to put the finishing touches on the report. It's been a long process, often interesting and sometimes very frustrating, but I now know how to create a web application in Unity and this could be very useful in the future.

Rectifying issues in testing

Based on the feedback I received from testers, I had to make some changes to the lake scene. I created cube barriers around all the walls of the terrain so the user can no longer fall (or jump) over the edge. I initially tried to use planes, but there are some fall-through issues with these, so cubes were a better option.

I took on board the feedback about the sparsity of the scene, and did some experiments with the default tree in Unity. However, because the scene was not done to scale, it was difficult to get the tree looking realistic next to the hills and objects, so I decided to leave it out.

An average-sized tree, dwarfing everything in sight.

I also changed the music to something more appropriate; I am using Christy Moore's Ride On, which is Irish-sounding without being too cheesey. I may have to change this based on copyright issues. I then included player instructions on the splash screen.

I think I now have the Unity part of things totally completed. Yay! It's just a case of fixing up the website.

Testing

I have tested the nearly-finished project on two groups, one in the 20-40 age bracket and one in the 60-70 age bracket. 

A female tester aged over 60 really liked the project; she thought the landscape and models were impressive. She also found the controls very simple to use, an issue I had been worried about. She suggested that there were not enough objects to click on and look at; this is a valid criticism, but for purposes of this project it was necessary only to have one working object as making more would be repeating work already done. I would definitely expand the amount of objects if continuing work with the project, however. She also suggested the landscape was too sparse and that I should add trees and vegetation, a suggestion borne out by members of the 20-40 group.

A male tester aged over 60 thought the project was useful from a historical point of view. However, he had no interest in learning to use the controls and asked that I navigate around it for him. This could be a problem, as many people of this age group will not have  used similar applications such as video games and may not be interested in trying. It may be necessary to make more intuitive controls of a click-and-drag nature. This was my original plan but time constraints did not allow for it. He also wanted to get inside the crannog, which was part of my original plan but I did not follow through on it due to my decision to make the museum open air. In later incarnations I would be willing to make explorable architecture, which will involve significant work with lighting and baking textures. Again, time constraints do not allow me to do this at the moment, but it is something to think about. Both members of this group wanted the Unity player to be smaller, so that the whole player is viewable as you click into the homepage, so I will attempt to do this.

There were four testers in the 20-40 group, 3 male and 1 female. All enjoyed the project, but many were curious about what would happen if they went off the edge of the terrain, so it will be necessary to add more barriers to prevent this. One expressed a desire to explore the lake, but this goes beyond the scope of the project, as there is no facility at Lough Gur to explore beneath water level. One male, aged between 25 and 30, thought the texture on the crannog needed work. I agree, but this is again something I would do in conjunction with making it explorable.

During the testing process, some of the browsers were more suitable than others. Safari is currently my preferred browser for this project. It works well on Firefox as well, but many people use very restrictive pop-up blockers when using this browser, making it impractical. I will advise my users on the best choice of browser on the homepage, perhaps in the splash screen on the web application.

GUI - Sound toggle and exit button

I have added sound to the project, and I have created button functionality whereby the user can toggle sound on and off, and also exit the Unity application to go back to the home screen. I think sound makes the project more interactive and immersive. The button functionality involved more JavaScript code, which the Unity Community is very useful for. With a lot of this kind of functionality, it's considered quite basic so a lot of people have already done it, and it's not too hard to find examples online.

This one was useful for the on/off button:

http://answers.unity3d.com/questions/303807/music-onoff-switch.html

The exit button really only required the use of the Application.LoadLevel command.

Unity embedded!

I finally succeeded in embedding the web player with suitable dimensions. I decided to use the web page generated by Unity in the build stage and adding my home page elements, rather than attempting to get the player into my already-created homepage, and it works much better. Now all I really need to do is get the cursor constrained to the centre of the application and it has all the functionality I need it to have. Exciting times!

 

Terrain barriers

I have just solved the problem of the player falling into the lake and/or off the terrain by placing cubes at the sides of the terrain and turning off the mesh renderer. I placed a plane on top of the water of the lake and again turned off the mesh renderer, and the controller can now happily traverse the lake should he/she so wish. I feel like I've solved a lot of issues today. My website and Unity application are now more or less complete, I just have to iron out a few more issues. Nearly there! (I hope.)

Application.OpenURL vs Application.ExternalEval

To address one of the problems mentioned in the previous post, the fact that Application.OpenURL only opens the website in the current browser window rather than in a new tab, I did some research on the Unity Community forums and found the using Application.ExternalEval will actually open the page in a new tab, so it is less disruptive to the enjoyment of the viewer. Here is the code I used:

 function OnMouseUp()
    {
    Application.ExternalEval("window.open('http://www.youtube.com','YouTube')");
    }

And the code I replaced:

 function OnMouseUp()
{
    Application.OpenURL('http://www.youtube.com');
}

I still haven't attached it to my own website though. That will be next.

Note: Since originally creating this post, I have added functionality allowing for a page of the project to be opened rather than YouTube, calling the file from my folder structure like so:

 Application.ExternalEval("window.open('../../K00123456_Project_2013/macehead.html','Macehead')");