Benjamin Thomas

šŸ’» Full-Stack Engineer
šŸ„½ VR Enthusiast & Developer
šŸ¤Ÿ Learning American Sign Language

Who am I

I’m Ben, a game & software developer and VR enthusiast with experience both in a professional capacity, and as a hobbyist. I have a strong interest in developing for new platforms and technologies, and have a particular focus on VR development. On this site you’ll find some of my past work, information on my current projects, as well as anything else I find interesting and worth sharing!

My Projects

  • Discord Chat Bot written in C# and a custom REST API running inside AWS Lambda to query for the American Sign Language and VR Sign Language interpretation of English words, convert them to GIF format and then embed them into chat.
  • Full Facial Tracking & Eye Tracking for one of the biggest social VR games made in Unity and written in C# to support Vive and 7invensun tracking hardware. This allows for a much more intimate connection with people in VR due to the now-visible facial cues. This app has over 800 users and has received overwhelmingly positive feedback.
  • Java Discord Bot to enable verification of product license keys generated by the online retailer ā€œGumRoadā€ and assign admin-defined roles to verified users upon successful verification. Depends on Java Discord Framework and AWS DynamoDB SDK.
  • Accessibility Modification for VRChat to enable deaf and hard-of-hearing users to use real-life American Sign Language gestures and sign to others faster and accurately.
  • Closed Captions Modification for VRChat to automatically find and download subtitles for movies in game, then show them on the user’s display in real time.
  • Minecraft Server Plugin written in Java to make all friendly creatures explode when approached.
  • VRChat modification to bring Closed-Captions to in-game movie worlds to allow deaf/hard-of-hearing users to enjoy watching movies. Mod consisted of a C# client app and Node JS server app for search heuristics running in AWS Lambda via an API Gateway request. Depends on Wolfram-Alpha and OpenSubtitles.org
  • Open Broadcaster Software plugin to send the current state of the program over the Open Sound Control protocol
  • Reverse Engineered VIVEā€™s proprietary eye and facial tracking software in order to open source part of it and use the hardware without VIVEā€™s software sitting in the middle.