After the video of mixing Nirvana in the studio was released I got a lot of feedback and I planned on spending many nights and any of my free time trying to improve the studio, add features, optimize so it ran faster. And I got to build some of this stuff, but working only nights or sometimes in my off time, was not enough to really make a big difference. Progress was slowing down I was getting less motivated to work on it.
The last months I rebuild a lot of the existing functionality multiple times, because of changing systems within Unity3d (version hell) and the VR plugins / frameworks I was using. I was already on my third VR framework and hoped that this was finally the one I would be using for a few years. But most of all, I had to focus on my day to day work and making a living doing filming, photography and editing.
Other work has to be done
I had to go to the USA twice, to film and photograph several trips from a travel company specializing in USA trips on Harley Davidsons on routes through the USA and did a lot of video editing and promotion stuff for this client afterwards. (see some of the movies here https://www.anymotion.nl/portfolio/excellent-west-route66-reizen/)
Corana, so things slowed down
Then all of a sudden COVID-19 hit the world and everything came to a stop. My work as well. I had a hard time accepting this the first few months. I was trying to survive on savings and the odd jobs here and there that could still be done with 1.5 m distance and not more than 3 ppl in a room. I got to do some jobs where I provided switching or camera, or camera direction on live streaming jobs, but most work came to an halt because of the Corona.
With freelance work drying up, I found unexpected time to return to the VR studio with full attention.
I started working on it during the day, and slowly progress started picking up again. I was happy with all the improvements I made over the time and did a lot of visual enhancement and cleanup as well. Learning new stuff while I was adding and improving.
I re-modelled a lot of stuff in blender and replaced the old objects, as well did a lot of work on textures and optimization of those textures.
All the while I also did a lot of coding, improving on functionality or making something work for the first time.
Add some stuff on the walls and in the studio, adjust some lighting and update to the latest plugins from oculus and unity and we have a new version.
I focussed on performance and functionality and got some stuff done that was on my to do list for ages. Happy with the results and the scene so far, I made a video to demonstrate all that is new :