TiledMedia VR Testbed: 3D Character in Rive (POC)

TiledMedia / VR rig testbed / 2026

A 3D character inside Rive, behind a cinema screen.

A proof of concept for TiledMedia's VR rig testbed: a rigged 3D character running in Rive, with a virtual cinema-screen mask the host can resize and move at runtime.

My role: 3D asset preparation, Rive rigging and runtime controls

Delivered: A rigged robot character in Rive with face triggers, recoloring, a hat and point-light controls, solo and side-by-side stereo preview, a standalone demo, a control diagram and developer documentation

Tools: Rive (WebGL2 runtime, ViewModels, Luau scripting), Blender

The brief

TiledMedia wanted to test whether a Rive character could work in their VR rig before committing to further work. The proof of concept used one licensed 3D character and a rectangular mask standing in for the virtual cinema screen, with runtime controls for its size and position and the character occluded relative to the screen plane.

The build

I prepared the licensed robot model in Blender: reduced it to six joints (body, head, both arms, both ears), confirmed the geometry was unchanged, and exported it as glTF. In Rive I rigged it with basic motion, seven face triggers such as blinks and a smile, independent robot and hat recoloring, a hat that follows the head, and point-light controls. Everything is exposed through a documented control surface.

The delivered experience

The handoff is a signed .riv with a self-contained demo that runs in solo and side-by-side stereo modes, plus a control diagram, developer docs and the editable source. Testing on Quest hardware and integration with a tracked XR host were outside the POC and are still open.