Seinfeld fans who can't get enough of Jerry, Elaine, George, and Kramer can now take a virtual tour of Jerry's famous New York City apartment using the Oculus Rift.
The project is the brainchild of developer Gregory W. Miller, who was looking for a fun and relatively easy way to learn the Unity game development ecosystem. It's not affiliated with the show ("I thank the [studios] in advance for understanding this is a fan project, for the fans!" Miller said) or Oculus VR, but a side project Miller imagined after purchasing the Oculus Rift.
"I decided to pick a project that would gradually introduce me to Unity without being overly complex," he wrote. "I was not new to 3D modeling, however this would be my first project in Unity."
"I thought it would be a novel virtual reality experience to take a place that only exists in Hollywood magic, and make it for the Oculus Rift as if it were real. Virtual Reality Virtual Reality," Miller wrote on jerrysplacevr.com.
Check out the video below for a walkthrough of the apartment via Oculus Rift. The apartment is rendered in a cartoon-like animation, but stays true to the show, which went off the air in 1998.
According to Miller, the project took about a month using Unity and Blender. He screen capped streaming episodes to get detailed images of items on the set, but acknowledged that it was a difficult endeavor.
"I found lots of good footage of the bathroom in the episode 'The Barber,' during the part that Newman enters Jerry's bathroom to find a hair sample," Miller wrote. "I feel like the main room and the bathroom are very well created, however I could only find one screen shot of Jerry's bedroom, at the end of 'The Chicken Roaster.' I used a blurry screen grab to texture the painting above his bed, and was able to recreate the bed, sheets and nightstands accurately."
"Unfortunately, due to the dimensions of the apartment it seems like it would be impossible to actually fit the bedroom the way the show depicts it. It came out cramped, but I'm happy with it," according to Miller.
Miller encouraged fans to email him if they have more accurate depictions of the apartment, though the six-month Unity Pro demo that came with the Oculus will expire soon, "and I won't be able to continue this project afterward."
"One of the most important ways you can help is to download and re-host the project! In case my server get's hammered, it would be nice to have volunteer mirrors so when people Google they can find it!" he wrote.
The Oculus Rift development kit, a Kickstarter success story, started shipping last year. It is not intended as a final product, but is meant for developers who want to make their software Oculus Rift-compatible for when Oculus VR finally announces a consumer version. For more, check out PCMag's first look (slideshow above), as well as our Eyes On the 1080p Oculus Rift 'Crystal Cove' Prototype from CES.