Cuarta Pared VR: The Council of the Titans
Introduction to Cuarta Pared VR
Curiosity, drive, and passion brought together five professionals from very different backgrounds, united by a common goal: to explore virtual reality and create a new format that combined concepts from classical theater with the unique possibilities of this emerging medium. With no commercial interests, we came together to experiment and reinvent the way stories are told, blending theatrical tradition with immersive technology. This is how Cuarta Pared VR was born, along with The Council of the Titans, the first virtual reality play made in Spain, presented within VRChat.
It’s important to note that The Council of the Titans was developed in a home environment with modest resources. However, once it was presented to the public, it received recognition from prominent professionals in the industry. Notably, it became a finalist for Best Creative Concept at the Inmersiva XR awards during the Descubre XR event, competing against prestigious companies. This demonstrated the industry’s appreciation for innovative initiatives and highlighted the importance of continued exploration, both by citizens and private initiatives, of new formats and possibilities in virtual reality.
My Role and Responsibilities
My first task was to technically validate the concept with a prototype, which allowed us to establish the technical workflow necessary to make the entire experience possible.
The creative director had laid out the foundations for how the imaginary world of The Council of the Titans should look: it involved creating a main island as the playable zone, surrounded by giant titans holding islands around the player. At that time, the platform we were working with was PC VR.
With that vision in mind, I set up two projects in Unity: the first project was for rendering the 360° skybox, and the second served as the playable space for the experience. Iteratively, and following the creative director’s guidelines, I experimented with the composition and lighting until we collectively established the final aesthetic for the experience.
From a technical perspective, the process was divided into several layers. The first layer involved integrating art assets and setting up basic configurations in Unity (light baking, scene setup, integration of the VRChat SDK…) to visualize the progress within VRChat.
The second layer focused on designing the interactions with the world. In addition to placing colliders, it was necessary to design and program a system that would trigger all the events during the play. Since we were experimenting with a new format, a technician was required during performances to manually trigger the events in sync with the unfolding narrative. To facilitate this, I integrated VFX and programmed various buttons to trigger those effects. During this phase, I worked with the VRChat SDK and developed custom shaders in Amplify, which I connected to the event triggers.
The main challenge arose from the decision to make the experience cross-platform. This meant that in a single play, one user could connect via PC (with higher visual quality) while another could connect from a Quest device (with optimized visuals). I had to optimize the experience using various techniques to ensure it worked on both Meta Quest 1 and 2. We successfully created a cross-platform multiplayer experience, and I configured the events so that multiplayer synchronization worked across both versions of the experience.
In summary, my role encompassed the entire development process, from art-related tasks using Substance Painter, Blender, and sometimes ZBrush, to work within the engine, which included configuring Unity, applying optimization techniques, programming interactions, developing shaders in Amplify, and working with the VRChat SDK.
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Jorge Esteban Blein
As a creative director in VR, one of the things I value the most in a Unity or Unreal developer is his or her ability to understand the importance of my creative decisions. For me that is absolutely fundamental, and Roger and I definitely aligned on that. But to find a developer whose mindset is fully aligned with the creative project, someone proactive, enthusiastic and that shares the excitement of trying to create something unique and exhilarating every day, then we are still talking about Roger, and that is what makes him a one-of-a-king professional and colleague. He has qualities that I rarely see in this industry. Thank you, Roger, for making every moment of this journey into the metaverse something unique and exciting. It is a privilege to work with someone like you, both super talented and a kind human being.