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Virtual Cinema

Team

Peter McLaughlin petermirrorimageuk@gmail.com

Description

In this project we will investigate and innovate Virtual Experiences and Virtual reality. The next months we will work together with HVA researcher Mirjam Vosmeer, Avrotros and WemakeVR to create a deepening Virtual Reality Experience for the brand new tv-series Project Orpheus.
By irene October 2nd, 2015

Sleepy Hollow: A success VR story

A visually stunning film without a good scenario can be a flop or even a blockbuster success. However, things are quite different in virtual reality. The narrative should be the main focus of any Virtual Reality project because that is the only way that this new kind of virtual entertainment can survive and flourish. As James Milward, founder and executive producer of Secret Location and Emmy winner for the Sleepy Hollow VR experience, stated in an interview for BBC: “Bad content will ‘destroy’ the virtual reality industry”. This is a blunt but honest statement since VR will never evolve if it does not cease to advertise itself as a sidekick attention-grabber to films, series and games. To centralize itself in the entertainment sector, the production companies should invest in the narrative and should investigate the ways that the users’ are stimulated by the input that they are offered.

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The graveyard built around the story

For the sake of mapping out the right processes to reach the ultimate immersion in VR, let’s take the most successful example and use it as a case study. Sleepy Hollow VR is not the average VR video since its narrative storyworld is already built thanks to the series (2013-present) broadcasted by Fox. Therefore, the VR experience aims to excite the existing viewers but simultaneously intrigue prospective fans.  In order to understand the successful recipe of Sleepy Hollow, we have to observe how our brain receives the stimuli and how the human psych is influenced. First of all, by wearing the headset, the user enters a different world and thus his/her brain and particularly his/her Neocortex activates the Hippocampus which is responsible for spatial mapping and memory creation. In other words, the brain tries to familiarize itself with the uncharted territory by creating a visual mindset.

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Ichabod Crane guiding the user

 

Next, Ichabod Crane, the protagonist of the actual series, appears and begins structuring the narrative. By warning the user of the existence of the Headless Horseman, the character recognizes the user and incorporates him in the story. Therefore, the user forms his/her own social and self presence in the virtual world by recognizing himself/herself and the character he/she encounters in VR. After the mapping and presence formation, the deep immersion begins where the user interacts with the surroundings as of the context is real and thus feelings are triggered such as fear and anxiety. A huge role in the stimulation of these feelings has the sound localization such as the subtle vintage music, the horse galloping, the heavy footsteps and the bats sudden screeching.

 

2All the above well-structured elements achieve the highest level of immersion when the Headless Horseman appears and beheads the user. The story may not be real but the astonishment cause by his action proves that if our brain is convinced of the reality of a situation, then our reactions are stronger and with various implications on behaviour, memory and the experience on the whole. Therefore, if the memories stored in the Neocortex (after being formed in the Hippocampus) are realistic enough, then the brain can confuse the real and the virtual. In the long run, this can only mean that the users may treat virtual reality as another part of their lives and not as something artificial. However, this is kind of far-fetched but in the present, but a positive virtual reality experience for the users, can create a new norm that will seek for virtual thrills. And as always if there is demand, more supply will come as well.

 

By irene September 28th, 2015

Is it really a battle?

A lot of fuss has been created around the arrival of Google Cardboards in 2014, which could potentially be used by Android and Apple users. This innovation is nothing more than the first step on a ladder that is as infinite as the future possibilities of virtual reality technologies. However, the importance of this marketing move should be highlighted since it helps the audience familiarize with the imminent virtual wave. The Cardboard should not be viewed as an enemy to head mounted devices like Oculus Rift DK2.  The reason is a simple truth that bloggers and journalists express as James Martin did in his review on CNET: “It’s the ambassador that’ll make us care about virtual reality in the first place”.

Virtual Reality is a New World same as America was during the 15th century to the Europeans. Therefore, VR cannot just magically centralize itself in the technological proscenium. On the contrary, a gradual familiarization of the people with the available platforms should be achieved. Google grabbed the opportunity and created a platform, which can introduce the tech lovers to the new medium without pushing them out of their comfort zone. Thus, every smartphone owner can be transferred into the virtual world even though the immersion will not be of high quality or the experience profoundly engaging. The point is that it doesn’t have to. Their level of immersion should be an incentive for them to reach out to  similar experiences or even the necessity to feel something superior.

cardboard

Fancifying Google Cardboard

Since Google Cardboard  is considerably cheaper (no more than 20 euros) than its platform siblings (an Oculus Rift DK2 will reach 350 euros), it offers a non-expensive way to experiment with VR even if the smartphone-based virtual capacities will not satisfy the hardcore users. The other option would be to make it on your own, a choice that Google offer since their a guide for the ones that want to get their hand dirty in virtual reality. The VR source for any smartphone is the app center, which keeps on expanding day by day. Some applications offer a quite satisfactory experience while others fall prey to high latency or lack of an immersive framework. The app center provides the users with possibilities of watching VR videos of driving and having fun (Volvo Reality and Roller Coaster VR) experiencing films as if you are in a movie theatre as well as transferring to dark war times poetically enveloped (War of Words VR). Other apps promise more than they can deliver like Glitcher VR, which is promoted as a combination of VR and AR since it adds layers on the already existing reality, but it drowns in kinetosis (motion nausea) caused by high latency and low resolution.

Another positive aspect of Google Cardboard is its portability and its wireless status that can turn it the new social obsession at least for watching videos. The platform is not intended for games in the present state but it is only logical since it is the first specimen of its kind.  The cardboard’s wireless status is beneficiary to the users since there is no need for a space-oriented experience. This freedom aims to emancipate virtual reality from its computer/platform dependence and take it out on the streets. After all, mainstreaming is not a road paved with high technology and excellence but one built on users’ feedback and constant development through renovation of ideas and technological platforms.

On the whole, Google Cardboard is not the most hi-tech platform ever created but it is the blueprint for all the ones to come. Experimentation is the key element in the contemporary blooming virtual world.

 

 

 

 

By irene September 28th, 2015

The Haptic Truth

Our interactive cinema project flourishes in the middle of a series of virtual reality industry advances, which creates endless possibilities. These possibilities should be explored by the VR experts in order for the audience to be adequately immersed but also to open new doors for better constructed narrative worlds to be built upon them. The gimmick impression that Virtual Reality has created in the audience’s eyes is justified up to a certain degree. The visual experience was technically inefficient, thing that could (and still can) cause fatigue and nausea, but also pretty basic in terms of the incorporated story and its interactivity evoking the audience’s boredom and disinterest.

haptic 1

Woman using haptic stimuli in VR

The conducted research during the past week, showed that the demand for a more complex but simultaneously more interactive virtual world for the viewers is the key element that will alter the status of virtual reality. The interactive nature of VR should be enhanced and thus not only supported by auditory and visual devices but also haptic ones. Immersion can be achieved through providing the gamer/viewer with a realistic environment in which he/she can orientate himself/herself and rely on sight, hearing but touch as well. The element of tactile feedback should be centralized since the other senses have been “persuaded” adequately with the latest progress in head mounted devices. Therefore, touch and temperature should be considered as points of departure for formation of new experiences. The equivalence of viewing yourself in the virtual world is the first step towards reaching a far more immersive reality where the user can interact with the environment. The user needs to feel immersed and forget the distinction between the and the virtual. As it happened to the experiment “Enhancing Virtual Immersion through Tactile Feedback” conducted in Honolulu in 2014, the tactile feedback was based on the user’s ability to feel the object in terms of temperature. The color implementation helped specify the user’s correspondence of temperature and color. Blue signified cold and red signified warm, as expected. However, even this basic relation between temperature and color in VR gives out a sense of reality since the feeling in both contexts comes closer to the real one.

haptic 2

Dexmo Beta: an exoskeleton tactile device

This observation was picked up by VR companies which prototyped devices that simulate the sense of touch in VR. H wever, these devices are there to offer the audience with a fully functioning avatar but the user is half-immersed since he/she won’t be touching any of the virtual objects that he/she will be encountering. Therefore, the Holy Trinity of the tactile aspect of VR can be texture , temperature and weight. If at least two out of three can be incorporated in VR then the user’s brain will convince of the “authenticity” of the experience. The transition from the passive touch (when the environment interacts with the user but not vice versa) to the illusionary sense of freedom of touching can be technically difficult to perfectionate but small steps should be achieved towards that direction.

Last but not least, the haptic technology which is on the rise right now with a variety of sensory devices such as vests, gloves(i.e see Dexmo) and foot and wearable controllers will be on the market soon. Therefore, the tactile element should be the catalyst in a complex and interesting narrative virtual world not the other way around.

 

Works Cited:

Ziat, Mounia, Taylor Rolison Rolison, Andrew Shirtz, Daniel Wilbern, and Carrie Anne Balcer. “Enhancing Virtual Immersion through Tactile Feedback.” Http://dl.acm.org/. N.p., Oct. 2014. Web. Sept. 2015.