CSC 495: University of Minnesota VR REU

 I am feeling more relieved than  I was at the beginning of the week. I finally got my code to compile correctly. It kept giving me an error that said that the patch kept failing when I would create a C++ class with dependencies. But when I would create an empty class it worked fine. So I decided to yet again, copy my content and put it into a new template. Doing this allowed for the code to compile for some reason. I really believe that the Unreal Engine program has a lot of bugs in it. It really doesn't make sense that all of my issues have been resolved by copying my content folder and putting it into a new template. But with this being said, I was able to code for my passive movement finally. I just had to get the x,y, and z location as I moved the camera around, put that into a CSV file, and then parse the file. It now works exactly like I wanted it to and I'm not as stressed about it anymore. I'm so close to finishing everything. I still have to download the program f...

 I finally got the controllers for my active movement to work. It took a lot longer than I had hoped for; and it's not exactly how I wanted the movement to work. I wanted the user to be able to go left and right and to be able to move forward. I only got the controller to move forward and the user point the headset in the direction that they want to go. I feel as if this may cause the user to get cybersick, and I know that this will affect my data.  We also finally got IRB approval, but I don't think that I am exactly ready to start fully testing. Vicki seems to be very adamant on doing real testing but I'm personally not ready to make that step. I'm still not sure if my questionnaires that I made are up to par or if they will get the correct data that we need. Another reason that I don't want to test so soon is because everything is still not complete. I haven't been able to get the Empatica wristband to work, and it seems that no one in my lab or other labs ha...

I have had a frustrating start to my week. To start off, I attempted to work Sunday but I couldn't get the headset to work correctly and the frames per second were awful, so Monday I attempted again. Whenever I loaded my environment into UE the frames per second, which determines whether or not it will lag, were 40. This isn't bad considering that my environment is very large. But after I ran it in the headset the fps dropped dramatically. I couldn't figure out the issue for a few hours but I finally resolved it. Apparently the VR setup for Unreal Engine has a bug that makes the fps awful. So I had to put my project into a first person setup; and my environment ran great. I didn't have any lag and everything looked exactly the same. I was quite upset that it was the reason why nothing would run correctly. You would think that Unreal would have resolved that issue considering that it affect the VE greatly. But I'm glad that I finally figured it out.  Today, I attempt...

I finally resolved the issues with my computer. I tried to compile C++ but it wasn't working in Unreal Engine 4. The only issue was the name of my project so I changed it and then uploaded the project to UE 5 but now my lighting is extremely off in this version. I'm going to work this weekend to fix that issue. There are a lot more things that are going wrong than I had hoped for. I knew that this would not be a smooth process but it's a lot of things to get done in the two weeks that I have left.  The one thing that I do almost have complete is my poster and I'm quite proud with how it turned out. I have most of the information that I need I'm just waiting on the results of my pilot test.  The list of things that I have left to complete are getting my computer to work correctly with the headset to ensure that it looks the same, coding my controllers and also the video, getting the emaptica (the skin conductance wrist band) to work correctly and be able to get data ...

Vicki came yesterday to visit. We discussed how the project would work moving forward. Like I said before if we couldn't get IRB approval in time we were going to pilot test. The only issue with pilot testing is that I can only use people in the lab, so I fear that it may skew my results because I won't have as many participants as I had hoped for. But this is a better alternative to not having any participants at all. We also discussed what questionnaires we would be doing and what order they would go in. The two psychological tests that we are going to measure are the Positive and Negative Affect Schedule (PANAS) and the Perceived Restorativeness Test (PRS). Both of these tests will give us some data as to how the participants feel and we will also be using the Empatica (which is a skin conductance watch that measures heartbeat, temp, etc.) that will help with the actual data.  We also didn't want the participants to have survey fatigue, this is why we decided to only do ...

With only three weeks left of this research program, I am running out of time to complete the things necessary for my project. Vicki said that she had accidentally sent IRB approval for the wrong college so I'm not sure if it will be sent and approved in time by the end of the summer. In the event that it does happen, I am ready to pilot test people and get results from that. I won't be able to have the number of people that I wanted but I will have some sort of result. This is of course better than not having any data at all so I cannot complain too much.  I do have quite a bit to complete in terms of questionnaires. I need to figure out what order I want to give them in and what content I need for them. I am quite overwhelmed with everything that I have left to complete, so I have a feeling that I will be pulling some all nighters to make it happen. I am making it a goal to have those complete by the end of the week.  We were also asked in our Monday seminar to begin to make...

Yesterday, I had a meeting with a previous REU student, Rachel, who was advised by Vicki as well. She was remote last year so she had to do everything on her own computer. She gave me some of her code for the controllers so that the users can move through the environments, along with the stressor task that I am going to be using. I am so glad that she gave me that because it's going to help me move faster through the process. We also began to talk about the REU and we both have had similar experiences with Vicki, and I'm glad I'm not the only one who has had issues. Rachel just gave me the advice to be adamant about what I am doing and try not to let her make too many changes. I think that we are at a point to where there won't be too many changes but I can't assume.  Moving forward with the participant study I have so many questions. What type of questionnaires do I need to use? What order are people going to experience the environments? Are people going to complai...

Vicki came in yesterday to talk to us about our projects again. She discussed with me what all I need to get started on and done to run the study. As I have said before I have finished two virtual nature environments (one that is for active movement and one that is for passive movement), and I thought that I needed a third for the 360 video. Vicki tells me that I really only need two environments and that we can measure the restorative effects of passive vs. active. She also said that I didn't need paths for the passive environment, which I am glad about. I was confused though as she had changed her mind about the project once again. I believed that we were going to be measuring the three different environments, but now we are only doing the two. I'm not mad that we are only doing two as I haven't completed the third one but I am slightly upset that I took my time to create it. Overall, I am confused as to what I am doing yet again. She also said that she has not heard back...

So far I have completed two environments that look different but somewhat similar. I'm still needing to complete my third environment though and it is taking me a little longer to make these environments than I had hoped for. I still need to add other elements such as sound, animals, and actual implementation.  Because of this, I am quite worried about the time that I have to get everything prepared to run participants. Currently, the computer that I am working on cannot support my environments in order for it to work on one of the VR headsets. With that being said, Ville is working to set up another computer that should be able to support my environments where users can actually walk through them. He partially got it set up today and needs to finish it tomorrow. If that doesn't work I'm really not sure how I am going to set up my study. I may have to go to another lab and then transfer my project over to a different computer, which will be difficult because I would have to...

How are you going to go about the rest of your research?  As I only have four weeks left within the REU program, I'm going to try to use my time wisely. I've made a calendar where I'm organizing due dates for major things I need to get done. The first thing that I listed was of course creating the rest of my environments.  So for the seventh week, I plan to take Sunday and Monday to complete the environments. I'm hoping that it doesn't take any longer to complete these environments but I still have to add some sound elements and attempt to find some bug assets to make the environment feel more realistic. The rest of the week I will use to create my 360 video and how the users are going to move in the environments. I have a feeling that this issue will be the most difficult thing for me so I am going to ask for Ville's help. After that I will start to prepare the questionnaires that I want to use for the participants. I know that I want to use a stressor test so ...

Vicki came in and talked with us today. We finally got everything situated with my project and I am so so glad. Unfortunately, she still wanted me to implement one of the ideas that she had discussed on Zoom. So I decided to pick the second choice, which is essentially just having three different scenarios that the users will be in. The first will be a 360 video, the second will be users floating through the environment, and the third will allow the user to move through the environment themselves. Vicki said that she wants to test the amount of restorativeness that users feel in each environment. The only thing that sucks though is that Vicki wants three different environments for each scenario and she wants different paths throughout the trail of the environment. I'm just a little upset because I have already created one environment that looks amazing and it took quite a while to create it. So creating two other environments is going to be quite difficult especially since I only h...

Well today we have good news and also bad news. The good news is that I completed another nature environment today. This environment looks far superior to the other ones that I have created and I'm quite proud of what I have made because it looks really realistic. I believe it's going to be the one that I'm going to use to run participants in. The bad news is that if I'm still going to do my non photorealistic environment I'm going to have to change some of the aspects of the one I just created. This is because some of the assets I used were made with atlases, which are basically just pictures of things. I was going to use cel shading for the non realistic effect but I don't believe that there is a way for me to use cel shading on atlases. So this has me left to decide what I want to do. I can either use different assets all together or I can find a different way to get the same effect. I'm really not sure which one would be easier in this case. Another thin...

     I got the issue with switching topics resolved. I had a meeting with Evan, the person over the REU program, and told them what was going on with Vicki. Essentially, they told me that I could do my original topic and they gave me some ideas as to how I could execute it. I feel as though I still don't feel 100% secure as to what I'm doing and I'm very worried because of it. I just feel like there's something that I am missing when it comes to research.      Because of this, the  experience so far has me questioning aspects of my future. Evan gave a talk on graduate school on Friday as well and it has me thinking, do I really want to pursue graduate school? I understand that in order to get my PhD I would have an advisor who would be my mentor but after this I'm really not sure if I want to do research at all. I think I would like it a lot more if I had a clear direction as to what I was doing and some more guidance with that. I was also thinking tha...