Earthlight: one giant leap for virtual reality

2016 is shaping up to be the year that virtual reality finally came good.

A screenshot from Earthlight shows the ISS above Earth. Photo: Opaque Media

With both the HTC Vive and Oculus Rift VR kits landing on customers' doors in the last month, there are now two different VR platforms that deliver on the revolutionary potential of this all-encompassing technology.

While the hardware has been getting rave reviews, they demand a wealth of experiences to flourish, and one of the most anticipated virtual jaunts is being built by a small Aussie developer called Opaque Media.

Astronauts are lowered into a pool at NASA's Neutral Buoyancy Lab. Photo: Bennett Ring

Based in Melbourne, their title Earthlight aims to replicate the training of a NASA astronaut, before sending players to the International Space Station (ISS).

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Early demos of this experience were so enthusiastically received that NASA itself reached out to the team and granted them a first for Australian game developers ��� behind the scenes access to the Johnson Space Center where the team were given unprecedented access to the real training facilities and those who run them.

Inside NASA's mock-up of the ISS. Photo: Bennett Ring

We joined the team on their visit to NASA's Houston-based headquarters, to see what goes into building the most authentic space experience ever created.

According to Norman Wang, project lead on the game, the opportunity to visit NASA is a god-send. "The visit is invaluable to the project. Given the subject matter of space exploration, there is just so much depth in the source material that we can't even gleam without being able to directly connect with people involved." Over the course of three days in late March, half of Opaque's staff visited each of the key facilities used by NASA to train its astronauts.

First stop on the research trip was the world's largest indoor pool, the Neutral Buoyancy Lab. This is used to acclimatise astronauts to the effects of weightlessness, and trainees spend six hours at a time working on a mock-up of the ISS at the bottom of the pool. The first episode of Earthlight will focus heavily on this, serving as a tutorial to ease players into the motion-based gameplay that will feature heavily in later episodes.

A control panel as seen in Earthlight . Photo: Opaque Media

Simple tasks such as moving around the outside of the ISS via handrails, unscrewing access panels, and removing circuit boards are all practiced extensively in this area, which may seem mundane compared to the action-packed shoot-outs of today's games.

However, even something as simple as using a drill becomes a rewarding experience in VR, as explained by Emre Deniz, the game's design and creative lead.

"We're able to map people's hands and head movements directly onto their digital avatar," he said. "This means that even very normal movements or interactions within a digital environment are very engaging ... the experiences we create facilitate a greater variety of emotional reactions from players."

Emre Deniz checks out the bubble helmet on a NASA suit. Photo: Bennett Ring

As players will spend a large part of the Earthlight experience from within a space suit, getting up close and personal with the real Extravehicular Mobility Unit suits worn today gave the team the opportunity to capture the finest of details, right down to the pattern of the material that is used to protect against micro-meteor strikes.

The team were even able to don the suit's bubble helmet, and noticed that the astronauts had a much clearer view than Earthlight's virtual helmets, forcing them to adjust their in-game field of view.

NASA's Systems Engineering Simulator (SES) building houses large physical replicas within projection domes where trainees practice using the ISS' giant robotic Canadarm2 arm, as well as docking procedures that are still being developed for the new Orion space capsule. These activities will also appear in the game, so the team spent a morning trying out each module, as a simulation within a simulation presents unique challenges for the developers.

Norman explains, "SES is a very busy space with lots of little bits and pieces crammed into a really small space. In VR, it's difficult to clearly represent objects that are close to you, as you can see an object in one eye but not the other because it is so close to your head, which is known as 'parallax'. SES is basically the worst case scenario for parallax problems, and requires some clever VR tricks to work around.

One of the most valuable activities for the team was a tour of the replica ISS used to train astronauts in emergency procedures, such as a fire or pressure drop. The team were escorted through this huge structure (the real ISS is the length of an American football field) by former astronaut Dr Thomas Marshburn, who has spent six months living on the real station.

His anecdotes ��� the high-pitched screaming sound when the airlock depressurises, or the reassuring hum of the fans that push oxygen through the space suits ��� will help to add a human touch to an otherwise precise, sterile procedure. According to Emre, this level of access has had a huge impact on the game, saying, "I think it's profoundly changed what I can put into the game as a designer, having had the chance to speak to veteran astronauts, trainers, controllers and coordinators at NASA".

As the first Australian game developer to be given behind-the-scenes access to NASA, Opaque Media now has the knowledge and materials to build a space gaming experience quite unlike anything before. With Earthlight scheduled to land on the Oculus Rift , HTC Vive and Playstation VR in late 2016, gamers are finally going to get the opportunity to live out their childhood dreams, floating through space as a NASA astronaut.

The author travelled courtesy of Opaque Media.

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