School of Science and Technology 科技學院
Computing Programmes 電腦學系
| Programme | Bachelor of Arts with Honours in Computing and Interactive Entertainment |
| Supervisor | Dr. Henry Man Fai Leung and Dr. William Lai |
| Areas | Augmented Reality Applications |
| Year of Completion | 2020 |
The aim of the project has two main parts which provide a safe environment for the user to cook and cumulative experience and promote Hong Kong local recipes. The target of the project is young adults. The players could cook Hong Kong local recipes and acquire the knowledge about the local food from the Grab and Cook. Moreover, the VR game is a training game that familiarizes players with the cooking process and time and the ingredients they need. It provides cooking experience to people who are beginners of cooking or do not know how to cook.
There are several objectives to achieve our aims. First of all, we need
Unreal Engine 4
A game engine for the development of the game. In this project, we developed a VR PC game by Unreal Engine 4.
Nvidia Flex
A third-party content in Unreal Engine 4 that is used to simulate soft body, cloth, and fluid. It provided build-in coding for developers.
Modeling application – Maya
For the model design, this project is a VR game that needs lots of 3D models. Maya is an application for us to build the models and manage them.
UV map editor
A tool in Maya. By using the UV editor, it helps to cut the UV map of the models in the correct position.
Texture painting application – Substance Painter
An application for us to paint the texture. With using the different tools in Substance Painter, it can help to paint texture conveniently. For example, the meat texture.
The design of the stage is an old-style home kitchen. It is a stage where the player can play different recipes or modes.
Figure 1: Game Stage
Figure 2: Kitchen
In Grab and Cook, there are three UI menus including the main menu, recipe menu, and mode menu. The player was using the (blue) line to control the menu with a long distance by a VR controller including pressing, selecting, and hovering function.
Figure 3: Main Menu – The player could exit and start the game or edit the setting of the game and watch our information.
Figure 4: Recipe Menu – The player could select the recipe in this menu.
Figure 5: Mode Menu – The player could select the mode of the game.
Figure 6: The bread actor attached to the player’s left hand by grabbing on the bread actor.
Figure 7: A loft of a bread actor sliced by a knife actor and spawned a slice of bread actor.
Figure 8: The player breaking the egg actor and the egg fluid is falling on the frying pan.
Figure 9: The player pouring oil at the frying pan.
Figure 10: The player gets cabbage pieces by using the grater box.
Figure 11: The player put the bread actor on the respond actor.
In this project, we had invited 20 teenagers to play the demo of Grab and Cook. Then, we questionnaire them for the feedback about Grab and Cook and game testing with different devices' requirements.
According to the results collected from the questionnaires, most of the interviewees are very satisfied with Grab and Cook, and they could accumulate cooking experience and enhance their own cooking intention from playing Grab and Cook.
Table: Game Testing by three different computers
About the game testing, we found that all computers could launch Grab and Cook with different device requirements. However, some computers will not provide a complete gaming experience with a low device requirement such as a long loading time, frame per second limit, and high CPU utilization.
Grab and Cook is a VR simulation cooking game which promotes the Hong Kong local recipe and provides a safe environment for the user to cook and cumulative experience. The player could select a different Hong Kong local recipes and gameplay's mode in the game. After that, the player could cook and complete the recipe step by step who will be guided and taught by the game. For the project, we developed the VR game with different softwares such as Photoshop, Substance Painter, Maya, and as well as Unreal Engine 4.
In the future, we will design the next recipe which is steamed pork patty and have been building up a modeling of pork belly and pork patty. About the function requirements, we estimate the function of steamed pork patty including slice, smash, stir, prepare, and add ingredients. It is because most of the functions and models have been built at the club sandwich level. Therefore, the developing time of steamed pork patty will be shorter than club sandwich.
