Virtual Reality – Page 14

October 31, 2015

High Fidelity – October Updates Include Developments With Mouth Tracking, Avatar IK & More

High Fidelity keep people who have registered informed on their progress, whether or not they having been logging in recently. They do so via way of a monthly email update and this works very well.

The news letter usually appears on the High Fidelity blog, the September Newsletter was posted on September 30th. The October one hasn’t yet appeared but it will soon I would imagine. I should add at this point that finding the blog from the main High Fidelity website isn’t as easy as it should be using Windows 10 with a Chrome browser. The link to the blog is at the bottom of the main page in light on light text, or from a dropdown at the top of the page via company.

So what have High Fidelity been doing in October? The newsletter informs us that they have been working with a company called BinaryVR who develop facial tracking software that is intended to be used in virtual reality :

We have been fortunate to work with so many great entrepreneurs doing amazing stuff with VR hardware, BinaryVR is one of these companies. BinaryVR develops facial expression tracking technology for virtual reality, enabling users to create a personalized 3D face from 2D facial photos to track and retarget their facial animations in real-time in any transformed CG character or avatar mode. BinaryVR have integrated their technology into High Fidelity, allowing your mouth to be tracked while in the HMD.

I will include a couple of animated gif’s in this post, but for a better perspective of what’s going on in them please view the short video I’ll embed at the end of the post. Here’s a gif of mouth tracking in action :

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October 30, 2015

The Drax Files: World Makers Ep 33 – Luxembourg 1867

Episode 33 of The Linden Lab sponsored Drax Files : World Makers takes us to Luxembourg, but in a sci fi style twist it takes us to Luxembourg in 2015 and Luxembourg in 1867 at the same time.

The main protagonist in this episode is Second Life resident Cyperpiper Roelefs (AKA Pit Vinandy outside Second Life). What makes this episode particularly interesting is that the physical world footage takes place not only in the streets of the City of Luxembourg, but also in the Fort Thüngen Museum and the City Museum of Luxembourg

Inside the museum lies an exhibit; Pfaffenthal 1867 – A virtual walk through the historic Pfaffenthal. This is an exhibit that visitors access through computers as they enter the virtual world of Second Life to find some pretty damn impressive recreations of the historical location.

This is an exhibit that also takes advantage of more modern developments because as well as ten computers, there are also two Oculus Rift headsets available for people to immerse themselves deeper in the virtual experience.

At its heart this is a history exhibit, which utilises the virtual world environment to tell the story of how in 1867 there was a bit of a crisis in Europe (this is not unusual by the way!) when France wanted to buy Luxembourg. However those pesky British were having none of it and during negotiations it was decided to allow Luxembourg to become an independent nation. The aim was partially to prevent war between Germany and France. There’s a lot more to it than this!

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October 28, 2015

Are Virtual Reality Experiences Deficient In Value?

On October 14-15 Oxford Martin School hosted a workshop; Cyberselves in Immersive Technologies. The blurb for the workshop reads :

On October 14-15 2015, the Oxford Martin School hosted the ‘Cyberselves in Immersive Technologies’ symposium on virtual reality and telepresence, sponsored by the UK Arts and Humanities Research Council. The multi-disciplinary symposium brought together technologists, psychologists, neuroscientists, philosophers and cultural theorists looking at the future societal and ethical impacts of virtual reality and immersive technologies.

After this workshop, Dr. Hannah Maslen, a Research Fellow in Ethics at the University of Oxford, published a post over at Practical Ethics; Virtually reality? The value of virtual activities and remote interaction. This post touches upon the benefits, concerns and drawbacks of virtual reality in Dr Maslen’s opinion and certainly makes for an interesting read.

Dr Maslen seems to have some knowledge of Second Life, she references the virtual world more than once, however she also goes back to the 1970’s to take a look at experiments in comparing virtual reality with the physical world :

In 1974, Robert Nozick used the Experience Machine thought experiment to argue against the view that human wellbeing consists only in pleasurable experiences, no matter how complex or apparently real.

There have long been concerns that virtual reality will take us away from the physical world, that we will be immersed in the machine and that we will become addicted to a reality that isn’t real. However we’re a long way from being anywhere close to that point and in her post Dr Maslen points out that at this moment in time, in terms of virtual reality that is plausible, we know where we are :

The main difference between the Experience Machine on the one hand and plausible virtual reality on the other, is that when we use immersive technologies we know that this is what we are doing.

Dr Maslen also points out how virtual reality experiences are different, depending upon the platform, for example using Second Life to drive around in a vehicle would be a different experience to using a driving simulator to drive a car. The technology, the software, the immersive nature all play a role in providing different experiences.

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October 26, 2015

Looking To The Past Will Help To Move VR Forward

Those of us what have been around virtual worlds for a while can be forgiven for being somewhat bemused by a lot of the hype regarding the forthcoming virtual reality boom, because a lot of what is being discussed as futuristic advances are use cases we’ve all seen before. However there are use cases that already exist that may even pass us virtual world enthusiasts by.

These thoughts crossed my mind as I read a couple of articles today, the first was by Adi Robertson over at The Verge; The Virtual World’s Fair is where VR hype meets theme parks. The article concerns the work of Landmark Entertainment Group, who are famous for building theme park attractions and have plans to dip their toes very firmly into the waters of virtual reality.

What really struck me about this article was this part :

Landmark believes its role is to help solve the “chicken and egg” problem the industry faces: people won’t buy VR if there’s nothing to do in it, and no one will make experiences for VR if people don’t buy it. Christopher thinks the company is uniquely poised to succeed, compared to filmmakers or game developers — who are making a “whole different thing” compared to VR. “We’ve been doing what we call ‘total theater’ in the theme park space for three and a half decades,” he says. “We’re way beyond experimenting with this.”

Whereas I’m not familiar with Landmark Entertainment’s work, it is indeed true that theme parks have been the home to immersive experiences for quite some time. However those are immersive attractions where you go to the theme park itself and Landmark will be building what they call “live centers” that host digital art, zoos and more, with one set to open in China in 2017. However they will also have plans to launch The Virtual World’s Fair :

Landmark Entertainment Group has taken inspiration from its theme park design heritage and the long-standing World’s Fair tradition to create the concept for the “Virtual World’s Fair™,” a virtual reality experience loaded with real-time social interaction, entertainment, education, and shopping, just like a traditional world’s fair, but designed to be enjoyed in-home rather than as a real-world travel destination.

Landmark’s Virtual World’s Fair has been developed in conjunction with the Pavilion of Me ™ (P.O.M.™) concept, a daily-use in-home entertainment portal that reimagines everyday activities such as checking social media, online shopping, watching film and TV content, video chat, and playing video games into virtual reality experiences.

The Virtual World’s Fair will be accessed through the P.O.M. portal donning a VR headset; first-time users will create a personalized avatar, and then journey into the Virtual World’s Fair embodied in their newly customized digital persona. Both the P.O.M. and Virtual World’s Fair will enable social interactions with other people’s avatars (including family, friends, celebrities, world leaders and even total strangers) from around the world.

P.O.M. is scheduled to launch next year, with the complete Virtual World’s Fair experience to follow in 2017.

How well this progresses is of course dependent upon how well the technology surrounding headsets develops and gains acceptance but it’s interesting to see plans such as this in progress.

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October 23, 2015

Women Probably Don’t Want To Feel All Alone On A Crowded VR Island

I was in a pub one Sunday afternoon a year or so ago. I was enjoying a pint or two and watching a football match on the telly when a woman entered the bar. There was nothing unusual about this, well not at this point anyway, but then I heard the woman say; “This pub is full of men, I haven’t been in a pub like this for years“. At this point I turned away from the telly and duly noted that the pub was indeed, full of men and that the newly arrived woman was indeed the only woman on the customer side of the bar. There were women behind the bar, men work behind the bar too. I should note here that the pub is not usually as male dominated as it was that day and that plenty of women attend the pub quite happily.

The thing was, it wasn’t until this woman had arrived in the pub and made her comment that I realised that the pub was full of men. I was reminded of this incident whilst reading a post by Hamlet Au over at New World Notes; How to Really Get More Women into VR: More VR Startups Founded & Run by Women. The post links to an article over at Digital LA; Women in VR: 26 Ways to Increase Women in VR.

A few points really stand out to me in terms of visibility :

Attend VR events such as VRLA Expo, Oculus Connect, and more to learn, connect, represent and increase visibility of women in VR.

Create documentary of leading women pioneers in VR. There are many women pioneers in VR who can be role models to girls or others who want to get into VR. The documentary film can be screened at VR events.

Create great content. Women need to start creating their own VR content. “I’m going to start creating my own content in addition to working on projects for others,” said Shannon Gans, founder of New Deal Studios which won the Oscar for Interstellar.

Get YouTubers, Viners and other influencers into VR. If top female influencers across various platforms started to do VR, that would increase women interest in VR. If iJustine (YouTube), Brittany Furlan (Vine), Amanda Oleander (Periscope) were invited to do a VR experience, that would be widely shared among their audiences and drive interest in VR.

That visibility is important and another factor to note is conformity, which leads me to another article featuring VR researcher Jenny Wu; Jenny Wu: VR researcher. Psychology grad. Social media dissenter.

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