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Blind Student and UE4

Community General Discussion
#1

Hi

I used UE4 this year with my Software Development Level 3 students to teach the games programming part of the course, with really good results.

Next year I may have a blind student on the course and I am trying to work out how I can include him in this unit.

The course specification needs him to code a working game with an example of iteration and selection, which should be possible using Blueprints.

My assumption currently is that his one to one will be able to describe the environment and follow his directions to build a Blueprint, possibly using audio, rather than visual assets.

I would be very interested if you have come across this before and if you have any resources I could use to help the student succeed.

Thanks

Steve.

#2

Hi,

A good exercice would be to create audio “checkpoint” and test them inside an fps template. I did not have any blind student before, but I created two FPS 100% audio and there are much idea to do (sorry in french NGCK : Methode d'apprentissage du C/C++ and http://www.toxic.dk-games.com/ )

#3

Keep in mind that I’m not a teacher, however, from previous experience with people with what we assume are disabilities, talk to the student. Would the student even favor blueprints over writing c++? How does the student visualize / understand the environment?

People learn in many different ways. If you know that the student will be in the class, schedule a meet and greet and try to understand what he wants to take away from the course, and then modify it to suit his/her learning style and abilities.

Screen readers and programs such as Dragon / Voice attack are bloody amazing as far as the speech interaction with computer base environments, so as long as you or a TA helps him/her set it up, they should be good to go.

#4

It would be awesome if UE4 could be used with that: http://www.hyperbraille.de/

Blind people can use it to do all kinds of stuff. Saw a simmilar unit in use once. Pretty impressive…
It sais it even on the page: “…and much more can be made available to visually impaired students in lessons. Blueprints…” :slight_smile:

#5

Hi Kristof,

This is the sort of thing I was thinking of, but you have helped me enormously as I now have a clearer idea of what the end result may look like.

Thanks for the links - it shows that the idea is viable and is also a really interesting idea by itself.

#6

Hi SaviorNT

Before we start the games programming part of the course, I intend to do just what you suggested.

I am sure his view of the world is totally different to mine and I think it woul dbe good it he has the tools to express that in a game.

The student already has a favourite screen reader app. but I am not sure how much it can do with UE4. I know that Visual Studio is accessible, but I don’t think UE4 is. I am hopeful that his TA can help him interact with the environment in a meaningful way, so he can use the tools available.

Thanks again,

Steve.

#7

Hi KVogler

I had not seen the HyperBraille device before - it looks great.

Searching around it appears to have been a research project that never made it to market - I will keep searching though because this would really help any visually impaired person to access any visual data.

Thanks

#8

Yes. Unfortunately the product never reached the general markets.
However, keep on searching. There are some available. Just google for “braille graphic display” :slight_smile:
It seems they are inded manufacturing it. Although probably on a per-order basis…
http://web.metec-ag.de/graphic%20display.html

Another one:
http://www.irie-at.com/content/braille