WILLIAM REN

VFX Artist / 3D Generalist / UIUX /  Graphic Design


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About  
 
Game Design :    
Collaborate in small teams to rapidly create games throughout the semester   I   2023   I   4 Weeks








Details
Course  Brief : As part of the immersion semester at ETC, I’m participating in Building Virtual Worlds (BVW), a program pioneered by co-founder Randy Pausch. BVW pushes me to work quickly, creatively, and collaboratively. Every two weeks, I join a new team to create a virtual world, with fresh goals and challenges for each round. The experience culminates in a public festival showcasing our work to hundreds of spectators—a moment of incredible pride and accomplishment. Many ideas from BVW have even grown into full-time research projects, student ventures, and commercial successes, and I’m excited to contribute to this legacy.









Disciplines :





Instructors :
 Game Design
UI/UX Design
Sound Design



Dave Cuyba
Jonathan Walton



Course  Brief :

The theme for this round was to help an NPC achieve their goal. We decided to create a story about assisting an elderly woman with Alzheimer’s in recovering her lost memories. Players progress by performing a series of actions to unlock three walls of a room, symbolizing the gradual return of her memories.

My contributions to this project included game design and sound design. I learned a lot about brainstorming and managing the game scope during the early stages of development. I also composed all the original music and wrote the voice-over script.





Time Spent :


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2 Weeks


VR (Quest 2)


Lingheng Tao
Qing(Amelia) Luo
Xinyu Ai
ZhiWei(Tyler) Yang

Course  Brief :


The theme of the second project was to give players a sense of freedom. Due to headset recording limitations, the black void you see is actually see-through AR space in augmented reality. To balance player freedom with a sense of achievement and replayability, we designed a seemingly simple paper airplane-throwing simulation. Players use hand tracking to grab airplanes and throw them into targets within a set time to score points. While the mechanics are simple, many players found themselves repeatedly trying to achieve higher scores.

I contributed to this project as a game designer, UI/UX designer, and sound designer. When designing the game's UI, I prioritized making it effortless for players to track their score and remaining time. To achieve this, I enlarged the data indicators and positioned them in parts of the scene where the player's eyes would naturally pass. Since players can still see their real-world surroundings while playing, we aimed to guide their attention toward essential information as seamlessly as possible.









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2 Weeks


AR (Quest 2) & Hand Tracking


Taveesin Sae Xu
Chaerin (Anna) Kim
Chu Li
Hongcheng (Lawrence) Luo

Course  Brief :

This project was designed for CMU ETC's annual festival, which attracts a diverse audience. The platform we used is a unique multiplayer system where each player has a rotating controller and a button. Our concept was inspired by a classic tabletop coin game popular in China. In this game, players flick their coins with their fingers, aiming to knock their opponent's coin off the table first. By building on its simple mechanics, we ensured players could quickly pick it up and compete against their opponents.

The project was pretty successful at the festival, with many kids playing multiple times to defend their victories. Adults also got immersed in the game, enjoying the competitive experience.






Time Spent :


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2 Weeks


Jam-O-Drum


Tianyi Lin
Airan Xu
Louise He
Xue Chen