VR: 4 Unthinkable Scenes

Thanks to my newly arrived Oculus Rift, yesterday I experienced the unthinkables. A miniature world, an approaching giant creature, getting killed, and communicating with an ET.

Yes, you may have read or seen these in the past in books, on screens, in movies, or even in 3D theaters. But you have never BEEN in it. You have never had to lift up your head so much to see a giant creature that your neck hurts, and you have never been able to move around in your chair to inspect a tiny planet under a beautiful sunset. Once you have been in that world, you can never go back.

Miniature world

Imagine you are 100 feet tall. The wind from a blink of your eyelid can blow away a tiny humanoid creature. You can carefully pick up this delicate creature and inspect it, or you can just sit back and watch it unfold itself. The representation of this is the Rose and I from Penrose Studio (and the sunset is absolutely gorgeous):

Giants

What’s the largest moving figure you’ve seen in life? An elephant? A whale? How about a giant robot taller than the empire state building coming next to you and suddenly sit down in front of you? This is probably the first time in years I have to look up so much that my neck hurts. Lost, from Oculus Studio:

Getting Killed

A cold robot holding a saw trying to “fix you” with blood splashing your goggles isn’t the everyday scene we experience. In fact, never. ABE VR:

Communicating with an ET

This is unreal. Sitting in my tiny apartment by myself, I was suddenly put in this exotic planet with an ET speaking to me less than a foot away. Although speaking in a different language, he is telling the story with facial expressions and body languages. He was first friendly, then turned mad, finally anxious. I can feel my heart pounding with my subconsciousness telling me to try to communicate with it. We seem to be the only two living things on this planet. How can I not appreciate his presence and accept the loneliness haunting both of us?

In short

Text => Paintings => Photographs => Movies => VR. I highly recommend watching this short Youtube clip from the movie Hugo, where it describes people’s reaction to the first ever movie shown in a theater. The moving picture is about a simple scene of a train approaching the station. The audience freaked out — hats falling, screaming, running away from their seats.

100 years later, aren’t we all experiencing that novelty again with our goggles?