START UNITY!!!

 

After struggling through A-Frame’s limitations and battling Unreal Engine 5’s overwhelming weight, I arrived at an unexpected but inevitable realization: I had to change direction.

At the beginning, I was deeply attached to the idea of a 360-degree video experience. It felt like the perfect solution—visually immersive, cinematic, and “VR-like” without the need for real-time processing. I imagined a website where users could seamlessly explore multiple panoramic scenes, as if walking through a virtual museum. But after weeks of technical issues, performance problems, and disappointing results, the fantasy began to fall apart.

The Turning Point

Using Unreal Engine 5 gave me a clear picture of what’s possible—but also what’s not practical. My laptop couldn’t handle it. My browser couldn’t load the videos properly. Even when everything did work, it still didn’t feel right.

There was no interaction. No presence.
Just a passive viewer rotating a flat video.

And then it hit me: why am I holding on so tightly to the idea of 360, when what I truly want is an experience that feels alive?

Reframing the Goal

This is when I turned to Unity. Compared to UE5, Unity is more lightweight, more flexible, and better suited for web export and mid-level interactivity. I had already used it before for smaller prototypes, but now I began to see it as something more: a realistic, sustainable way to bring my vision to life.

Most importantly, Unity doesn’t force me to “fake” immersion with pre-rendered video. I can use real-time rendering, and thanks to the built-in Starter Assets (First Person Controller), I can create a walkable scene with basic player movement in minutes.

Suddenly, the experience became interactive:

• Users can walk, turn, and explore.

• They can approach objects, trigger transitions, or teleport between rooms.

• I can build branching paths and logic instead of being stuck with linear video playback.

It’s not the smooth, cinematic 360 dream I once had—but it’s playable, adaptable, and far more engaging.

Letting Go to Move Forward

This was a difficult shift for me. Letting go of something you once believed was “the best version” of your idea can feel like failure. But I’ve come to understand that creative projects often require compromise—not of vision, but of method.

Unity offers me what the others couldn’t: the ability to iterate, test, and interact.
That means my ideas won’t stay trapped in static video files or broken web code. They can grow.

And maybe that’s more important than having a perfect panoramic view.