Today we’d like to introduce you to Ho Jae Lee.
Ho Jae, let’s start with your story. We’d love to hear how you got started and how the journey has been so far.
I was a student at Art Center College of Design with a focus in Motion Design. During my senior year, I decided that I wanted to do something other than motion design. I had always been curious about virtual reality and augmented reality, so I took a virtual reality class during my senior year. Virtual reality was a whole different world and experience than what I had studied before. It was so much more immersive of an experience than a creation on a screen.
The first project I worked on was building a low-poly cactus museum. It taught my team and I to deal with the struggle of creating realistic scaling and the hierarchy of gameplay and interaction. However it was my first virtual reality project, and it was magical to see and walk around the experience I created in VR. I was hungry to create another VR project, but this time I really wanted to think about the user’s experience and VR’s uses in problem-solving for people. My next VR project was created to help people with aviophobia (fear of flying). We created a virtual space to jump into and experience an environment to distract from the idea of being on an airplane. I spent a lot of time on interactions that guide people through gameplay. Our goal was to distract users while the airplane departed and landed.
To achieve this project, our team and I went out for test driving. We thought that wearing a smartphone VR headset watching 360 videos would simulate a situation similar to the one we wanted to create. I drove around Pasadena with my teammates wearing a VR headset. My teammates did not feel anxious and instead had their attention taken away from my driving. Our next step was execution. We did 3D modeling, animating, and coding. Our teachers gave us a lot of advice and support which really helped us understand the medium. I had a great time taking a new class and it really showed me a new experience. With all of this under my belt, I decided that this was the path for me. During my final semester at Art Center, I spent my time learning augmented reality. I was ambitious during my last year of college and wanted to learn both VR and AR. Thankfully, I had a lot of support from my loved ones and teachers so was able to create a whole new path for myself with VR and AR. After my graduation, I ended up at yU+co as an AR developer/designer.
Overall, has it been relatively smooth? If not, what were some of the struggles along the way?
One of my biggest obstacles was trying to quickly learn new curriculum. Virtual reality and augmented reality were totally different than the traditional 2D platform of design. It made me think about my approach to design differently–things like the hierarchy of experience were very different and important. I had a lot of struggles with learning new, developing programs such as Unity and Unreal Engine. As a designer, I had to struggle with adopting this new approach to experience design and how I could guide users to seamlessly use applications. Without extra step-by-step guidance of how to use the applications, figuring out simple and elegant ways to guide users to the end of their experience was my most struggle.
In my opinion, virtual and augmented reality are like combinations of games, and user experience design–depending on the project, story, theme, and device (phone, VR, AR headset), user experience/design will be different.
Alright – so let’s talk business. Tell us about yU+co – what should we know?
I am an AR designer/developer at yU+co, designing UI/UX and 3D asset, content generation for augmented reality applications, and designing mockups of the steps of each application’s unique experience. I get to be exposed in a variety of projects related to AR experiences and expand my horizons.
Any shoutouts? Who else deserves credit in this story – who has played a meaningful role?
Ivan Cruz and Edmund Liang were my instructors from Art Center who introduced me to virtual and augmented reality. They helped me broaden my vision in VR and AR, and gave me the support I needed to create projects and grow.
Julius Lee and Rick Gillis are my coworkers at yU+Co. Julius is a 3D Animator/Generalist and Rick is a lead programmer. I work with them at yU+Co. They are the root of our team and support me both inside and outside of the office.
But most of all, my wife Tiffany Tran has been an amazing cheerleader and supporter since we met at Art Center when I decided to pursue VR and AR. She always makes me smile, assists me, gives me advice, and takes care of me. Without her love and support, I wouldn’t be where I am at now. So to my wife, thank you Tiffany and I love you!
Contact Info:
- Email: [email protected]
- Other: linkedin.com/in/jaeleedesignvr
Image Credit:
Personal photo- credit by Tiffany Tran
Photo 1-4: Cacty- Heejeong Seong, Yidan Sui, Ivan Cruz, Edmund Liang
Photo 5: Lexus VR Project- Interior design by Sae-Yeol Garfield Choi
Photo 6: V-Cation- Heejeong Seong, Yidan Sui, Ivan Cruz, Edmund Liang
Photo 7-8 Kerplunk (Motion Graphic)- Jason Bae, Suzy Ahn, Moses Park, Christy Lee and Tae Joon Kim
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