The Immersive Institute (TXI) of Texas, the Educational Game Development Program at the University of Texas in Austin, announced that it ended a semester-long cooperation with HTC. This pair-up resulted with seven virtual worlds made in HTC Viverse, a first academic collaboration for HTC.
Five of the Vivese projects stem from the experimental stories course of the TXI, given by Professor Rohitash Ray; And two further advanced projects came from the TXI Lab team, including Professor Reilly, program manager Azalea Laredo, Alumni Chris d’Avilla and trainee Yu Liu.
Gamesbeat spoke with Erin Reilly, the founder of TXI, about the project and why they chose Vivers as his platform: “We have chosen Vivese because it is accessible, on browser-based and powerful students give an immediate playground to prototype without barriers.
Michael Morran, HTC’s Viverse Developer Community Manager, led a series of workshops at TXI by the semester focused on publication on Playcanvas, Viverse Create’s Core Engine. Morran added to a statement: “Through this collaboration we can enable future designers and makers to create the tools and support that are needed to create compelling 3D virtual experience. We are proud to show their work on the Global Vivese Worlds platform, so that they are exposed to our community of innovative makers.”
Reilly added: “Students do not only build virtual spaces to think spatially, Cross-functional work together and design experiences with real-world impact. This collaboration gives them practical tools and industrial mentoring to prepare for jobs that do not yet exist.”