Category: VR / AR Fundamentals

BBC Home Spacewalk 

Type: modeling (maybe some photography); Visual: 180, 3DOF; Sound: spatial effect not obvious;

Interaction: through gamepads;

Movement: move by grabbing “handles” in the game and pulling the virtual body forward. The player movement seems to follow a pre-determined trajectory most of the time.

Actions: Grab “handles”, occasionally take other “tools”.

Plot: A new astronaut joining ISS who went on a training session and inspect a damaged part of the space station. 

What I liked: 

1. Moving my virtual body by pulling the handle feels real. The relative movement of the virtual environment gives me a feeling that I moved up a bit in the real world.

2. The learning curve for interaction (at least in easy mode) is very friendly, I quickly learned how to grab things and navigate.

3. The plot is well-designed so that player can see what the ISS looks like, view Earth from space, witness a sunset, and experience an accident, all within a few minutes.

What I disliked:

1. The view is limited to about 180 degrees and no 6DOF. It is understandable that an astronaut’s view is limited but it could be better if the player has the agency to decide which direction to look. 

2. Since the setting is in the space, we can’t experience strong spatial sound effect, which could make VR more real.

3. During the scene where the astronaut spins away from ISS, I got really dizzy and wanted to take off the headset to rest. Without any feeling of movements from the body, this kind of visual makes me uncomfortable. 

Meet the miner WDR

Type: modeling; Visual: 360, 6DOF; Sound: strong spatial effect.

Interaction: through real body movements(walking and bending), gamepads.

Movement: can walk around and tilt head to see more. 

Actions: includes pick up, smash, shovel. Gamepads have vibrating feedback when the tool held by the player hits a hard surface.

What I liked:

1. Player can move around, bend body or tilt head to see more details of the environment and NPCs. Sound is spatial and light condition is rendered real-time according to the position of the lantern that the player holds.

2. Items that can be picked up or acted upon are highlighted, forming clear instructions about what to do next.

3. The vibration feedback is well synchronized with hand movement. When I used the pick to hit the rock, the vibration, sound, and visuals are all happening together.

What I disliked:

1. Player doesn’t have much agency in the game and follows instruction most of the time. 

2. The space that a player can move around is relatively small. Player is tele-transported to the next position in a black-out transition. 

Virtual Tour of Dunhuang Cave

Type: photography (static picture); Visual: 360, 6DOF; Sound: no spatial sound effect, plain background music.

Interaction: through real body movements(walking and bending), gamepads.

Movement: use gamepad to point at the place to tele-transport to.

Actions: focus for five seconds to watch visual-audio explanation of part of the frescos, use the gamepad as a flashlight to lighten up part of the wall, point the gamepad and click to tele-transport.

What I liked:

1. The scene of Dunhuang Cave, though static, is 360 and 6DOF. As we discussed in last class, a 6DOF picture is really hard to capture. Yet, one can look from any angle in this VR tour.

2. The VR flashlight achieves something not feasible in real-life frescos visit – light will damage the delicate artwork. This VR tour is beyond the limits of a real tour.

3. The tele-transport function allows users to see the room from more angles (even from the ceiling) and observe the patterns on the wall close-up (closer than 10 centimeters).

What I disliked:

1. There is no sound effect that is spatial and simulates the experience in a cave. The plain background music is okay but not as immersive.

2. The room in the cave is well-lit, which is not realistic since the light should only come from the entrance in reality. This makes the room more like a model than a real picture.

I also viewed many other titles including Accounting (which I think is immersive and have the cool concept of VR in VR), Medical deck (model of human body and organs with both hands as tool to shape and edit like in tilt brush), and Primitive (which visualizes a complex program), and more. But the three ones above gave me most thoughts regarding its VR techniques.

*Originally Posted on https://wp.nyu.edu/bentablada/ * 

• I’m a full supporter of free high quality education for those who either can’t afford it or are unable to access it. I hope that VR/AR will make accessibility easier for those in need, but I don’t fully believe that it is a complete solution or better than in person interactions with a teacher/professor.

•     I don’t agree with this statement because even if a person can “recreate” their appearance or take on a different persona, there is still a person behind the avatar that is pretending/masquerading as someone they are not. The problem of race/gender inequality is not solved, and this statement simply masks it without addressing the root of the problem. 

Catalog (VR TITLES) 

1. Quill – Oculus 
2. Hallelujah – Google Daydream 
3. Star Chart – Oculus 
4. Notes on Blindness – Samsung Gear VR 

Article Review: 

• The article notes on the ‘mirrorworld’ – an interesting concept that articulates how AR/VR can be implemented/drastically change our lives. As a person that has never used AR/VR devices prior to calss 2, the experience gave me a better understanding of the concepts that article presented. It would be interesting to see how companies will monetize this new “mirrorworld” as technological advances continue to make a headway in implementing AR/VR into our daily routines. 

1. Lucid Space Dreams

“Lucid Space Dreams,” one of the world’s first HD virtual reality music visualizers, brings the audience to an imaginary dreamscape filled with a myriad of celestial bodies, underwater creatures, and surreal scenery. In this two-minute long video, a user can experience taking a stroll along the dreamlike pathway. After I tried it on Oculus Quest, the first thing I noticed was that this VR video doesn’t have any user interaction other than turning one’s head. Since its title is not just a generic dream but a lucid dream, it’d be much more interesting if it gives users more interactive options. Another notable feature is that, most of the objects visualized here seem pretty a long way away—and by doing so it minimizes potential parallax. After the pathway ends, I’m cast in the middle of the space as if I’m floating through the outer space; mystic background music also intensifies as the video progresses. It was my favorite part of the project because it gave me the immersive experience that I could hardly ever imagine realistically. Overall, the way how they weaved together a various visual and audio elements was fascinating.

2. In the Eyes of the Animals

“In the Eyes of the Animals,” a sensory visualization of how other species view Grizedale Forest in the North of England, is a new and striking project in terms of not only its graphics but its concept. We can’t see the way how frogs, owls, and mosquitoes see the world; it’s impossible to imagine it even. Virtual Reality, however, allows us to explore what’s beyond our realm of human vision. As most of the stereoscopic issues happen because we are trying to model human vision, it might be an interesting approach to deviate from the traditional ways and get inspiration from non-human vision components. The fact that users cannot see what Grizedale Forest actually looks like was a downer for me. It’d be more interesting if a user can switch between different perspectives, like changing camera filters. The piece is set to a binaural soundscape, the developers said, but I couldn’t tell a stark difference between this audio and other stereo soundscapes (probably I should’ve turned the volume up.)

3. The Big Picture: News in Virtual Reality

A flat TV or a computer/mobile screen has been the only way I could catch up the news. And here comes the project “The Big Picture: News in Virtual Reality,” which presents a vision of how the news of future will be like. This project brings the viewers to an actual scene so that they can see what the news is all about—in this video, the news is about Puerto Rico and Los Angeles. It has a lot of potentials to reshape the current journalistic media, as immersive experience it gives is far greater than being an idle spectator of matters. As this project is a prototype, there’s still room for improvement; sometimes the commentator’s words have passed me by, as I was a way too focused on glancing around what’s happening. If there is a better way of improving this sort of information overload, I’m definitely interested in subscribing this channel.

1) BBC Home – A VR SpaceWalk: I like this one the most. The views and models are quite real in 3D, even making audience feel a little bit dizzy after long-time focusing. Also the sense of reality helps you observe more about its 180 space, which successfully builds the environment more real. Though with the processed human voice from the phone, it doesn’t provide enough immersive background sounds, at least for me. The interactions using the gamepads are also not so sensitive and you need to try several times to get used to controlling your hands with them. However, in general, this project does work successfully to fool people’s eyes to experience what is like to be an astronaut.

2). Ghost in the Shell: This title was a movie I have watched before and I was interested in how the VR will handle it to make audience feel real. I’m satisfied with the both music and cyberpunk atmosphere with slow-motion. The 3D is quite good too, enough to provide the reality feeling. But it is far too short and just like a teaser for a 3D movie rather than an experience as stated, in which I was expecting more interactions. Either way, the effects and actions are successful.

3). Jurassic World – Apatosaurus: This one was not the third one I chose before because that one was on a different equipment. Then it is not in 3D but just like a 360 degree 2-minute movie. And the quality of the views are not so well either, compared to the other two titles I tried at least. This one doesn’t give audience a feel that they are in a virtual reality but only watching a 360-degree 3D movie instead, in a heavy helmet.

The 3 VR titles that I have experienced are Imagine Dragons – Whatever it takes (a VR music video), street performers in Washington square park, and BBC HOME – a VR spacewalk.

VR Music Video:

The VR music video for the Imagine Dragon song was very interesting. The graphics were computer generated, and is the kind of visuals that I wanted to experience in virtual reality. Computer generated graphics are cool in VR because even though they are unlike the world we see in real life, but by adjusting the images on both sides to match the disparity of our eyes as if we are viewing real objects, computer graphics can look real in the sense that it can fool the eyes to also feel a sense of depth even though it is really only 2 dimensional. This is a really cool feeling as if the user is in a cartoon world.

Street performers in Washington Square park:

Just like the Imagine Dragons video this is also a music based VR video experience, but unlike the previous VR title this one is not computer generated, it is filmed with a 360 camera. I really liked the idea of these kinds of videos because they take you to somewhere else using the VR technology, and have you experience something as if you are really there. However, I did not really enjoy this video because it was poorly filmed. It seems like this was a amateur video, the camera and musicians are positioned in a way that is uncomfortable for the audience. The video and audio quality is also bad, but that might be because the video was streamed rather than downloaded.

BBC – Home , VR Spacewalk:

This was the best VR experience I had out of the 3. It was very well made, the graphics looked pretty real for something that is modeled in the computer. But the best part about this experience is that the theme of the project actually made perfect sense to live in the VR medium, because VR is the only way for the viewer to feel like a real astronaut. If this was just a ordinary game/video, there would have been no way for the audience to be engaged and have a immersive space experience. Near the end of the game, a small explosion happens and the audience is out in space spinning. The visuals alone was able to get the player to be disoriented and feel nausea.

Reflections:

I think all the VR titles that I have experienced are interesting in their own ways, the power of VR to give the user a experience that can not be achieved through any other forms of media is very impressive. I also realized how much work goes into the filming of VR videos, that they can be really hard to get right without the proper understandings of how the fundamentals work.