Alina-MikhalevaHBO premiered a VR experience for their new Westworld series at TechCrunch Disrupt, and they used Spherica’s camera stabilization technology in order to pull off an extended live-action tracking shot in VR. Common advice given to new VR filmmakers is to not even try to attempt to move the camera since any shaking or sudden unexpected movements can be a motion sickness trigger. But Spherica has been able to create stabilization platform using a GoPro mount and remote-controlled rover that is able to comfortably move a VR camera through a tracking shot.

I had a chance to catch up with Spherica’s CEO Nikolay Malukhin and managing partner Alina Mikhaleva at TechCrunch Disrupt where we talked about their rover, drone, and cable camera stabilization solutions, collaborating with HBO on the Westworld VR experience, scaling up their rig to Black Magic and eventually RED Epic cameras, and some of their upcoming content and hardware projects including a first-person perspective helmet mount.

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You can watch a high-res demo of their Spherica technology in this Immersive Combat demo for the Gear VR, or watch it on YouTube here:

The marketing agency Campfire was responsible for designing the physical Westworld booth experience at TechCrunch Disrupt, which created the feeling that Delos was a real travel agency. The actors running the booth were telling attendees that they were showing a virtual reality experience that featured one of their destinations, and so I didn’t have any idea that what I was about to see was really an immersive advertisement taking me into the surreal and dystopian world of a new HBO series starting on October 2nd.

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Here’s some photos of the booth and the travel brochure they were handing out:

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Kent Bye

  • Camera stabilization is great… but if you move the camera while the user is still, you will create motion sickness… and that’s not great in VR

    • kalqlate

      Not with ramping acceleration and deceleration. That’s how your brain does it while you’re dreaming. Ignore some of the quick camera jumps and spins in the example video above. Those were just given for effect in this preview trailer.

      • Yes, if you manage to have constant speed, the motion sickness is highly reduced. But you should also avoid rotations… it’s pretty tricky to make a non-nausea-inducing video

        • kalqlate

          True.

          (Just a quick explanatory note to my “dreaming brain” assertion above. I’ve often been amazed while lucid dreaming to notice that motion of the viewer perspective ALWAYS smoothly accelerates and decelerates, as if on a camera dolly system. Right now, I can’t recall how turning/spinning is handled, but I recall many instances of zooms and pans, and they were ultra smooth. Just now experimenting, our waking experience is somewhat different but smooth nonetheless as our body, neck, eye and lens muscles coordinate to give us very smooth perspective transitions, but not with such noticeable acceleration and deceleration as when dreaming.)

    • ArtySin

      Having seen and used Spherica’s footage there is no motion sickness which is why HBO and many others are talking to this company. They also are using drones to shoot some VR footage.

  • craylon

    The sad thing to is, that big budget TV and Hollywood will be drawn to that kind of tec because it does not stray of to far of their usual way of producing stuff. To do really great VR they would pretty much abandon filming and invest into making believable content out of gaming engines. Few will do but the majority will probably be burned by the consumer reaction to that kind of footage and brush of VR as to experimental for them.

  • Mayena

    wow, this turned me off instantly when I saw the fighting…that’s really terrible. They should hire real fighters for these kind of scenes. Using their moves in a real fight would be the dumbest thing to do, I also don’t get why they do it like that because it makes it look really amateuristic instead of the “cool” they are looking for. /rant