Why Virtual Reality? Why is that different from general movies?
“You move your head and what you see changes correctly and with almost imperceptible delay, allow your brain to maintain the same kind of model of virtual world as does the real world, which then sweep smoothly to further motion. That’s the fundamental difference between movies and VR.” — Michael Abrash, the Oculus Chief Scientist
Many people asked me, “Why are you making movies in head-mounted display? What’s the difference between this and movies?” This is the question that many people have now, so I keep asking myself. “Why Virtual Reality?”
From time to time, I have different answers for the question. In the beginning of this project(Just so you know, I am making an emotion-driven storytelling 360-degree film experience in head-mounted display about a locked-in syndrome patient, called Project Hypnos), we decided to make several film experiences in Oculus DK2, because we all understand the magic power of Virtual Reality — “immersion”.
The first answer for the question, was “immersive”. I feel immersive, I feel I visit another world, a world called, virtual world.
Twelve weeks ago, we started to think about ideas which would fit in 360-degree and make good use of 360-degree environment. The first thing we tried was people chatting around the rig with 10 GoPro cameras(I’ll call it 360camera in the following), then we found out it didn’t work. There were too many focal points.
In this “chatting” 360 video, viewers have to stare at different direction once different person starts to talk. It’s a “real” 360-degree experience, but it’s really exhausting. People stopped following not even to the half.
After that, we kept trying different things: bullying, different gender characters in the scene sending love message to you, character’s distance to the 360camera, characters throwing balls which cross the 360camera…etc.
We found two main points to feel immersive: EYE CONTACT & FIRST-PERSON VIEW.
When people look at me in the virtual world, I feel I am there, especially when there is an avatar for my body in the scene. I feel real.
“If you are talking about what you can feel, what you can smell, what you can taste and see, then ‘real’ is simply electrical signals interpreted by your brain.” — Michael Abrash
Yes, this was my second answer. I feel real. In the “different gender characters in the scene sending love message to you” test, we had one man sitting beside the camera and flirting with the camera, which is flirting with the viewer. And we also had one woman did exactly the same thing.
Some testers felt shy, and the others felt uncomfortable because they don’t know who he/she is. Some male testers, felt guilty, because there is a girl waiting at home for them. In the normal flat-screen movie, even it’s first-person point of view, people never feel that deep.
“All reality is virtual.” — Jeremy Bailenson
Recently, I started to think about what is “real”? Due to Michael Abrash’s talks, I’ve understood the answer. There is nothing called “real”.
It sounds like philosophy, but take a look of this music video from OK Go:
For me, it’s not just a creative music video, but optical illusions. You might hear this term before, because it’s always interesting to us. We see what we don’t believe we see, but it seems real. Now, you should be a little bit confused what real is.
“If you are experiencing the real world right now, why can’t you see your blind spot? It’s because your brain has a model that fills in those gaps with its best guess at the state of the world at every moment, and it’s that model that you actually see, hear, smell, feel, and taste” — Michael Abrash
You might ask, what is the “blind spot”? Do me a favor, take a look of this picture, what are the colors of these two squares?
Gray and white, right? No, they are exactly the same color. They are both gray. Why? Hold your finger over the line that separates two shapes and you’ll see why.
This is the blind spot that you can’t see, because your brain interprets the color for you. From your past experience, your brain thinks that’s where shadow should be as a result makes you “think” that the bottom square is white.
“Movies provide similar images but with no feedback for head motion. As a result, we perceive movies as moving textures at the flat surface, still embedded in the real world. Good VR isn’t perceiving these pictures at all, it replaces rather augments the real world.” — Michael Abrash
“Nothing is real, it’s all about our brain.” This is my answer so far. VR headset covers our eyes and then controls our vision. What headset provides becomes what we see and then what we believe. There is no real world, there is only more real vision. Once human being creates something that can control our visual, haptic, smell, hearing, and taste in the same time, there will be no real real, because it thoroughly controls our brain’s sensor.
Overall, I just want to tell you, how important the virtual reality is, how it will influence our future, and how different it is when it compares with movies.
If you are still skeptical to VR, take a look of Michael Abrash’s talk:
And you also should know this guy, Chris Milk. He is an fantastic VR filmmaker, if you have time, I would highly recommend you to watch his VR movies. He is the director of VRSE.work. You can watch them by Samsung Gear VR or using iPhone/Android phones with Google Cardboard. The video was his Ted talk on March:
“VR is a machine, but through this machine, we become more compassionate, we become more empathetic, we become more connected, and ultimately, we become more human.” — Chris Milk
Reference:
- Michael Abrash “Why Virtual Reality Will Matter to You” in F8(Begins at 42:15)
- Oculus chief scientist(Mike Abrash) says we’re all going to care about virtual reality
- Mike Abrash “My Steam Developers Day Talk”
(slides: http://media.steampowered.com/apps/abrashblog/Abrash%20Dev%20Days%202014.pdf
blog: http://blogs.valvesoftware.com/abrash/ ) - ”These 33 Optical Illusions Will Mess With Your Brain So Bad, That You’ll Never Trust What You See Again”
(Repost from my previous blog post on April, 2015: http://tobecomegamedesignerchuck.blogspot.com/2015/04/why-virtual-reality-whats-difference.html)
