Overview: In Master Dancer, you meet the famous dancer Loïe Fuller, the first to integrate technology into modern dance. As a player, you engage in action games to learn her movement principles and, guided by Virtual Loïe, explore her world. You will use modern VR technology to create your own unique dance, becoming a Master Dancer yourself!

Project operating through stu/dio-a student led work-for-hire game development studio at the University of Illinois. Project funded by the Center of Innovation Technology and Learning and sponsored by Music Director and Co-Director of Undergraduate Education John Toenjes.
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Platform/Engine: Unreal Engine 5 for PCVR platforms

Credits:

• Sponsor: John Toenjes (University of Illinois Department of Dance)
• Grants Provided By:
  • Campus Research Board — University of Illinois
  • Center for Innovation in Teaching and Learning — University of Illinois
• Project Manager: Tom Jiang
• Programming: Nick Simons
• Previous Programming: Luke Puchner-Hardman, M. Landon, Jerry Xu
• Design: Ethan Wang, Eli Lo
• 3D Art: Joshua Tyer, Qinglan Li
• 2D Art: John Toenjes
• Concept Art / 2D Art: Ruoheng Yang
• Cover Art: Elina Huang
• Motion Capture Art: Jody Sperling, Rochele Gloor, John Toenjes
• Music: Adrian Pawlikowski
• Sound Design: Aubree Gray

Highlighted Contributions:

• Starmaker Minigame
  • A game focused on strong core movement, where the player hits stars into the sky in time with the music in order to make a constellation
  • Developed data-driven tooling for designers to author new levels and constellations

• Music Roundabout Minigame
  • A game focused on gentle, precise music, where the player must gently activate notes according to music progression.
  • Utilizes Quartz and Meta Sounds for quantization of music timing.
  • Developed data-driven tooling for level authoring.
• Final Dance Visualization
  • A dance visualization game where the player creates a sculpture using the movement principles of the first two games.
  • Uses Niagra to draw ribbons and particles along the arcs created by the player. Visualization will change based on the player’s speed, consistency, and movement principle showcased.

• Dialogue Subtitle System
  • Inspired by Half-Life Alyx, implemented system for tracking and managing dialogue subtitles to their sources within 3D space.
  • Developed for both Master Dancer and VRchaeology.

• Stereoscope Based Level Streaming
  • Developed a stereoscope and card system to provide a diagetic and seamless interface for the player to load levels, using async sublevel streaming.
• Museum Exhibit Game - Autograph Hunt
  • Exhibit minigame centered on learning about important people within Loie Fuller’s life using interactable exhibits and animated portraits
  • Impleted narrator NPC (Loie) driven using behavior trees.
  • Loie follows the player to each exhibit to provide narrations for points of interest, responding to player events like leaving an exhibit early or completion of an exhibit.

Gallery: