PuppetTheatre is the first project I created in collaboration with Kenobisboch Production.

Everything started with the idea of recreating the art of puppetry in VR, thanks to the precision and accuracy of the Steam VR Controller Tracking (Oculus Touch were not out yet at that time) and the feeling synthetized by the haptic feedback.

At the beginning of this project, we started making R&D on how to recreate the Marionette Puppet's movement in VR. As we were working near Venice, a city very passionate about puppetry, talking with an expert was really easy. It has been very useful, once we understood the puppet’s controlling techniques and methods all around the world, we decided to make a mix of the Japanese method and the method from Naples. The resulting mixture method makes you play with the left hand with the classical Marionette's cross, which controls the legs. On the left controller's touchpad you can also control the facial expression of the puppet. On the other hand, with the whole right controller you can full control the puppet's right arm.

We decided to mix the two control techniques to gain an easy approaching method to the game, but at the same time, a method that leaves to you the freedom to move the puppet the way you want.

The game shows on the HMD the perspective of the puppeteer, and on the main screen the perspective from the public of theater. In this way, while someone is playing and trying to complete the levels, the story can be easily followed on the screen as a spectator in the theater audience, making this game even more immersive and similar to a party game.

I really enjoyed working on this project and I was lucky to be mainly the technical supervisor of the Bigrock's Master VR team, following the team that was working on the puppets’ full IK system and the way to control it.

I also helped the team that created the shaders for the main scene, the optimized instanced shader for the theater public and the team that worked on the gameplay.