The Art Inside Virtual, Augmented and Mixed Reality
“Ultimately, new technology can reveal desires that already exist on a deep level in society, This desire to escape completely into another dimension has existed for a long time.” — Jon Rafman
To create these worlds we need our best artists. Where the technology goes the art has always followed.
Magic Leap Mixed Reality Video
Virtual reality?
It’s gaining some serious steam this year. Facebook’s Oculus Rift, Sony’s Project Morpheus and the Samsung Gear VR are the leaders introducing virtual reality to the masses. It is completely immersive, no checking mail, fielding texts or posting to Instagram.
The immersive nature of Virtual reality prevents users from interacting with their surroundings. It takes them out of the moment. They can’t walk around and see what is right next to them, look people in the eye or read someone’s body language. VR is a powerful way to experience content, but is not practical for interacting in the real world.
Augmented reality?
The whole point of that ugly word, augmented, is that AR takes your view of the real world and adds digital information and/or data on top of it. This might be as simple as numbers or text notifications, or as complex as a simulated screen, something ODG is experimenting with on its forthcoming consumer smart glasses. But in general, AR lets you see both synthetic light as well as natural light bouncing off objects in the real world. The real-world content and the CG content are not able to respond to each other
Mixed reality?
This is the least-well-known of the trio right now, but it ironically might have the easiest road to mainstream consumer adoption — if the tech works as advertised.
The key term for mixed reality, or MR, is flexibility. It tries to combine the best aspects of both VR and AR, wrapped up in a marketable term that sounds marginally less geeky than its cousins.
In theory, mixed reality lets the user see the real world (like AR) while also seeing believable, virtual objects (like VR). And then it anchors those virtual objects to a point in real space, making it possible to treat them as “real,” at least from the perspective of the person who can see the MR experience.
As you walk around, the virtual landscape holds its position, and when you lean in close, it gets closer in the way a real object would.
Create augmented reality in Xcode:
PRAugmentedReality
Augmented Reality Framework for iOS — Well optimized for all devices, even the older iPhones.
cool stuff
Magic Leap — http://www.wired.com/2016/04/magic-leap-vr/
No mans Sky — http://www.no-mans-sky.com/ A SCIENCE-FICTION GAME SET IN AN INFINITE PROCEDURALLY GENERATED GALAXY
Elon Musk thinks we’re living in a simulation — http://motherboard.vice.com/read/elon-musk-simulated-universe-hypothesis