iMyth

Author: Chris

  • 9/16/16 iMyth First! Courier First Dry Run!

    Yesterday was a very exciting day for iMyth. Not only was I treated to the awesome work the artists, producers and engineers were creating, but also we had an opportunity to do the first dry run experience for the Courier. Summan rigged her proxy character to be controlled by. the WASD keys. Chunzi doned the Vive Headset and I played the interactor, Josiah Carter.

    The experience was both wonderful and terrible at the same time. It was wonderful simply because it was the first run. Yeah! We are officially creating VR immersive experiences! We have a preliminary timing of a bit longer than 7:00 minutes. It’s a start! I have a handful more of wonderful things but allow me to digress into the terrible things.

    The art assets are very proxy by now, which is to be expected. Very few of the Blueprint were functioning. The script was not finished. From a pure production perspective we still have far to go. At 7:00 minutes the experience was too short. Probably worse than anything, I don’t think the experience was fun or suspenseful for the participant. There was very little sense of immersion.

    I, however, can not view these things as negative rather than extremely positive!

    • We found out that 7:00 minutes was way too short. The participant wants and needs more time to take in the experience. 15:00 to 20:00 minutes will be outstanding!
    • The script is very important! As far as the interactor was concerned, I was pulling a performance out of my butt. In order to make this flow smoothly we have to have a truck-load of anticipated responses to stay within the narrative and stay true to the character. We will have to really iron this out in the script.
    • Sound is super important! During the experience we were treated by natural thunder. Chunzi thought this was one of the best parts of the experience!
    • Maintaining suspense, tension and curiosity will be very difficult to develop and maintain. This will take time and experience. I am super glad we are starting to work on this now. I’m not sure if anyone knows how to solve this.
    • Having the playspace mapped out 1:1 is crucial. The teleporting mechanic is awkward at best for maintaining immergence. Empowering the participant to walk around freely without concern of controller will be essential.

    This is extraordinarily exciting! Before we can be awesome we need to go through “sucky”. Bring it on! Let’s see all of these problems! let’s grind through these lessons and develop some really functioning skills. There is an epic new media in there. We are on the edge of seeing it in its full glory. This is very exciting.

  • Room Scale VR Arcade

    This article is a bit old but I wanted to provide a link for it, Control V, First Vive VR Arcade.

    This does a good job explaining how a Facility could be created with several experiences going on at the same time.

  • Universal is Jumping In

    Here is an article about Universal in Orlando opening it’s own version of the Void, Universal debutes “The Repository.”

    There isn’t much mentioned about the new attraction. One key note is that the experience will be un-tethered. I believe the wireless experience will dominate V2 of the immersive experience. It’s only a matter of time and money until the technology catches up with demand.

  • Another Motivating Article to Support The Void

    I encountered a great article describing The Void and their operation in NYC, Trippy Ghostbuster’s Experience.

    All in all the Polygon folks seemed very excited. The Void guys described their plans for world domination. This is very exciting. Is Imyth a Wannabe? Sure! However. I have a hunch this is going to be big business. We may not be the first pioneers, but we can create great experiences!

  • Future of Storytelling

    This is kind of a broad, sweeping article concerning the organization called “Future Of Storytelling.”

    Living stories

    I have not gone through all of the sub-links and articles but there is a lot of talk of combing games with traditional media but not a whole lot of substance.

    See for your self :).

  • Possible new Direction for the Vive

    Now this device definitely looks interesting.

    Intel Scientist Hints new Vive accessory

    Embedding function such as collision detection and hand tracking are definitely directions iMyth would wish to venture towards.

  • Improve Interactors

    It looks like the cat is out of the Bag. One of these Website VR channels had an opportunity to talk with Charlie Hughes at UCF.
    In the the article they constant refer to the use of interactors. More specifically the article addresses the use of “smart” puppets for controlling multiple interactors at the same time. This is very similar to what we have proposed.

    Check out this article, The Wizard of Oz Narrates.

  • Redirected Walking Video

  • Backpack VR Machines

    I recently picked up an Alienware 15 jacked up with an NVidea 980M Graphics card. I initially thought this could provide a backpack graphics use for our VR experiences. Maybe it can. However, Neither the Vive nor Occulus support the 980M. Ultimately we are on our own. The laptop maybe good for a proof of concept. However more robust long term solutions must be sought out.

    Maybe a solution will fit with MSI. They recently announced a Backpack PC with enough HP to run a GTX 980. MSI COMPUTEX Announcement. Regretfully almost nothing is known about this product. Certainly a solution like this probably wont be available by Fall. Who knows. It may just go faster than we expect 🙂

    Here is an Update Article: MSI Backpack at Computex and Tech Radar’s coverage of MSI’s Backpack

    Maybe another solution can come from HP. Almost at the same time as MSI, HPI is offering the HP Omen X Backpack PC and this article from The Verge – More on HP Omen X . Even less information is known about this solution and it is mostly just in the concept stage.

    Last but not least here is an entry from Zortac with their Zortac Mobile VR. This solution is by a minor player and may still be looking for funding. We’ll be listening guys!

    Here is an article showing how the Zortac unit displayed at the convention.

    AT E3, It seems like Alienware is getting in to the party as well, Alienware Teases its backback unit.

    One thing for sure. Seeing all of these articles in the same day give inspiration that bigger things are coming and this is definitely the signal for a much larger trend. We may not be able to take advantage of it immediately but if we start making plans we can put together one hell of a business plan.