October 29, Tuesday, 10:15 - 15:30 (4 hours) with lunch break halfway through class

Instructor: Richard Murray, York University

Level: Introductory

Prerequisites: Basic knowledge of some programming language.

Benefits This course enables the attendee to:

 • Create vivid, complex, interactive environments in Unity using the High-Definition Render Pipeline.

 • Write C# code to add custom features and types of interaction with the environment.

 • Design psychophysical experiments that record a subject's behavior and responses in complex environments.

 • Characterize flat-panel or VR displays show well-controlled luminances and colors in Unity.

Course Description

Unity and VR are unique and powerful tools for perceptual and behavioral experiments. However, they were not primarily developed for research, and they present some challenges, including a complex environment with many configuration options, a mix of GUI operations and coding, a possibly unfamiliar programming language (C#), and novel methods for precise control of luminance and color. This hands-on course teaches participants solutions to these and other research-related problems. It assumes only basic familiarity with coding in some language, and brings participants to the point where they can create useful experiments for their own research. Participants are encouraged to bring a laptop computer and follow along in developing experiments in Unity.

Intended Audience: perceptual and behavioral researchers: graduate students, postdocs, faculty members, industry professionals.

Richard Murray is a professor in the Department of Psychology and Centre for Vision Research at York University. His research develops computational models of human visual perception, recently with a focus on surface color in real and virtual environments. He has many years' experience teaching coding, experimental methods, and computational modeling at the undergraduate and graduate levels.