We attended a VR Meetup, The Future of Virtual Reality- A Panel Discussion lead by Elizabeth Scallon of CoMotion Labs that was at the newly-rebranded MoPop (Museum of Pop Culture, formerly the Experience Music Project & Science Fiction Museum). The possibilities of using VR to generate empathy was discussed and it's fascinating.

https://www.ted.com/talks/chris_milk_how_virtual_reality_can_create_the_ultimate_empathy_machine

We also got the names of some local key-players and companies in the VR Space and hope to set up more informationals to hear what they're up to...

This afternoon we're meeting with Visual Vocal, a VR Collaboration Startup. We're fortunate enough to be meeting with the co-owners: Sean House, CTO, John SanGiovanni, CEO.

We've done our research and developed questions for them:

How many employees do you have? What departments / disciplines / separate functions live within Visual Vocal?

Please share the process for one specific client from start to finish.

Do you make 3D renderings or do your clients provide them?

What software do you use?

How does the cloud communication work? Is it realtime? How is it different from Slack or MS Project?

Is your platform exclusively for viewing information, or can it be used as a design environment?

What is the nature of the collaboration model? Can multiple people, each in their own VR environment, see what the other is doing in real time?

How open-ended versus closed are the experiences? That is, can people freely navigate and interact with elements, or is the intention to present highly constrained, scripted interactions?

How does Augment fit in to what you’re doing?

What percentages do you work in: Architecture Engineering Healthcare Urban Planning Aerospace Biotech Product Design

What’s your favorite area to work in and why? What’s are your biggest challenges?

This cloud-based collaboration sounded similar to a project that my friend at AutoDesk in SF is working on... the video here is dry, but well worth it.

PROJECT QUANTUM

Ironically, he and I had a meeting scheduled that I'd accidentally double-booked with Visual Vocal. We've rescheduled for Wednesday so that he can ask about my use of 3D Modeling software for cinema and architecture (go figure) and wanted to interview me about collaborative functionality.

More soon!

I'll leave you with Christopher Walken and Natalie Wood's finest cinematic moment (AND THE FUTURE OF VR...)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NNiZP2G-nEM

Virtual Reality / Week Seven :: Updates!

The campground scene was a success! After getting it running on the Vive, the next step was to make it interactive. After doing a little research on colliders and triggers in Unity, we got the marshmallow to light! https://vimeo.com/203404580

Next step might be to experiment with some elements in the background like waves moving or a boat animated against the horizon, but I think we’ll move on for now since we have so much we’d like to accomplish.

We’ve discovered something interesting that should really help with prototyping VR experience! ProntoVR is a browser based wireframing and prototyping tool for VR coming out very soon. We’ve signed up for early access and are awaiting launch.

After seeing what was possible with Medium on the Oculus Rift, we decided to explore the possibility of prototyping 3D assets in VR, and then exporting for the 3D printer. Being that we are working with the HTC Vive, we figured we could find similar pieces of software and make it work. We’ve tried PaintLab, Kodon, and the Google TiltBrush to no avail. TiltBrush is promising in it’s ability to export for VR development in Unity, but nothing has come close to what we’ve seen with Medium on the Oculus in terms of prototyping. Luckily, based on our recommendation, an Oculus Rift is on the way to the school as we speak! Not only will this increase our productivity in the VR lab, but it will broaden what is possible to experiment with during our short time left in the program. (THANKS MARC+ERIK!)

One of the amazing benefits of being involved in studying something so new is constantly discovering new and exciting ways to communicate. Holos is a cool social space we’ve found where VR designers and creators can come together and easily share content with each other, and consumers. We’ve joined their so far tiny Slack group, but it seems to be a growing community and we’re excited to see where it takes us. It’s really interesting to be on the forefront of this emerging field and watched as developers and designers reach out and try to meet like-minded individuals.

A few things are coming up for us in VR land. This week, we have the February Happy Hour at MoPop, which this month is “Virtual Reality and the Creative Industry.” From the FB page: “This month’s special guest, Elizabeth Scallon, will host a panel of leading VR experts. Together they will examine the current and future state of the VR/AR industry, the current opportunities to engage, and why creatives hold the power to revolutionize this technology to bring it to every sector of society.” Should be a good one.

Our next VR meetup is scheduled for March, where we’ll be headed to HBO for The Agony and the Ecstasy of Virtual Reality: the UX of VR w/ Ryan Wilkerson. We are really excited about this one. HBO would obviously be a great place to end up after school and we’re very interested to see what they have to say about VR and it’s place in the world currently.

As far as current projects, we have a few in the works, but have started planning our final deliverable / portfolio piece for the show. Before this whole adventure started, we both listened to the Ready Player One audio book. We absolutely loved it, and even labeled some of the equipment in the VR lab at school after aspects of the story. In the book, a major scene toward the beginning takes place in a VR version of an old D&D module from the 80’s titled the “Chamber of Horrors”. We’ve decided to create this scene from scratch and get it workin in the head set. The idea is for people to be able to experience the entire scene at this year’s portfolio show. This will require creating a materials guide we can both pull from, modelling in C4D, and creating a fully interactive scene in Unity. This also includes figuring out if we can get an old arcade emulator working, because the end of the scene has a joust cabinet we would like to be playable. We’re super stoked about this project and are probably going to get started on it sometime this quarter. It’s a lot of work! First step was to find the actual module online the scene in the book is based on, complete with map of the chamber and sketches for the DM.

Obviously, we’re having a good time. That’s it for now!!!

Virtual Reality / Week Five :: Tutorials and Development

https://vimeo.com/202652946 The Camp has beautiful sounds and is almost ready for a live walk-through! Can't wait to make some s'mores!

Started a Unity tutorial to develop VR for Occulus. Perhaps not the smartest endeavor since we don’t have access to an Occulus yet, but I’m hoping that the basics I learn will apply to developing for VIVE even if I’m unable to show or use the finished product.

Ok, that didn’t work. You definitely need the Occulus plug-in to run in Unity and see live-feedback. Lesson learned.

Cool. Moving on…

How about Learn VR Dev School?

Excited to see that they have a Twitch channel where you can watch VR development live on Thursdays at 7:30PM PST. I know where I’ll be this Thursday evening!

https://www.twitch.tv/vrdevschool

Mid tutorial, the charming Lee Wasilenko mentions part of the Steam VR Prefabs includes a Camera that functions as “Ears” aka, the Audio Listener. I got excited thinking that this meant that the user could speak and the Ears would “hear,” only to google-discover that the ears are really speakers. I’m not sure about the terminology and hope I’m wrong.

https://docs.unity3d.com/Manual/class-AudioListener.html

Tangential aside: discovered this fascinating discussion about SteamVR audio…

I’m curious about the writer who calls theirself “Cherry2000” (how cool would it be to befriend a developer who is this well spoken and might be my gender / age? or at least aware of pop culture androids that predate the year 2000?) alas, they have a private account.

The comments are also intriguing, just the personality and voice of people who are in this deep.

Another interesting distinction in the prefabs is the head camera HMD view vs window view from the Head.

Interestingly, I was offered an option for not including the Unity watermark intro ahem, the “splash screen” — I declined it against my better judgement … we’ll see how that goes.

It looks like I’ll definitely have to save this out as a package and try to load it up on the MSI to interact with it live while developing. Building on a remote Mac and then migrating to the MSI for feedback/interaction is not a great workflow. Developers should really have access to a permanent terminal connected to the system while they are working.

Fascinating information about creating experiences for standing (expanded play area) and sitting. The volume of space you take up varies on the Y axis accordingly and things need to be designed to those specs.

This baby is gonna have to wait until I can get my hands on the MSI:

Personal glossary additions:

HMD: Head-Mounted Display

GUI: Graphical User Interface (previously I’d been calling everything a HUD, Heads-Up Display)

Last but not least, Gabriel and I have both applied to be early adopters / developers for the HTC VIVE Tracker...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j3dRGoD_EXQ

FINGERS CROSSED YOU GUYS!

last

And it looks like full-body tracking is on the way:

https://youtu.be/Khoer5DpQkE

Virtual Reality / Week Four :: Reading & Experimentation

We're playing with Cinema4D’s ability to render 3D objects with 2D cell shading:

https://vimeo.com/201621714

Building cozy off-world colonies:

Now reading:

*don't judge these books by their covers. no, really.

We were also lucky enough to meet Stephanie, a VR Developer for HBO and alumna (thanks be to Jill Vartenigian, again) and are reaching out to set up time for a blitz-tour of her office.

Virtual Reality / Week Four :: C♯, Physics, Fun

Our first foray into Unity was a simple roller-ball game. We were able to keep up with the C♯ required to apply physics, and even took it a level further by researching materials & textures to make it on-brand for Hanneld/Herrin Corp. We then packaged it and were able to experience/play it via the Vive in 360 VR; totally insane. Here's a somewhat less impressive video of how that looked first person: https://vimeo.com/200871005

Excitingly enough, there's a GitHub-like repository that banks C♯ code that you can apply to your own creations: enter VR Tool Kit. The VR Test went very well:

https://vimeo.com/200729628

We finally got back to Northgate to check out Facebook's Occulus Rift. (After making appointments and trekking out only to have nobody there to offer the demo and then later, having one of our appointments lately cancelled...)

Double not-cool, Facebook!

https://vimeo.com/200780085

Our estimation: In short, the hardware UX is outstanding. Far superior to the HTC Vive. The headset is lighter, more easily adjustable, and more comfortable.

There's a single cable coming from it rather than a bundle of three. The headphones are integrated into the goggles eliminating the awkwardness of dangling earbuds (and the hygienic/ear-hole size differential issues that come with earbuds).

The highlight of the whole experience is the hand controlers. Within seconds, you accept the fitted controllers as real hands – you can touch, point, and grab – all with haptics that immerse you in the experience.

Meanwhile, the HTC Vive controllers feel like cartoon ham hocks:

Lastly, Occulus has the ability to design and experience sound ––there's a microphone and you can speak, be heard, and understood. Let that sink in for a second compared to the one-way street of sound in the Vive. Right?? The jury is out on the game design / interface – there are many studios that are producing works of varied quality (both in polygon count, resolution, and storytelling) and we had limited exposure to multiple applications and no exposure to the onboarding process.

Up next: continuing Unity & C4D tutorials and we have coffee scheduled with two gentlemen from a local VR/AR startup Visual Vocal. Stoked to see the practical application of these emerging technologies.

Virtual Reality / Week Three :: Research, Troubleshooting, & Tutorials

Hanneld/Herrin made appointments at Best Buy Northgate to checkout Facebook’s Oculus (you can too: https://live.oculus.com/)

BUT... WE WERE THWARTED! The demo dude had gone home for the day.

These were our faces:

But we are not easily defeated and have rescheduled for next weekend (and will call ahead day-of before making the trek):

We’ve finally got the Vive/MSI running smoothly (albeit tethering through our phones to connect to Steam) and have had some time to get to know the capabilities, feel, UX/UI, of the VR world.

Gabriel just started in on a tutorial for UNITY that uses C♯

(if he plays the wrong note, we’ll all B♭)

And… I’ve fallen in love with this Portal robot dog that loves my belly scritches:

Next up: A little Unity3D Tutorial :D

Marc, Erik, we're gonna need the Jamiroquai floor ASAP:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Et9b7LWfnxQ

Virtual Reality / Week Two :: Experimentation & Installation

We have the location and equipment all set up. Steam VR (portal to VR Applications & HTC Vive Software – this is where Google Tilt lives) runs everything that we've experimented with so far.

As we move into development, we'll be using:

Cinema 4D / 3D Studio Max
Unity (Game Design)
360 VR / Stitch

The hardware consists of:

2 Controllers + 2 Chargers
Link box (connects VR Headset to the computer)
3 link box cables (Audio, HDMI, & USB)
VR Headset (wired)
Earbuds connected to VR Headset
MSI Laptop (y'know, the Dragon Edition) + Charger
Sync cable for the Base Stations (mounted at 6.5')

https://vimeo.com/198945119

Virtual Reality / Week One :: VR Research & Planning

We spent a lot of time reading and researching. VR is a squishy space where a lot hasn't been figured out yet – the practical applications, the software and hardware and how they interact with preexisting design resources. Can you model something with Google Tilt and then use the 3D Printer to see it in real life?

Can two people be in the same VR world at the same time and interact with each other?

Can something created in Cinema 4D live in the VR world and be rendered as a video that can be shared?

Can you take a 360 video, map it to a sphere and populate it as a world with 3D-rendered objects?

Beats the fuck outta me, but I'll let you know in a couple weeks.

So far the reading list is:

Neuromancer – William Gibson

Ready Player One – Ernest Cline (we're already calling the VR world "The Oasis" and have a Joust Lich as our desktop wallpaper. NERD ALERT.)

We're suggesting reading or watching YouTube videos about Ivan Sutherland, Bob Sproull, & Jaron Lanier.

We're also researching the physiological functionality / effects that VR has on the human body to share back.

Stay tuned...