3D artist Graham Rust has a Valve Index VR headset and some modeling skills, so just for fun he decided he’d take it Half-Life: Alyx and bring some of his action into his own home.
Rust has perfectly recreated his living room in the game, which, as we saw last week, can be appealing enoughbut this recreation isn’t just to behold, it’s also blasting, as the room is actually here for a gunfight with Combine forces.
Here’s the video showing how well he was able to recreate the space right down to the race setup and curtains:
If you’re wondering how he was able to put this together, Rust says that measuring the room was easy since the scale is 1:1 in a VR room, and that his furniture was crafted in Maya and Photoshop during skim off something stuff like Textures from online images (for example his Ikea chair):
I take a tape measure/ruler/caliper and measure the object, then use it to create a 3D model in Autodesk Maya and textures in Adobe Substance/Photoshop. I also create a simplified version of the model for physics. Finally, I import these into the Half Life: Alyx mod editor and use their visual programming system to interact with the world.
How long it took was a slow, gradual process. Rust first modeled his desk in 2015, but when he decided to start this project, he started building about one model a day, an achievement that doubles as his way of learning to use Maya .
Rust is now looking to the future with his living room. He has installed an “elevator” in the virtual version of his room, which he will use to create an arcade of sorts, “multiple floors that look completely different but are still walkable in my living room.”
