How to make your first 360/VR experience a success!
After successfully completing over 10 VR Film jams all over the world where creative content makers produced interactive 360/VR experiences in 48h, we thought it would be valuable to share key steps to create a high-level 360° story experience. Without further ado, let’s see what these magical steps are!
STORY FIRST
“a story should have a beginning a middle and an end but not necessarily in that order” Jean-Luc Godard
You may be following a brief or coming up with an idea completely on your own. Anyhow, your story needs to be engaging enough to attract an audience and make them want to experience it.
Throw down all concepts you can think of, compare them, try to merge them and quickly research anything related to them. Having your ideas drawn out in front of you will help you get a better visualisation of them. Select the strongest idea and reply to these essential questions:
- Who are the main characters, what is the obstacle / conflict?
- Why is this story andsubject matter well suited for a VR experience?
- What location, what action, what ending?
- What is the gameplay, the fun / interactive report with the user ? Where do we go and how do we get there?
- What is the position and the point of view of the users? / What are their role (neutral ghost or active caracter, single or multiple point of view…) and how they impact story?
USER EXPERIENCE VS. VIEWER EXPERIENCE
So you’ve written an awesome story, but how do you transform your idea from simple words and sketches into a full experience?
It’s time to think about User Experience. Here, storyboarding is essential, especially as we’re talking about 360° scenes. You will need to take into consideration how you will want to visualise annotations and when they will appear. This includes hotspots, menus and other interactions.
Storyboarding for 360° is different to regular storyboarding, as you need to think more in terms of situations or moments, rather than in terms of single shots. Keep in mind 360°/VR experiences work best with long uncut 360° clips so your “visitors” have the time to experience the scene before you cut to the next one. Two possible storyboarding techniques are as follows:
- The Front 180° View which consists of dividing of the forward facing position into 9 separate frames that form a frontal 180° spherical view. This method is beneficial if you are wanting to visualise how to display your elements along the longitude of your video.
- The Top 360° View takes into consideration the whole 360° environment. This way you can visualise the user’s entire surrounding whilst considering the depth of the environment.
Download free templates here and start storyboarding your first 360° video now!
SHOOTING TIPS
Now that you know how many sequences you are going to have and what will they consist of, get out there and start shooting!
Shooting in 360° can be kind of tricky, not only because everything around will be captured (so you need to be sure all your cables and production crew are hidden), but also because you need to imagine the camera as the future user.
If your story is meant to be experienced as a human, use human height to highlight the notion of presence, immersion and empathy… or on the contrary, assume to play with improbable points of view if the user is supposed to be anything else!
You should also always consider the distance between the camera lens and the main point of Interests very carefully for each scene of your experience.
There are three main distance types to consider:
Always prefer static shots. If movement is required use a camera dolly or similar equipement to create smooth horizontal camera movement. In any case, hand held cameras are highly discouraged as they will most probably cause nausea due to motion sickness.
Finally, always keep in mind there is always one or multiple stitching lines when using a 360 camera (e.g. for a dual-lens 360° cameras consisting of 2 separate camera lenses on either side of the device, there will be one stitching line).
It is still slightly noticeable whenever the camera itself is moving, or when an object/ person moves across the stitching line. Therefore, to avoid any disturbance in your footage, be sure to avoid your main Points of Interest where the stitching line will be.
GIVE LIFE TO YOUR VR PROJECT!
You’ve now got everything set and ready to start the real VR experience step. This final step will be fully described in another Medium story in the upcoming weeks.
If you enjoyed this one please recommend and share and if you haven’t yet tried Wonda VR, go to our website now and sign up for a free account!
Thanks for reading!
All pictures have been shot during 48h VR Film Jam by Florian Pannetier and Arnault Labaronne.
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