iMyth

Category: IMyTH

  • Wearable Input Controllers

    I’m not sure how viable this tech is yet. It kind of seems like it is just in its infancy. However, this product seems to go in the correct direction. there has been a lot of talk lately about MOCAP input and control. The question that pops up is just how practical is it to waer a MOCAP suit while being in an immersive experience? If I was given the opportunity to wear a jacket such as the OBE, (Out of Body Experience), I would gladly take it up. I don’t think most folks would mind either.

    Machina – OBE

  • Back Before the new Year!

    I have been a bit lax on the blog updates for the last few months.
    Never fear, the concepts for iMyth continue to move forward with new ideas, new partners and new innovations!

    Keep in contact for information concerning iMyth’s next MVP, (I’ll bet you didn’t even know we had a first :)).

    However, supporting the next MVP is this Technology from HTC and Valve. Part of our first MVP involved using simple hand gestures within a VR experience. We generated only mediocre results. Mind you did not allow ourselves much time to fine tweak the experience. Given a weak or so of tuning time I’m sure we could generate something a bit more palatable. The HTC Valve device doesn’t look that much better but who knows, this integrated solution may be all that is needed.

    [embedyt] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ABHl77XR8UA[/embedyt]

    I got the article from an upload VR article. They don’t seem very impressed either. However, after the short experience with the Leap Motion I’m will to give almost anything a try.

  • Emotion and Rapport

    I was reading through my web pages this morning and two very similar articles came up. I had written neither as being significant enough to create a post for. However, when I realized these were two very different article dealing with similar issues it made me think of the relevance they will have in immersive experiences.

    The first of these was a video from the Oculus studio discussing the emotional relevance and importance of their new short called Henry. They discuss the importance of creating rapport with the audience and making them care about the protagonist. They further mention that this task is all the more important when dealing with VR. Because of VR’s immersive potential, audiences will demand a strong emotional connection with its characters.

    The second article was written by Matthew Code on the replayability of games. While he is primarily talking about games I could not help but think that replay is one of the primary motivations behind immersive VR experiences. Matthew writes about what he thought makes game replayable. While we would agree that the lighter more commedic the game is the more attractive it is to watch again. But He also goes on to explain that sometimes characters are just so interesting you want to immerse yourself in their existence.  There was the connection between the two articles.

    Neither of the articles really suggests how to do these things but identifies the need to have them present for an enriching, replayable experience. These will be some of the milestones we need to achieve when developing immersive theme-world experiences.

  • VR D& D

    UploadVR recently posted an article about a fellow wring his experiences while “hanging out” in Altspace VR and watching a VR game of D&D. THe author had many problems with the technology, as would be expected.  He seemed rather patient. This is good because we’re going to need to wade through a lot of crap getting to cleaner experiences.

    However in this article was a video blog posted by the folks at Altspace VR and their first VR game of Dungeons and Dragons.

    The video only shows a few snippets of the actual game and focuses on the room and the tools to support the VR experience. This is all very cool and I found myself wanting to participate in this new experiential form.

    This still inspired me to take this further and create Immersive role playing experiences in mythical theme-worlds.

    IMyTH is going to rock!

  • Potential Customers for IMyTH Engine Technologies

    Chris McCann helped out the IMyTH group today in identifying some of the major players in the VR industry. The IMyTH engine is focused on generating immersive theme worlds and the companies mentioned in his article will provide a quick starting point to identify all of the potential customers the IMyTH engine can reach to:

    Devices

    • Oculus VR — Bought by facebook for $2B
    • HTC Vive — partnered with Valve also creating the Steam VR platform.
    • Sony’s Project Morpheus — VR system by Sony, will also be connected to the PS4 VR Platform
    • Samsung’s Gear VR
    • Google Cardboard — Low end VR system using your smartphone.
    • StarVR — headset with an ultra-wide field of view
    • Visbox — Cave VR system (VR within whole room)
    • Fove — developing an eye tracking virtual reality headset — Raised an unreported amount, announced on June 25, 2015
    • Sulon Technologies– combines both VR and AR in one device- No funding reported yet, won top heads up display in CES.

    Controllers

    • Virtuix Omni — Treadmill for VR, used with Oculus — Raised $7M, announced on December 10th, 2014
    • Nod Labs — controller and tracking device for VR — $16M announced on June 17, 2015
    • virZOOM — turns a stationary bike into VR controller — Raised $1.83M announced on April 16, 2015
    • Leap Motion — motion control for VR — Raised $44M, announced on January 3, 2013.
    • Oculus Touch — Made by Oculus
    • Sixense — wireless motion tracking controller — Raised $600K on Kickstarter on October 12, 2013
    • Valve Controllers — Made by Valve for the HTC Vive
    • Cyberith — VR controller that lets you run, jump, rotate, and crouch — no funding reported yet.
    • Tactical Haptics — produces the Reactive Grip Motion Controller- no funding reported yet.
    • ControlVR — Lets you control using your hands and motion instead of keyboard — Raised $400K on Kickstarter, announced on July 5, 2014
    • Pebbles Interfaces— Develops hand-tracking technologies — Raised $11.5M, Announced on August 1st, 2013. Recently bought by Oculus.

    Cameras / 3D Mapping

    • Jaunt VR — professional grade camera system for capturing VR experiences — Raised $35M, announced on August 21st, 2014
    • Otoy — Full pipeline for creating, rendering, and streaming 3D environments. Amount raised unreported from Yuri Milner and Autodesk – advisors include Eric Schmidt, Ari Emanuel, and more
    • Structure.io — capture the 3D world via smartphone — Raised $8M, announced on October 20th, 2013
    • hover.to — create 3D models from your smartphone — Raised $12.7M announced on August 7, 2014
    • Kolor — Create 3D words from 2D images and videos — Bought by GoPro
    • VideoStitch — VideoStitch develops video stitching software to create Live Virtual Reality Video content. — Raised $2.25M seed
    • Matterport — Reconstruct real world spaces in VR — Raised $58.3M, announced on June 25, 2015
    • Panorics — develops fully immersive 360-degree video technology and products — Raised an unreported amount of funding.

    Developer Tools

    • Unity — Development platform, supporting VR development.
    • Unreal Engine — Game development platform, supporting VR.
    • WorldViz— Produces Vizard VR toolkit — Raised $3.5M announced on April 14th, 2015
    • GameWorks VR — Developer platform by NVIDIA
    • OSVR — open sourced hardware and software platform for VR
    • High Fidelity — Open sourced software for deploying VR spaces — Raised $16M announced on February 11, 2015 (founded by Philip Rosedale who started Second Life)

    Content (Producing VR experiences/games)

    • Game studios developing games for VR — Insomniac Games, Ubisoft, CCP, Gunfire games, 4A Games, Carbon Games, Climax, Harmonix, High Voltage Software, Ready at Dawn, Otherworld Interactive, and Square Enix, Thotwise
    • Here is a long list of games that or will be compatible with VR.
    • Reload Studios — is an independent game studio developing VR games — $2M on June 3, 2015
    • nDreams — Game developer specializing in VR — Raised $2.75M, announced on January 19th, 2015
    • Visionary VR — a technology and content development studio — Raised $350K announced on March 4th, 2015
    • NextVR — captures and delivers live and on-demand virtual reality experiences (concerts, movies, sports) — Raised $5M, announced on September 9th, 2014
    • The VR Company — Studio producing experiences, Steven Spielberg is an advisor — Raised $2.1M announced on May 29, 2015.
    • VRse — Producers of VR content for filmmaking
    • Livelike VR — VR production focused on live sports content — Raised $200,000 announced on January 27, 2015
    • spaceVR — Experience what space flight feels like (sounds pretty cool).
    • Felix & Paul Studios — developing VR content and content tied to Hollywood blockbusters

    Social network / Content platforms

    • Littlstar — aggregates virtual reality content — Raised $120K announced on July 9, 2015
    • Wear VR — content platform and app store for VR experiences — Raised $1.5M announced on April 8, 2015
    • AltspaceVR — Experience things on the web (shows, concerts, movies) in VR with other people — Raised $5.2M announced on September 14th, 2014
    • Vrideo — Youtube like network for VR experiences — Raised seed round, unreported.
    • EmergentVR — User generated content of VR — Raised unreported amount on January 21, 2015

    Education

    • Woofbert — providing art-education through VR — $2.78M on June 1st, 2015
    • zspace — VR for STEM education — Raised $26.6M announced on March 19th, 2015
    • Discovr — exploring ancient worlds through VR — No funding reported
    • drashvr — Produces educational VR apps — No funding reported

    Medical

    • Psious — uses virtual environments to treat anxiety disorders — No reported funding
    • Deepstream VR— using VR games for rehabilitation and treating pain — No reported funding
    • MindMaze — developing VR experiences for medical recovery (ex. post-stroke) — Raised $8.5 announced on March 4, 2015
    • Vivid Vision — designing games to correct amblyopia (lazy eye) as well as strabismus (crossed eye) in virtual reality — Raised $50K, announced on January 21, 2014

    Business / Enterprise tools

    • insiteVR — Designer tools within VR — Raised $120,000 from YCombinator, announced on March 15th, 2015
    • IrisVR — 3D modeling tools within VR — Raised $2.53M, announced on July 8, 2015
    • SDK Lab — Create VR experiences for employee training (mining, drilling, etc) — No reported funding.
    • Inreal Technologies — VR tools for architects — Raised seed round, unreported.
    • Autodesk — Also experimenting with VR tools and experiences for manufacturing, real estate, etc.

    There are a couple of industries which are not accounted for  in the Theme Park and Military simulation Industries. These are two areas which being in central Florida can help out significantly.customers

  • The Coming Cyberbard

    I recently copied an excerpt written by Janet M. Murray from her book Hamlet on the Holodeck. The article is called The Coming Cyberbard.

    This is the follow up portion to the text I referenced, The Shaping Role of the Human Storyteller. In this excerpt, Murray describes a possible model upon which such an immersive theme-world experience might be implemented. The concept is based on Minsky’s theory of Frames. There will be more to come on the implementation of frames to come. Upon the implementation of this model onto an immersive theme-world engine, a solid structure to generate infinite possible theme-worlds is provided.

    I am currently looking into this model not only as a foundation for Grammar Based Universes but as an authoring platforms for rewarding, narrative experiences.

  • The Shaping Role of the Human Storyteller

    I recently copied an excerpt written by Janet M. Murray from her book Hamlet on the Holodeck. The article is called The shaping Role of the Human Storyteller.

    Murray does an excellent job in describing what an immersive, interactive experience might look and feel but within the context of a specific story-world. What really is attention getting is that she departs from the experience as being game-like and focuses on components such as “moral physics” as being the glue which holds the world together and the interactor, (the participant), t o the immersive experience.

    I strongly encourage the audience to read the article to understand the difference between thematic immersive experiences, interactive stories and games. The IMyTH experience is designed to be a prototype very similar of Murray’s mechanic.

  • BI Virtual Reality Forecast

    The buzz around VR and related technology keeps on exploding.

    BIVRForcast

    In this article written by Business INsider, the expected VR market is expected to explode with VR shipments will create a $2.8 billion hardware market by 2020, up from an estimated $37 million market this year.

    I have yet to pony up the $400 to by the report. The future definitely looks very optimistic.

  • Artanim VR at Siggraph

    There is a non-profit research oriented group in Switzerland called Artanim. I have never heard of them before but they recently submitted a project to Siggraph and been accepted as a finalist. Their project is really inspiring.


    This is exactly what an Immersive Theme-world could look and behave like. The first adventures would be primitive for sure. There would be immediate dialogue with characters. However, it is the beginning.

    I have read the white-page description of the story. It is a rough description of their technology and an overall description of what VR is what applications it has.

    This is very exciting development. Researchers and others are doing what what IMyTH is expecting to do. There will be a lot of competition for sure. While this is very similar what they are doing in SLC and The Void, this is some of the first footage I have actually seen using this technology in this way.

  • The Void To build 230 VR Theme-Parks

    I just encountered an article from Road to VR article about The Void intending to build 230 Theme-park locations in the next five years.

    I have to admit that these plans are indeed ambitious and I have seen the opportunity for myself. I am looking forward to see how the SLC proto-type works out. I really want this to work and I hope for these guys to succeed. Maybe I am too green and too inexperienced of a business person but I just can’t help being overwhelmed by the magnitude of these plans without  any demonstration of commercial viability or data/technology infrastructure.

    I feel the plans I have for IMyTH will need to grow grass roots and feel its way out in to the public its own time and method. For the sake of the industry I certainly hope they are right on target. There is a lot of capitol being thrown at this endeavor.