In the next couple of weeks, we will be carrying out a group VR project where each person in the team puts their own skills to use in order to create a 3D environment using Maya. By combining our own models and techniques in look development, we will create a single 360-degree render which will be viewable through a basic headset. I’ve experienced VR before and I am aware of how many exciting prospects it creates for the future, despite the fact that I don’t enjoy using it myself, for too long or too often. At the moment, I see it as more of a fun activity to try out on rare occasions because of its rudimentary quality and low capacity for immersion in comparison to other media. However, it may very well be a key part of society in the future – possibly implemented into our daily lives.
As always, before launching into the main task, we were asked to do some research and deepen our understanding of VR. Looking into its origins first, I discovered that Morton Heilig invented the Sensorama in 1957, an arcade-style reality simulator that involved creating an immersive experience by exposing viewers to 3D-style images, specialized smells and sounds from the machine that they sit in front of with their head placed between panels. While this is far from virtual reality today, the Sensorama is widely credited as the first VR device. The term ‘virtual reality’ was itself coined by Jaron Lanier, who created the EyePhone head-mounted display and Dataglove in 1987. However, in 1968, the actual first VR/AR head-mounted display came into existence, thanks to Ivan Sutherland and his student, Bob Sproull. It was called The Sword of Damocles and it was connected to a computer rather than a camera. The large and rather scary-looking contraption was too heavy for any user to comfortably wear so it was suspended from the ceiling (hence the name).
We were asked to give a brief summary only but many key events occurred within the history of VR to get it where it is today. Every couple of years, something notable happened to add to its advancement, and including everything would mean writing a whole article just on the historical aspects alone! Here is the website that I skimmed through, reading through some of the events that I found most interesting, such as NASA’s implementation and Google’s introduction of street view.
History of VR
Today, one of the most common uses of VR is in video games, given that their main purpose is to immerse you in a virtual environment and make you feel like you really are fighting with life-size game characters, driving life-size cars, chasing life-size dragons, and meeting your friends like you would in the physical real life. There are different options in the market in terms of VR units – PC, mobile, console headsets, some with additional devices and others as standalones, and each with different capabilities for integration and support for other hardware, features, benefits, and challenges.
Top Virtual Reality Headsets for PC, PS4, Xbox and more include:
- HTC Vive Pro
- Valve Index
- Oculus Quest
- Samsung Odyssey+
- PlayStation VR
- Microsoft HoloLens
- Samsung Gear VR
- Oculus Rift S
- Homido VR headset
We all know virtual reality is being used for video games but there are many exciting uses outside of the gaming industry that are shaping our future. Computer-generated environments that someone can explore and interact with provide the user with a more in-depth experience, tricking the brain into thinking that their computerized surroundings are real. One significant way that this is impacting our society today is through healthcare, where the system uses cognitive behavioural therapy and other behavioural principles such as deep relaxation, attention-shifting and interoceptive awareness to aid in the reduction of chronic pain. VR can also be used for therapeutic benefits, as pain relief for burn injuries, and as a virtual practice workspace to help better prepare healthcare professionals for being in the operating theatre.
It is also making great leaps and bounds in retail; the ‘metaverse’ is said to soon drastically change the way we shop online. We will be able to try on clothes in the virtual world to see what they would look like in person and various companies are attempting to implement virtual catwalks, stores and fitting rooms in their stores to enhance our shopping experience. This puts us in a more sustainable position, with fast fashion shipping and other environmental costs expected to decrease.
Learning and development is another area that I am personally excited about. The training industry has started to embrace the opportunities virtual learning brings with its risk-free spaces and consistency. VirtualSpeech, for example, provides VR training for soft skills such as public speaking, active listening, and sales, blending e-learning with practice in VR and online simulations and enabling learners to build their confidence and skills in VR environments, from meeting rooms to auditoriums.
These are only a few of the applications, barely scratching the surface of the iceberg of opportunities VR brings within a multitude of different sectors. According to the latest forecasts from IDC Research (2018), it is one of the technologies with the highest projected potential for growth, with investment said to multiply 21-fold over the next four years, reaching 15.5 billion euros by 2022. By the year 2030, it is predicted that the latest VR screens will have 8k resolution, which has 4 times the number of pixels as 4k screens.
“When you view character models and objects up close with these devices, there is zero visible pixilation resulting in breathtaking detail and realism.”
After our research session, we were given our groups and asked to sit together. Everyone brainstormed ideas for the VR environment and was asked to individually generate some possible settings that could be done. I started out in my notebook, writing down rough ideas that came to mind but eventually, I chose one specific one to expand on and added detail alongside. This was then added to a joint Google Slides presentation that was shared with everyone in our group so that we could view and discusses all ideas.
Brainstormed Ideas
Basic Rooms:
- Cinema
- Game/Arcade Room
- Modern Office/Living Room
- Bar
- Interrogation Room
- Bonus: any of the above can be elevated by making them futuristic/sci-fi
Movie-Inspired/Sets:
- Bag End
- The Shining Hotel Corridor
- Avenger’s Parlour
- Shrek’s Swamp
Main Idea
I felt that my idea was both achievable and interesting because the assets themselves aren’t too hard to create but the way in which they are posed and set in the scene is more visually ‘out there’. I felt that it was a win-win because we could get everything done to a great standard and if any time is left over, we could focus on embellishments, layout experimentation and lighting. However, I wasn’t aware that we had a month’s worth of lessons on this project, which is why it is understandable that we went for a more complex idea.
Chosen Idea
All of our team members came up with some imaginative and interesting settings, such as Lily’s idea to create a fish tank, for example, which I had never even thought of as an option! We decided on Jacob’s second idea together though, since an abandoned castle/mansion seemed like a really cool thing to create; if we do it right, the end result could be beautiful, haunting and incredibly atmospheric. Personally, I am still a little sceptical since it is a lot of work to build such a scene, not to mention we have the added job of making it seem old and a little dilapidated. We spent the rest of the lesson gathering inspiration, sketching ideas, making lists and generally organising ourselves for the task ahead. Here is a link to the presentation and some key slides that we’ll definitely be referencing and coming back to in the future.
VR The Group
