On Tuesday this week, Inition, a UK-based company specializing in the development of real-time 3D graphics applications, held an event to showcase the latest in 3D AR and VR technology. Present at the showcase was Kevin Williams, who agreed to give us the inside scoop. Kevin Williams is the founding chairman of the Digital Out-of-Home Entertainment Network Association (DNA); he is also founder of the digital out-of-home entertainment (DOE) consultancy KWP Limited, and is publisher of the well-respected industry news service, The Stinger Report. He has been involved in immersive entertainment simulation since the 1980’s – first with virtual reality (VR) technology since 1991, working in military simulation's entrance into entertainment, as well as working for one of the first UK VR corporations; going on to be a Walt Disney Imagineer, developing one of the longest running VR attractions. A prolific writer on the DOE sector and its technology, he also presents at numerous conferences in the sector – consulting with many of the leaders across the industry. He has recently co-authored a book on the immersive out-of-home entertainment sector that will be published soon. Introduction It has been some years since my colleagues and I, from the then-leading VR company (Division), appeared in the pages of EDGE Magazine sporting the latest in virtual reality head mounted rigs. Now it's 2013 and VR is hot again -- and once again appears on the cover of EDGE. I have had the honor to be one of a select few that have been linked to the development of an affordable mass-market VR platform. Since 1968, when Ivan Sutherland and his team implemented the first virtual reality system -- using wire-frame graphics and the first head-mounted display -- the technology industry has been drawn to develop to a system for detailed representation of virtual worlds. But it would not be until VPL Research was founded in 1984 by Jaron Lanier, and he would coin the phrase Virtual Reality (VR), that the true drive for VR would begin. I have charted the latest emergence of interest in VR, first with a number of consultancy projects to evaluate the opportunity to drop VR back into the public space – and then with the momentum of the successful Kickstarter and initial release of the Oculus Rift. This momentum reached a high-point this month for me, with a personal invitation to attend Inition's 'AV versus VR', a special presentation for press and VIP’s of VR technology. The Demonstrations The two-day event was held in London, during the Digital Shoreditch festival organized to promote the innovation of the 'silicon roundabout' (as the local area has been dubbed in response to California’s Silicon Valley). The event organized by Inition – a self-styled multidisciplinary creative studio creating exhibitions, live events, interactive experiences, promotions and retail installations for a wide and varied clients base (the company is based in the heart of Shoreditch). Held in Inition’s dedicated Demo Studio – 'AR versus VR' gathered a number of Oculus Rift dev kits in one place, and offered a chance for invited guests to appraise the system, as well as a number of other immersive platforms. Inition had managed to present innovative technology demonstrations running across the slew of systems. A brief overview of these attending: Wizdish showed their omni-direction treadmill with Kinect tracking, Animazoo showed their new three gyro IGS Glove system with an impressively disturbing VR hand amputation experience. A flying demonstration was also presented using the Kinect to track the user's body movement to fly round the virtual environment. Pride of place given to a Inition's demonstration of Vertigo – with a VR experience, using the Oculus Rift, that had users balance along a virtual ledge with wind effects. Next to this was Norwegian Making View (an early Oculus supporter), showing the Rift HMD running a selection of their impressive real world videos captured on their ViewCam system offering interactive 360 presentation in real-time, perceived by this author as turning the Rift into a modern day View-Master, and compelling representation on the early system. Along with these VR experiences, there were a number of immersive display technologies including the impressive Dimenco 3D display – a 50’’ 4K LCD display, running a glasses free 3D presentation; along with the ImmersaVu – 160 degree display system with a 1920 x 1080 native resolution. Inition also showed demonstrations of their recent work -- a driving simulator representing the symptoms of hypoglycemia; also including the Nissan JUKE “Built to Thrill Wingsuit Experience” repurposed to use a Kinect to control the simulated wingsuit glider through a game scenario (based on their original motion base VR experience). There was also a Macallan Whiskey 'Holographic' Point of Sale (POS) display, and a suite of 3D printers displaying their capabilities. To round this off Inition showed a number of Augmented Reality (AR) demonstrations using tablets to view virtual items, and a virtual mirror system representing AR connectivity on a large display. All these demonstrations were impressive in their own right -- and we could go into much more detail about each one – but space is limited and the focus of my report for Road to VR is to give impressions of the Oculus Rift, (if you would like to read a detailed report on the event, please check out our news service, The Stinger Report). (continue reading on page 2...) Testing the Oculus Rift I have personally had the dubious pleasure of using over forty different HMD designs over the last few years -- a list of which can be found here. I profess a strong skepticism of HMD’s, having seen the best and the worst. I hold the belief that the current projection technology offers a more applicable means to represent a virtual environment (still quoting the tired old joke -- “what is the difference between VR and simulation… virtually nothing!”) It has to be remembered as an Imagineer I was one of a large team that oversaw the creation of two of the most successful and long running VR entertainment attractions (DisneyQuest’s ‘Aladdin’s Magic Carpet Ride’ and ‘Ride The Comix’ -- using the DisneyVision HMD); I have been spoiled in the best means to represent a virtual environment -- the Disney HMD offered to-this-date the highest quality out-of-home entertainment visuals. Anything that hopes to surmount this quality needs to offer high resolution, high Field-of-View (FOV), light-weight performance and a flexibility to support the demands of the modern market. At the Inition event the four Oculus Rift systems received serious attention. I was one of those that experienced the presentation of the Rift development kit (all running with A cup lenses), and have jotted down my initial evaluation: [Editor's note: keep in mind that Williams has had his head in some multi-thousand dollar head mounted displays] Pros: Incredibly lightweight, the 379g is very noticable in comparison of say the Sony HMZ-T1 (420g) The HMD was a comfortable fit without the nose encumbrance felt on systems such as the HMZ-T1 The tracking is great, working well with the system The most impressive aspect of the system is the FOV, highly compelling Cons: Resolution, resolution, resolution (more on that later) Lack of audio -- meaning the need for additional confusion in wearing headphones adding to weight and cabling Robustness, the system seeming to be flimsy and susceptible damage Lack of optical adjustment, a lack of focusing and adjustment of the interpupillary distance ‘Screen Door’, the most noticeable issue of usage of the system a factor in the screen selected ‘Tearing’, the breaking of image with quick head movements (unknown if this was PC or HMD issue) Positional tracking, the forward movement and spacial awareness caused by the lack of a this is an issue and caused some disorientation even during short demonstrations Conclusion The Oculus Rift Dev Kit showed what the ‘near’ future could represent for VR; I liked to say that the system is "close, but no cigar!" The resolution of 640 x 800 is just too poor, especially sitting next to the Sony HMZ-T1's 1280 x 720 -- but the FOV offers a compelling argument that if the resolution was better, it would be a slam dunk and would validate all the promise that Oculus has engendered with this second bite at the VR pie. The fact is that this is only a dev kit, and still at perhaps two iterations away from the final system; I did feel heartened that this could work, but was saddened that we are still some way off from the final system. During one discussion with a developer at the Inition event; we spoke on the situation we find ourselves with the Oculus Rift. With reports now of some 50,000+ dev kits having been ordered we could be in a position where Oculus pauses for a time just fulfilling and supporting these systems. But in the interim there must be a drive towards a better resolution display -- already rumors have been circulated of a number of home-brew mods for the dev kits systems, adding better hi-resolution displays by Chinese modders. With all this in mind we seem to be close to the panacea of true immersion -- though mindful that there are still some major hurdles to be surmounted to move beyond this development phase of the Oculus concept. Finally, regarding sim-sickness, Oculus has been incredibly tight lipped about the issue – while perusing the Oculus development kit supplied to one of the Rift supporter at the event, I read the operation manual and read the section dedicated to ‘Safety Warnings’ – especially that covering Photosensitivity / Motion Sickness / Seizers. Along with the usual comments, the statement, “…avoid using the Headset continuously for more than an hour at a time…” proved very telling on the reality of long term gaming on the system (average console players calculated at between 2-4 hour continuous sessions – with an average of 8-10 hours per week). The warning also specified, “…Children under the age of 10 should not use the headset at any time.” Putting to bed some denials of any issues! From my perspective I am interested in considering the deployment of VR again in the digital out-of-home entertainment (DOE) sector. I see the Rift as opening the door to this interest once again, and from the feedback at this event, the out-of-home approach seemed to be an initial landmark down the road of re-establishing VR as an entertainment platform. What comes next will be very important in achieving this! This is a brief overview of the latest exploits in the application of VR – for a more comprehensive overview regarding the current and future application of immersive entertainment technology in the digital out-of-home entertainment sector, a book has been co-authored entitled “The Immersive Frontier” – its publication to be announced soon, supporting the new trade association for this sector (the Digital Out-of-Home Entertainment Network Association (DNA)).