Look no further than Magic Leap to glimpse into the future of our rides
Theme parks have long used 3D glasses to bring enhanced experiences to rides. But many fans have felt the glasses are remnants of prior times and prior technologies.
Robert Niles, a theme park reporter for the Orange County Register, finds 3D glasses underwhelming to say the least.
He said, “When Universal Studios Hollywood opened its Wizarding World of Harry Potter land last year, it offered its Harry Potter and the Forbidden Journey ride in 3D — a change from the ride’s original installation in Orlando, where it continues to run in traditional 2D. But earlier this year, Universal Studios Hollywood dumped the 3D version in favor of a new 4K projection system on the Potter ride. I couldn’t be happier with the switch. Last month I rode the original in Orlando, and Hollywood’s version just blows it away for clarity, brightness, and visual detail. Even without the 3D effects, the 4K projection just makes the entire experience feel more ‘real.’”
I definitely felt the realness when I rode Escape From Gringotts. I swear Voldemort looked into my soul, and to be completely honest, I cried a little from fear.
The advances in 4K projection that produces hyper-realness that made a grown woman tear up is beginning to make 3D glasses irrelevant. Niles states, “Wearing some of the bulky 3D glasses also narrows your field of vision, defying the supposed benefit of 3D making an image appear more lifelike.”
And it’s this innovation — 4K projection — that opens the door for Augmented Reality which can offer enhancements that were never possible by simply viewing an image through polarized lenses.
Where 3D (does) work
While there are limited examples of pure AR technology integrations, we can learn a lot about its potential applications by examining how theme parks have used 3D glasses. Originally used primarily in movies, innovators began to look for ways to incorporate 3D projection into more traditional thrill rides.
One of the first to do so was Universal’s Amazing Adventures of Spider-Man, Islands of Adventure, which debuted in 1999 at the Florida park. Tamara Hinson of CNN says “This ride took three years to build but it appears the effort was worthwhile — it’s won several awards and has been awarded Amusement Today’s Golden Ticket award for best dark ride for 12 consecutive years.”
“One real game changer is the Spider-Man ride system and its multimedia technology,” says Maximilian Roeser at Mack rides. The 3D effects are so highly detailed and synchronized to the movement of the cars that you hardly can tell what is projection and what is real set.”
Comparing rides using these technologies, it’s clear that 3D does add to the experience. When I went to Universal and I rode the Despicable Me ride, I didn’t even bother putting my hand up when things came out at me because I was in front of a screen. I knew what I was seeing wasn’t real.
But when I rode Escape From Gringotts in Harry Potter World, I actually thought there were bits of the wall coming towards my face, and I blocked it with my hand. The difference between those experiences is the reality of my surroundings. I was actually moving through space instead of the seat beneath me staying stationary, like in Despicable Me. In Escape From Gringotts I had no idea where I was, and that lack of understanding made it more believable for my senses which is why it was instinct to block my face. 4K projection has begun to render some of these differences moot, but in an attempt to elicit more “hands in front of your face” reactions like Gringotts, designers are seeing AR as a way.
And these types of reactions will only be enhanced when the experience is more customized and realistic for each theme park goer using augmented reality glasses and screens.
Magic Leap.
They are known in the industry for their mystique factor. They have yet to release a fully developed product yet, but nonetheless boast investors like J.P Morgan and Google (), and even celebrities like Beyonce have been granted a sneak peek at their tech.
They seem to be very close to releasing something to the public since they stated in September that they would be sending out their technology to a few users in six months. What sets them apart from the rest of the augmented community is that, “no company has successfully built [augmented reality] glasses that people will casually wear in daily life. Magic Leap has shown progress on the very first and very last steps: the core visual technology, and the entertainment content.” Their headset is designed using “dynamic digitalized light fused signals” which give the digital objects a sense of realness. Basically, their glasses will capture not just parts of the light rays, like in a photograph, but instead the whole ray including its direction.
This allows our eyes with the help of the technology to refocus the information from the ray and allow us to see the depth perception of the scene in front of us in 3D. “The Magic Leap headset is said to use a light-field display powered by a novel array of nano-structures, giving the digital imagery true-to-life depth cues which in turn makes the projected image seem more real.”
This is a huge step in the right direction technology wise. There are a million companies that are working with augmented reality headsets, but to have an experience without the obstructiveness of the heavy glasses, which means even more mobility, is on the right track for the kind of technology that I will be talking about later in this chapter. INDE is also using a headset-less experience but their technology, to me, is still not as interesting as Magic Leap. With INDE the user is still separated from the screen. The virtual you that is being projected is interacting in real time with the characters, not the real you. It would be much more powerful to actually be able the one physically in the screen.
The scale of their experience allows you to share the moment with more than a few friends, which is thinking more large scale than other VR experiences.
