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‘House party! House party!’ Arkwood screamed, clutching his testicles. Through his corduroys, I hasten to add.

‘Okay, okay,’ I replied, ‘Let me put some doors on the house first.’

I opened my Microsoft Visual Studio C++ application (with OpenGL graphics library and the Oculus SDK for Windows) and added some doors to the house.

Why add doors? Well, when Arkwood puts on the Oculus Rift virtual reality headset and wanders about the abode, I can use the doors to switch on and off lighting and audio. And the doors keep the rain out too, of course. Damp carpets are a drag.

Here’s a video of my buddy strolling around the house:

On the ground floor, Arkwood has a spotlight on his head. He clenches his Oculus Touch Controller avatar hands. There is a box emitting green letters over by the corner. And a sumo wrestler on TV.

He walks through the door, outside to the balcony. The door permits us to change the lighting – from a spotlight to the directional light of the sun.

A skybox grants a huge mountain range. And the windows on the balcony are transparent. He stands amongst the grass and it pleads to be harvested. But instead Arkwood climbs the stairs to the first floor.

The door into the first floor puts the spotlight back on my chum’s head. And the box in the middle of the room is weirdly reflecting the skybox outside.

Arkwood leaves the first floor by a different door, which provides an elevator to the second floor. The elevator is outside – so the directional light is switched back on, in place of the spotlight.

Now he steps through the second floor door, which triggers some 3D audio and a point light near the ceiling.

Arkwood moves between a blue sound emitter which is playing a song, and a green sound emitter which is playing some air traffic recordings. He can hear the 3D audio stronger in one ear and then the next, and how it fades and mixes as he moves between both sounds.

The point light on the ceiling is shining upon the steel borders of a wooden container upon the floor, as Arkwood moves about it.

But Arkwood leaves the room through the door, and the elevator takes him down towards the first floor. Exiting the door on the second floor not only forced a switch back to directional light, but it has also turned the 3D audio off.

‘You see,’ I smiled at Arkwood, ‘doors let us switch lighting and audio on and off, as we move between our rooms and the great outdoors!’

‘Fuck that,’ he replied, once again cupping his balls, ‘I want a house party! So what do I need to do, to change that shitty song on the second floor to something more rocking?’

I got out the screwdriver. Time to make some further adjustments to my virtual reality house.

Ciao!