Student Team Project · Unity 6 XR Prototype · PCVR / Quest Build Work

Birdwatching VR

A Unity XR prototype about exploring a low-poly forest, photographing birds, and filling a star-rated field guide. I owned the main systems work: camera capture, bird detection, photo scoring, bingo-book progress, backpack tools, comfort settings, and builds.

At a glance

My Role

Built camera capture, bird detection and scoring, field-guide progress, backpack tools, comfort settings, and builds

Technical Challenge

Turn an in-world VR camera into a reliable capture, recognition, scoring, and collection system

Team

Three-person student team with Felix Chughtai and Talulla Allen

Build Status

Playable Unity/XR prototype with PCVR support and Quest standalone build work.

Current Unity Prototype

A VR camera-to-field-guide loop.

The player takes a photo, the game identifies the bird, scores the shot, saves progress, and updates the physical book in VR.

  • - Physical camera, bingo book, feeding stick, and backpack tools.
  • - Persistent photo and species progress with latest/best shot metadata.
  • - Comfort controls, hand-tracking fallback work, and Quest/PCVR build setup.

Project In Short

Player loop

Photograph birds, score each shot, and complete a physical field guide in VR.

My contribution

Owned camera capture, detection, scoring, persistence, tools, comfort settings, and builds.

Validation

Tested the playable slice with public users at an IGDA Baltimore showcase.

Camera To Field Guide

  1. 01Hold the camera and render a live preview.
  2. 02Trigger saves the view as a PNG.
  3. 03Rays find the strongest visible bird candidate.
  4. 04Shot quality becomes a 1-4 star score.
  5. 05Species progress is saved to disk.
  6. 06The field guide updates with photo, name, and stars.

Current Prototype Footage

Live Unity footage of the in-hand field-guide setup.

Closer look

Systems, interaction polish, testing, and documents

Open the technical stack, complete system breakdown, development logs, showcase notes, and planning material.

Open +

Current Stack

  • - Unity 6000.3.10f1, C#, Universal Render Pipeline 17.3.0.
  • - XR Interaction Toolkit 3.3.1, OpenXR 1.16.1, XR Hands 1.7.3, Oculus XR 4.5.2.
  • - Dynamic Photo Camera Mini adapted into a VR-held camera with live preview and PNG capture.
  • - Built around PCVR/OpenXR with Android/Quest build output through IL2CPP and OpenGL ES 3.2.

Implemented Slice

  • - Seven species represented: Robin, Blue Jay, Cardinal, Chickadee, Sparrow, Gold Finch, and Crow.
  • - Nine bingo-book slots, including variant slots where the source art supports them.
  • - Saved photo/progress data with migration support for older saves.
  • - Low-poly forest scene with baked lighting, wind shaders, outlines, and runtime credits.
  • - Still rough in places: bird materials/shaders and some backpack/camera alignment tuning.

Built Systems

VR Camera Capture

Held camera with live preview, trigger capture, zoom, shutter feedback, saved PNGs, and preview repair.

Bird Detection And Scoring

Camera rays identify the bird, then score framing, visibility, distance, and center/fill into a 1-4 star photo rating.

Bingo Field Guide

In-hand field guide with page turning, saved photos, species names, lock states, and best/latest stars.

Tool Handling

Backpack inventory for camera, book, and feeding stick with shoulder retrieval, stow anchors, haptics, and outlines.

Feeding Stick

Held perch that can attract one bird, hold it briefly, then release it before a cooldown.

Comfort Runtime

In-headset menu for movement, turning, vignette, credits, and FPS display.

Interaction Polish

Backpack Retrieval

Shoulder zones, stow state, haptics, delayed returns, and a right-shoulder camera summon.

Controller And Hands

Controller play is primary, with a hand-tracking fallback for pinch/grab and teleport aiming.

Comfort First

Runtime locomotion and vignette settings apply in headset without leaving the build.

Behavior Guardrails

Very early QA proved that if the birds felt grabbable, people tried to grab them. We tightened flags and boundaries.

Development Logs

Dev diaries from the build.

Short PDFs showing how the camera, field guide, backpack, and comfort work came together across the semester.

Dev Log 04

Camera And Field Guide

Camera capture, species ID, photo scoring, saved PNGs, and bingo-book progress.

Open PDF

Dev Log 05

Controllers, Hands, Comfort

Controller input, hand fallback, locomotion choices, vignette, and VR settings.

Open PDF

Dev Log 06

Backpack Prototype

Backpack slots, stow/retrieve behavior, delayed returns, and tuning notes.

Open PDF

Dev Log 08

Summon And Polish Pass

Camera summon, outlines, backpack cleanup, and late polish.

Open PDF

Public Demo

Shown at the IGDA® Baltimore showcase.

We demonstrated Birdwatching VR at the University of Baltimore alongside other student projects. It was a useful test for onboarding, controls, comfort, and whether people understood what to do without us hovering over them.

Earlier tests were less graceful: a few people tried to grab birds or bonk them with the book. Funny, but useful. We tightened grabbable flags so the game reads as observation, not bird harassment.

Live headset demo of Birdwatching VR during the IGDA® Baltimore showcase at the University of Baltimore.

Team demo area with attendees watching and trying student projects during the showcase.

Reviewer Notes

Three quick references: current build notes, original pitch deck, and the written planning doc.