Virtual Reality Tour of Queensland’s Critical Mining Industry - Case Study
The Queensland Government Department of Resources supports landholders, businesses and the community to capitalise on Queensland’s land, petroleum and gas resources for sustainable economic prosperity and just outcomes. Their purpose is to help the community and the government make the best use of Queensland’s renewable and non-renewable land, mineral and energy resources.
June 2023 saw the 26th World Mining Congress held in Brisbane, Queensland, providing the opportunity for the Department of Resources to showcase the region’s resources sector to leading international industry representatives. To effectively communicate this in a busy expo environment, the showcase needed to be innovative, attention-grabbing, and memorable - leading to the decision to develop a short interactive virtual reality (VR) experience to educate investors and mining industry representatives about the potential of the critical minerals industry in Queensland.
THE OPPORTUNITY
Ben Breitenstein, Communications Multimedia All-Rounder at the Department of Resources, approached the Queensland XR Hub for support in sourcing a developer to build the interactive elements of the proposed VR experience.
The conceptual proposal was to convey the sheer size, scale, and sparseness of Queensland as a landscape - something not necessarily obvious to those from the US, Europe, or Asia where populations are far more densely packed.
Through our membership network, the XR Hub facilitated a connection with Martin Coffey, Founder and CEO of KnewK Entertainment. Based in Townsville Queensland, KnewK is committed to delivering new experiences, to new audiences, using new technology.
For Martin, the project was of particular interest due to both its alignment with KnewK’s mission and the opportunity to showcase regional Queensland, including his local Townsville area.
“Queensland has a wealth of capability, not only in the resources sector, but in talent and skill as well. Townsville is a major resources port and featured in the content. It was exciting to build a VR experience that featured our area as well as showing that Townville has the capability to develop technology based XR experiences.”
THE SOLUTION
Ben and Martin worked collaboratively to develop the ‘Department of Resources, Tour of Queensland's Critical Mineral's Industry’ VR experience.
The finished product is a vivid, immersive, 3D volumetric tour of Queensland's burgeoning Critical Minerals industry delivered on a Meta Quest 2 headset. The experience consists of both passive, animated storytelling experiences, as well as interactive sections that let users explore the objects around them and 'choose their own adventure'.
The welcome menu of the experience showcases the expansive landscape of Queensland’s outback and features interactive elements for users to familiarise themselves with before selecting one of two experiences - ‘Queensland’s Critical Minerals’ or ‘From Pit, to Product, to Port’.
In the ‘Queensland’s Critical Minerals’ experience, users can interact with different minerals to learn more about them.
The experience was designed to be as engaging as possible to captivate each new user’s attention in the short window of time available. By building the virtual environment from the ground up, they were able to craft a more impactful and creative experience than by simply capturing 360-degree camera footage.
As well as grabbing the attention of passers-by at the event, the VR experience had to be accessible by diverse nationalities, cultures, and abilities, leading to Martin’s decision to have users interact with the experience through hand tracking instead of controllers.
“Hand tracking allowed us to put the user directly in the VR experience and for them to quickly adapt, as nothing is more natural than using your own hands for interaction in VR.”
THE IMPACT
At its World Mining Congress showcase, the experience received fantastic feedback. With many VR experiences on display at the event, Ben notes that the Department of Resources Tour was a standout.
“We had a lot of great reactions from users on the stand. I got to witness firsthand some of the amazing reactions from people. Some people were in disbelief, others immediately get the 'giggles' which is usually a good sign of a delighted customer.”
A user interacts with the VR experience at the World Mining Congress 2023.
VR showed its strength as a powerful storytelling medium in this forum, turning educational and promotional content into an interactive experience that could be understood and appreciated by a diverse audience of users.
“Games and gamification bridge all cultures. As kids we learnt through exploration and play, and this is common across all cultures.”
With the success of this project, Ben’s hope is that this is only the beginning for his team in harnessing the power of VR for storytelling.
“I'm hoping that folks in and out of the department get a taste for it after now seeing first-hand how you can engage with people using VR and immersive, embodied experiences. The way we think about 'story' in VR is so different in this medium, compared to video or print, and I think people within my team are starting to understand the power of it.”
The project experience was also highly praised by the developers themselves, who acknowledge the contribution and collaboration of all involved to deliver the final product, with Martin stating that “the client, contract, resources, and users all came together to deliver the experience. It couldn’t have been done without all these people working towards a common goal, and it was the Queensland XR Hub that enabled the Department of Resources to source the talent and local capability to implement the project.”
Ben also commended Martin’s work and involvement in providing the required technical development capability that enabled the interactive experience to come to life and acknowledged the XR Hub’s role in facilitating this connection.
“It was a dream to work on this project; it's the perfect blend of creativity and story-telling mixed with some interesting user-experience challenges and a bunch of technical problem-solving for good measure.”
To check out the experience, watch the promotional video below: