Tools & Content, Content & Tools
For content, content makers.
Hello! We’re Cooperative Innovations, we’re an immersive technology studio — we make immersive content and we also make tools to help make the content.
We are content makers who want to make content, content makers.
Making immersive content is a lot of fun but it’s also really tough, so why would we make things harder for ourselves by also making tools at the same time? It’s because we want to make things easier in the long run, by making tools we’re identifying ways to make the whole process a lot easier.
At Cooperative Innovations we’re passionate about all things immersive — VR, AR and everything in between. We’re very much driven by the belief that immersive technologies will play a big part in the future of work and play, and that it’s in all our interests to help support and uphold the continued growth of our sector, which is still in a relatively early phase.
Content?
Humans have always made tools, mainly in order to stay alive, to kill food, defend themselves against the stuff that’s bigger than the food or other people that want their food, and to build shelter. Once we had that first bit of Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs sorted, our minds, as they always have done and always will do, start to wander.
So, tools are important, in some instances they are vital, for the stuff we ‘need’ to stay alive but they're also important for the stuff that makes life better. The stuff that makes life better than just a series of answering needs. The stuff that lets us think about bigger questions, that makes us happy, that shows other people that we are here too, that tells a story — for cultural and creative purposes.
At Cooperative Innovations we’re a group of humans who make stuff that isn’t for that first thing it’s for that second thing. These days we tend to describe that stuff as ‘content’. It’s a natural part of our evolution but all too often society de-prioritises its importance, or looks down on people who dedicate their lives to creating it.
It’s never been more important for us all to have access to the things that enrich us culturally, so it makes sense to us as a company to help other people make that content, as well as just making our own.
Virtuous circle
While we’re very happy making content for immersive headsets, making new cultural forms, new ways for people to communicate with each other and have fun together, we can see that at this early stage of the development of this new form there are very few tools with which just anyone can get stuck in.
As our CEO Simon often says, “people are the multiplier for technology” — for more people to get their hands on, or their heads in, to immersive technology we first need to make it easier to conceive, easier to use and easier to make stuff for these new platforms and spaces.
We’re working on a whole suite of tools that will help to reduce the repetitive or time-consuming parts of creating cool new content in this space. They’re all borne out of our own experience so we know they help, and they’re all making us (and other developers) more effective and efficient into the bargain.
But the bottom line is that they’re freeing creatives up to be more creative, and therefore opening up the possibilities for even more cool content that will enrich us all.
One great example of this is Ikabod — our animation tool that solves the challenge of full-body inverse kinematics in VR and AR. Originally designed to help the team get really good procedural animations for the avatars in our game Raiders of Erda, it’s hugely helping the animators in all of our work.
It vastly increases the amount and the quality of work an animator can do, by taking all the given data from the player or consumer, the animator, and the context of the action, and using it to create realistic animations in realtime.
By reducing the amount of animation effort required on any of our projects we obviously reduce the cost, and reducing the cost increases the amount of stuff we can make, as well as reducing the knock-on cost to the end consumers.
Beyond that though, by licensing Ikabod (and all our tools) out to other creatives, we not only bring in an additional revenue stream for our business but we also empower others to build their visions and their businesses at the same time.
The inevitable loop of this virtuous circle benefits us all; our sector, our colleagues, our businesses, our economy and, most importantly of all, our culture.
Cooperation and innovation
We’re currently licensing Ikabod as well as VoluMetrics (our powerful 4D heatmapping software) but we have plenty more tools on the horizon. They’re all pieces of technology that we use all the time in our work but that we want to share with the wider family of the immersive industry, and they cover a wide variety of uses, from a VOIP communication system to a storytelling platform.
We’ll continue to be committed to building quality tools alongside creating immersive content because we know this sector will become a central part of life, work and play in the years to come. Some creators are still early on in their journey, while for others (including us) we’re building on years and years of work.
If we’re all going to survive and thrive, and help to finally realise the long-held promise of immersive tech, then those of us in the second group need to be sharing more with those in the first.
Click here for more information on Ikabod and VoluMetrics, and follow us on Twitter, LinkedIn, here on Medium and sign up for our newsletter here.
