What if I told you that time travel isn't just a science ... fiction concept? What if, it's already here thanks to Mixed Reality? Hi guys, today, I'm excited to share an incredible Mixed Reality ... project I've been working on for some time. Let me introduce you to "Back to the Mixed Reality"! a fan-made project that demonstrates the potential of ... Mixed Reality in bringing childhood dreams to life. Thanks to the latest advancements in Mixed ... Reality technology, you can now virtually drive
... the iconic DeLorean Time Machine and experience time travel! You may wonder why and how I built this project! Well, in this video, I'm going to walk you through the creation of this unique ... Mixed Reality experience, starting from the very beginning. So, let's get started! First, let's take a moment to ... understand what Mixed Reality means. we can define Mixed Reality (MR) as the blending of ... physical and digital worlds, creating new environments where physical and digital ... object
s co-exist and interact in real time. Thanks to MR, the possibilities are endless. The idea behind "Back to the Mixed Reality" comes from my childhood dreams. I've always been fascinated by the concept of time travel, especially from the "Back to the Future" movie series. Now, with the advancements in ... Mixed Reality, I've been able to turn this ... childhood fantasy into a real experience. So let me tell you how it works: You begin by spawning the DeLorean Time Machine right on your floor. Ne
xt, set your destination time for ... the time travel experience—let's say 20 ... seconds into the future. Drive the time machine to reach the time travel speed. And when you reach that speed, the DeLorean travels in time. Then, you just need to wait 20 ... seconds for it to back from the future. So, How insanely cool is that, right? Unfortunately, it does not yet travel to the ... past but we will see about that in a few years! Now, I will show how created this ... MR experience step-by-step! B
ack to the Mixed Reality was created using the Unity game engine. We chose Unity thanks to its easy MR setup and my ... existing skills. Our first step in this project was to focus on the core ... mechanic, which is to drive the ... DeLorean and travel in time. So, the first thing we did was look ... for a detailed 3D model of the iconic DeLorean Time ... Machine online. and fortunately, we found the perfect one. We could build the model ourselves but why not focus ... and spend more time on the
experience itself? Along with it, we also found a replica of the remote controller used by Doc in the first movie. After importing the DeLorean and the remote controller ... models into Unity, we had to do heavy optimizations because the ... models were insanely detailed. Next, we started coding the car ... controller system. We wanted to drive the DeLorean Time Machine like ... a toy car using the remote controller just like in the first movie. We decided that this is the best mechanic to buil
d for Mixed Reality. With the help of Wheel Colliders and this magic ... CarController script, I managed to drive the ... Delorean time machine using the keyboard inputs. Speaking of inputs, I used Unity's new input ... system for its easy setup and flexibility. In fact, within minutes, I managed to add Xbox and Oculus Touch Controller ... support into my Car Controller system. The next step was to implement sound effects. We knew that Sound was a big deal for a realistic & convincing experience
. So, I took it very seriously and ... started digging in for real DeLorean engine sounds. Then, I got lucky. I discovered a comprehensive library of DeLorean car ... sounds on Sonniss.com. I was kind of surprised when I first saw this 13.8 GB full of ... the real DeLorean car sounds on Sonniss. And frankly, I still cannot believe such a ... detailed sound library even exists. So, a special shoutout to ... Sonniss.comfor their incredibly detailed sound ... packs and generous support! The next st
ep is to use this huge sound library to create ... adaptive car sound effects that change according to the ... speed of the car. To do that I used FMOD. FMOD is a sound engine that lets you create adaptive ... sounds and import them into your favorite game engines ... like Unreal or Unity. FMOD provides a powerful and flexible toolkit for audio ... playback and sound effect creation. I imported the DeLorean sound pack into FMOD to ... create adaptive driving sound effects that depend on the ...
speed and RPM of the car engine. After creating the sound events at FMOD Studio, I integrated them into Unity thanks to the FMOD Unity plugin. And with some coding magic, our DeLorean Time machine ... was now driving around with realistic car sounds. Perfect! The next phase was to code the Time Travel itself, which is the heart of this experience. Our goal was to closely replicate the visual effects of ... time travel as seen in the iconic Twin Pines Mall ... parking lot scene from the first mov
ie. We used a bunch of Particles, Shaders, and Unity Timelines to create ... VFXs for time travel. For the entire time travel loop, there are 3 main timelines triggered in sequential order ⇒ Time Travel Prep: preparation for time travel, Time Travel Explosion: the moment of time travel After Time Travel: initiated when the car is back ... from the future All these were coordinated by this TimeTravelManager script. The next is the sound implementation because ... Sound plays a crucial role in the
time travel experience. So, we again used FMOD to ... replicate the time travel sound effects from the movie ... with some additional creative touches. Finally, with all these systems, we had a fully functional Time Machine with a ... satisfying time travel experience. The final step was to program the time travel functionality, specifically determining how the car will be back based on ... the time destination. To accomplish that, we took inspiration from the ... stopwatch that Doc was using i
n the first movie. Since it will be a toy car, we could not use the time ... circuit inside the DeLorean. So, we created a unique ... Stopwatch based on the left Meta Quest 3 controller mesh. The Stopwatch is spawned as soon as the user spawns ... the DeLorean Time Machine. Stopwatch allows us to set up a new time destination ... using the custom buttons here. And when time travel occurs, the stopwatch begins ticking. It counts down from the time destination to zero. And when the time is up, the
time machine is back ... from the future! Pun intended. So, with all these mechanics, we successfully built a working Time Machine. The next and last step was to integrate Mixed Reality into the project. First of all, we installed Meta XR ... packages into the project one by one. Then, thanks to Building Blocks, I created a basic MR scene in seconds with room model ... and pass-through functionality. Room Model is the Scene Understanding feature of ... Meta Quest headsets. You may wonder what i
s Scene Understanding anyway. Well, Scene Understanding in ... Mixed Reality is a cutting-edge technology that ... enables interactive experiences within a user's ... physical environment. It utilizes a comprehensive Scene Model, providing both geometric and semantic representations of ... the space, facilitating realistic ... interactions with virtual elements. This technology is crucial for enhancing mixed reality ... experiences, allowing for precise ... navigation, static occlusion, and a de
eper integration of virtual and physical worlds. Speaking of new concepts like Scene Understanding, Mixed Reality integration brought new challenges and ... design considerations that we had not dealt with before. For example, Testing and iterating with ... Room Setup was very time-consuming. Because every time you make a change, you need to test within the headset. But then I heard about the Meta XR Simulator and it ... literally saved my life. Meta XR Simulator is a tool that allows you to tes
t your ... XR project without constantly wearing the headset. This powerful tool revolutionizes the way we test ... our XR projects. The Simulator can simulate headset movement and touch ... controller input using a keyboard and mouse or ... game controller. So, I definitely suggest you ... include this tool in your main project pipeline. Another challenge we encountered was to ensure ... that the car remained within the room's boundaries so that the DeLorean could have realistic collisions with
... the floor and real-life objects. To achieve that we added added colliders to the room's ... walls and floors. This process involved careful adjustment and testing to ... ensure the virtual car could collide with and react to ... real-world objects. For example, I needed to identify room ... elements using OVRSemanticClassification ... class from Meta. The room elements could be Floor, ceiling, Wall Face, etc. So, based on the type of room ... element, I tagged the corresponding ... collider
s so that the car properly collided with the room elements. Another important system was to create a spawn ... system to properly place the Time Machine on the floor. So, I created this MRObjectPlacer ... to spawn the Time Machine on the floor using the ... right-hand controller. It basically sends a ray from the controller with a line ... renderer and dummy object to help the user place the ... virtual objects. By the way, I also added a fake shadow ... to boost realism and it looks fantastic!
The next step is to add remote controller support to ... the Car Controller System. Remember that we imported this remote controller model ... the Doc was using in the first movie. So, I mapped the inputs to the ... joysticks within the remote controller. Then, I made sure to spawn the ... Remote Controller prefab into the right-hand controller as ... soon as the time machine is spawned. Cool! With all these mechanics, we can drive the DeLorean Time Machine virtually in Mixed Reality. And how aw
esome is that? The last big thing is to create an app flow for this Mixed ... Reality experience. In Mixed Reality experiences with Meta Quest 3, the user must proceed with some initial settings before ... we load the experience itself. The first thing for the user to do is to give permission to ... access the spatial data. This is necessary for the app to have the Scene ... Understanding in the first place. The next is to check whether the user has a Room Setup or not. If not, we need to ask fo
r the Room ... Setup and not load the game scene because the experience will not work without the Room Setup. So, I created this Lobby Scene to ... deal with these MR procedures. Luckily, I found the Project Phanto. Project Phanto is a Unity-based Mixed Reality ... reference app from Meta. It demonstrates critical features for Mixed Reality app ... development, including scene mesh, Scene Model, and the general app flow. So based on my learnings, I added a bunch of UI Panels ... instructing the
user what to do or expect. When the game starts, we first inform the user that ... this app needs to access the spatial data of your room. When the user gives that permission, we simply ask for the Room setup. So, using the Trigger button, the user starts the room setup process if there is no ... scene data available. When the scanning is completed or we have a ... available space setup, the user is informed about ... the Scene Mesh via a Mesh Visualization feature. For this, I got the source co
de from ... Project Phanto to save myself some time. At the same time, I showed another panel ... informing the user about what this experience is all about. Finally, when the user is ready, the game scene is loaded via Trigger button press. So, that is it. This is how I built Back to the Mixed Reality project. I hope you've enjoyed my journey to build this ... fan-made project. My biggest intention in building this project is to drive ... more and more attention to Mixed Reality, Virtual Realit
y, or spatial computing, whatever we should call it. So, if you want to access the ... build and try with your own Quest 3, check out the link in the description. I encourage you to share your gameplay on social ... media to spread the word about the magic of Mixed Reality. Stay tuned for more adventures! Thank you!
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