Introduction / Overview

The application is based on VR technology to interact with accommodation fire incident scenarios. The goal of this application is to help students to use simulation accommodation fire emergency to teach them how to survive in fire incidents, then they can through interactions to better understand how to be safer in the fire emergency. Also, this application can be used for accommodation service to educate students about the fire alarm evacuation when they check in the accommodation or fire emergency practice. 

Description of the application

The application uses VR technology to simulate an accommodation fire emergency. The application creates an accommodation simulation to help the university to display the fire incident emergency. Also, students can wear Oculus Quest to join the application immersive accommodation to view the 3D virtual fire and extinguisher when they join the fire emergency training with accommodation service, and they can interact with the extinguisher when they are not in the real incident. In addition, the application includes 5 main components areas which are cooking fire incident area and voice alarm interaction area and extinguisher grabbing area and the successful evacuation area. Also, students can negative to each area to have a different interaction experience. 

The application can help students to better understand fire emergency evacuation in the simulation accommodation. The extinguisher's real size and functions can be understood by this application.  Students only can view the accommodation paper evacuation instruction on the room door, and they cannot grab the extinguisher when they see it in the accommodation corridor. However, this application can display a similar scale 3D model of extinguisher, and the fire incident can be simulated, and students can wear Oculus Quest to experience the extinguisher operation in simulation accommodation emergency. Also, the virtual evacuation route is planned in the simulation accommodation, and walls display the route information which is better than imagination of paper instruction because the immersive experience can improve the evacuation comprehending. In addition, this application designs the voice and grab and fire interaction areas to simulate the real fire emergency, then visitors can negative to different areas to experience the interactions to improve understanding safety and evacuation of the incident. 

VR technology can enhance the application usability and user immersive experience. The usability of the application is improved because VR technology can give us virtual hands and it can design 3D models such as extinguishers and kitchen wares, then students can use the controllers to easily grab the 3D extinguisher to extinguish the fire, and this will improve the application affordance. Virtual reality learning environment (VLE) can afford no risk experiments for users to conduct them (Dong-Hee S 2017). Also, the application simulated experience and immersive experience is improved by VR technology. VR is a simulated experience that users can depend on pose tracking and 3D near-eye to have an immersive feeling in the virtual world (Wikipedia). This application is based on VR to provide simulation accommodation emergency, and students can have an immersive interaction with the extinguisher and fire to have an evacuation experience.

Description of the interface solution

As mentioned above, there is no formal training or education for new students moving into UTAS accommodation regarding fire emergencies. Compared to other general ways of achieving the same result, such as videos, booklets, or documents, a VR application provides an immersive experience that offers risk-free practice for the students (Talespin 2023). Ideally, the application would simulate 1:1 of the UTAS accommodation environment, including a private room for each student. The training will start from the student’s room to simulate the emergency in the real-world environment that the student will stay in. However, as this is the prototype for this application, a similar apartment asset is used to demonstrate the interactions only. Upon the completion of the application, the UTAS accommodation would provide VR devices for new students in one of the function rooms in the UTAS accommodation, to go through the application when they arrive. This would be a compulsory training activity for every student to ensure they are fully aware of the procedures when a fire emergency happens.   

With the implementation of the VR application, students will have the opportunity to deal with an emergency with their own hands, rather than watching someone doing that or listening to someone describe what needs to be done. In the virtual world, Students can also be protected from their missteps, rather than the potential hazards that can be caused when they are hands-on with the fire distinguishers or similar tools, or the necessary evacuation in person. As in the VR application, all steps will be pre-set so that there will be little possibility that students can cause harm by doing the training under the supervisor of staff in the accommodation. 

Interaction Design

We have designed this game especially for new university students, especially those young people who have just entered student flats and are starting to live on their own. Considering that many of them may be cooking on their own for the first time, or may have little knowledge of how to deal with fire, we wanted to provide practical safety education through this game:  

A group of uni students gathered in the lobby of the dormitory flat. The atmosphere is relaxed andeveryone is chatting. They take turns getting ready to put on the VR equipment for fire prevention training.

Students will be taken into a simulated kitchen environment with a fire extinguisher sitting on the table. The game teaches students how to operate the fire extinguisher correctly: starting with picking it up, showing them all the parts of the extinguisher, and showing them how to correctly remove the safety pin, press the handle, and perform the spraying operation. 

Fire suppression methods vary from situation to situation and include the use of water, CO2 extinguishers, foam, non-combustible dry powder or fire blankets. However, the wrong countermeasure may aggravate the fire, such as the use of water in an oil-based or electrical fire. Therefore, we plan to design a variety of props in the game scenario and cleverly distribute them in the game environment. Players will need to find these props in the game and use them correctly. This design is intended to help players learn how to take the right action in a specific fire situatiion.

In this game, students will experience a simulated grease fire in the kitchen. When flames and smoke suddenly erupt from the cooker, be careful not to extinguish them with water, as water will react violently with the hot oil. Instead of putting out the flames, the wrong way of extinguishing the fire will cause it to intensify.

	Players will experience the fire situation from a first-person perspective. Faced with a blazing fire, the player needs to operate a fire extinguisher to accurately shoot the spray into the flames. As the player's efforts continue, the flames are slowly extinguished andthe smoke begins to clear

A time countdown device has been designed to simulate a fire from its start to its dramatic expansion. As the fire spreads from a small fire to an uncontrollable blaze, players will feel the pressure gradually increase. If the fire is so violent that it becomes uncontrollable, the game stops and restarts, allowing the player to try again and learn the correct way to extinguish the fire.

At this point, if the players judge that they are unable to extinguish the fire on their own, so fleeing the fire is also a wise move. 
 
When the kitchen is calm again, the game will provide the player with important safety tips and disaster prevention information to enhance the actual awareness of disaster prevention. 

Initial technical Development

We plan to engage users with our application set within an apartment environment, rendered using the Apartment Kit 3D asset. This apartment spans several floors, each containing unique quests that players are guided through. These quests are generated by a Custom Quest asset, which also creates a quest list panel visible at the corner of the player's field of view. Players can reference this panel to check on their active quest and see what quests remain. Additionally, the Custom Quest asset generates dialogues at suitable times, providing a detailed description of the current quest and instructions on how to complete it. 

One challenge we need to address is the compatibility issue; the Custom Quest asset is designed for desktop Unity3D applications, while we are developing a VR application for Oculus Quest. 

Our game features three distinct quests: one involves using a fire extinguisher to put out a grease fire, another requires using water to extinguish a standard fire, and the final quest prompts players to evacuate the apartment when a fire spirals out of control. Based on these quest themes, we have sourced several 3D assets from the Unity3D Asset Store, including a fire extinguisher 3D asset, a fire simulation 3D asset, and a fire propagation simulation 3D asset. We are still searching for a suitable water rendering asset. If unable to find one, we might adjust the fire simulation asset's color and transparency to simulate a basin of water. 

We have initiated the technical development phase and have completed the following interactions so far: 

• Navigating around the apartment using the Oculus Quest controller. 
• Gripping and lifting a fire extinguisher from the ground to hand. 
• Interacting with a painting on fire hung on one side of an apartment wall. 
• Keeping hold of the fire extinguisher while pressing a button on the Oculus Quest controller to extinguish the fire on the painting. 

Moving forward, we will finalize the interactions mentioned above, then diligently refine each interaction to achieve a realistic user experience. 

Initial 3D Models

Apartment Kit

	We use this model to render the main apartment environment for our application, where players will complete all the quests.

Fire Extinguisher

	We utilize this model to render a fire extinguisher, which players can grip. Only after holding the fire extinguisher can players press a button on the Oculus Quest controller to extinguish a grease fire.

Free Fire VFX - HDRP

	We employ this model to render both grease fires and normal fires.

Fire Propagation

	We use this model to depict a fire spiraling out of control.

Custom Quest

	We apply this model to display a quest list panel, indicating to users which quest they are currently engaged in and which quests remain to be completed. Additionally, this model is used to present a quest dialog to players at suitable times, providing details about the ongoing quest to better inform them on how to complete the current quest.

Conclusion

We delve into the motivation and purpose of this VR game. The game aims to teach college students how to keep themselves safe in a fire. It realistically recreates the scene of a fire and allows students to learn how to use a fire extinguisher and effectively escape from a fire in a risk-free environment. 

We believe that this game will be very beneficial to new students entering university who may not yet know how to deal with such emergencies. Through this simulation experience, students will be able to deal with real fire situations with more confidence. We hope that this virtual reality learning method will receive more attention and application in the future. 

References

Bing. (2023). Bing. [online] Available at: https://www.bing.com/images/create

Dong-Hee, S. (2017). The role of affordance in the experience of virtual reality learning: Technological and affective affordances in virtual reality. Available at: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0736585317301223

The importance of Virtual Reality Technology (2023). Immersive Technology. Available at: https://www.talespin.com/reading/the-importance-of-virtual-reality-technology#:~:text=Virtual%20reality%20offers%20immersive%20experiences,%2C%20fostering%20effective%2C%20experiential%20education. (Accessed: 06 October 2023).

Wikipedia. Virtual reality. Available at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virtual_reality

3D Model

Apartment Kit, https://assetstore.unity.com/packages/3d/environments/apartment-kit-124055 

Custom Quest, https://assetstore.unity.com/packages/tools/custom-quest-quest-system-92594 

Fire, https://assetstore.unity.com/packages/vfx/free-fire-vfx-hdrp-239742  

Fire Extinguisher, https://assetstore.unity.com/packages/3d/props/fire-extinguisher-21147 

Fire Propagation, unity https://assetstore.unity.com/packages/tools/fire-propagation-92187 

ChatGPT

We use chatgpt generate interaction c# scripts: https://chat.openai.com/share/bbddaa54-23d7-49a0-a2c2-cefcae21c179