Lytro’s New Platform Changing the Movie Industry
First of all, What is Lytro’s new product? Lytro Immerge. Here are 4 main points that defines Lytro’s new product as stated in their press release:
- Delivers Lifelike Presence for Live Action VR through Six Degrees of Freedom
- Provides Creative Freedom for Storytellers
- Built to Blend Live Action and Computer Graphics
- Configurable Capture and Playback to Support a Wide Range of VR Storytelling Needs
There’s challenges of live action immersive storytelling. Lytro created a new product to change the world of the Movie Industry. The Lytro Immerge is the world’s first professional Light Field powered solution to provide reality like presence in VR with Six Degrees of Freedom. The product is built to blend live action and computer graphics (CG), it features configurable capture and playback options.
“Imagine a camera staying stationary, but being able to move your head around and getting further and closer away from an object in a scene,” Rosenthal explains. “Having the reflection and the light rays adjusting accordingly. What the light field volume represents is, we’re densely capturing all the rays in a given geometric volume, and then we’ve built software that lets us play back those rays at very high frame rates and at high resolution. It gives you the perfect recreation of the actual world you’re capturing.”
Immerge announcement is timed well in preparation for the next generation of VR hardware. The capability alone is a mind-boggling leap for VR filmmaking.
“VR is the next wave in cinematic content, and immersive storytellers have been seeking technology that allows them to fully realize their creative vision. We believe the power of Light Field will help VR creators deliver on the promise of this new medium. Lytro Immerge is an endtoend Light Field solution that will provide all the hardware, software and services required to capture, process, edit and playback professionalgrade cinematic content.”
- Jason Rosenthal, CEO of Lytro.
Lytro Immerge vs. 360° Cameras
Some may say, why use this complicated expensive Lytro Immerge camera when you can just use the 360° cameras that came out way before this one? Just like Wired.com stated,
“Unlike existing VR camera rigs, which capture a static 360-degree image, the Immerge camera will let you move around a bit within the scene.”
In current VR experiences, you can’t move around. You are in one position and can only look around. The Lytro Immerge changes all of that. The Immerge gives you a more immersive experience in the VR world. Within the production itself, field of view and IPD are freely configurable per-user and VR headset, all from one set of captured data. Multi-camera 360 arrays (fixed lenses, fixed FOV, fixed IPD in stereoscopy) pose difficulties. Benefits like these could become huge for VR video as a medium.
The Cost
Within the cinematic world, the idea is to rent these machines and servers to film makers for a couple of thousands a day. Within the film industry, film makers currently rent materials needed to create a film. Otherwise, they would not be able to afford buying the materials. The Lytro Immerge itself will cost up to a few hundred thousand to purchase. Even with the rental options, it will still remain outside the reach of micro-budget film-makers.
