Calvin Harris VR
Mobile VR interactive concert, built in Unreal Engine
artist + consultant
oct 2022 - jan 2023
This was Wave’s first VR show since the last VR show pre-pandemic. Everything about this show was completely new, including a brand new multiplayer platform built from the ground up in Unreal Engine (previously Wave was Unity based). As a freelancer, I contributed VFX expertise from my prior Wave experience.
Highlights
- Created 3 main effects for the show: an “exploding” moon; a kinetic sculpture — a configurable Niagara system for multiple rotating objects forming complex structures and movement patterns; and an intro room shatter and warp tunnel sequence.
- Built two versions: one with heavy optimization for mobile VR, and another much higher fidelity for the live stream.
Challenges
The core challenge was optimizing effects for mobile VR — an incredibly constrained system, essentially rendering twice on mobile hardware and limited by not being able to use many common post effects like bloom — while maintaining a much higher-fidelity version for the live stream, which ran on a powerful desktop computer.