iMyth

Category: IMyTH

  • How Disney Designs VR Experiences for Themeparks

    This is really cool and I’m glad Gamasutra was able to push this content online.

    This is a lecture given by Bei Yang, one of the executives in Imagineering. I had an opportunity to attend this lecture at GDC last March is it was very interesting. Disney seems to be very aware of the current VR rush but is approaching it with a very controlled and and somewhat pragmatic attitude. While they are working on their own VR type applications and attractions they seems to be aware of the recent evolution.

    IMHO, I think Disney is really one of the Illuminati of this whole VR/AR explosion. They seem to be letting everyone go a little crazy and do all the R&D necessary to make this a solid and commercially viable platform. They are sitting by and watching. In the meanwhile, they seems to be creating the infrastructure for something much larger and grander. Things like the hand bands that track the users’ locations and activities seems to support a much larger, immersive experience. What this vision is I am not sure. However, I have been tracking it for many years and the bread crumbs left by the Imagineers only tease at what technology is yet to come.

  • Economic Evidence For Immersive Experiences

    I have been tracking this wave for the last ten years and its finally starting to hit!

    Experience based entertainment is going through an upswing especially with the Millenials.

    I am participating with that with the creation of IMyTH.

    The evidence for the demand for such experiences is captured in this Financial Post article. I was not able to copy the video blog but it does a good job at capturing the essence of what I’m capitalizing on. This may be a good representation of what’s going on in Canada. The good `Ole USA can’t be far behind.

     

  • Hyde Horror Maze

    When it rains it pours. I also encountered an article today on Kataku about the Hyde Horror Maze.

    Not entirely dissimilar to The Void or the IMyTH experience, these folks wish to create an interactive maze where the players must navigate through a real maze in order to “survive” the experience. The maze is evidently sentient and monitors and controls the players progress through the maze in order to ensure a challenging and horrifying experience. I know they are on to a good thing. Let’s hope they can raise their money and display the commercial viability of the interactive narrative experience.

  • Images form Landmark

    Here are some images of the project Landmark is creating for a virtual Theme Park in China, posted in this Road to VR article.

    I don’t really think this has much to do with immersive theme-world or immersive epic experiences. I think it is more like Disneyquest, “Hey look, here is what’s cool and can be done now!”. Regardless, more endeavors such as this will only help to further the immersive the-park experience.

  • Google Project Soli

    Now here is some tech that has real potential. This article from Road to VR, “Google’s Project Soli,” has some real potential. By harnessing radar in the 21st centuray, researchers are capturing very small hand gestures.

    While this technology has some super dramatic implications with virtual VR UI I’m surprised no one has taken this idea and pushed it someplace else. Why have they not explored facial recognition. From what it sounds, if the specs being claimed are true, then something like lip sync and facial recognition seems immanent. However, maybe the sounds waves coming from our mouths may mess with the radar. I don’t know.

     

  • Cyberith Virtualizer

    Here is a company called Cyberith, who is developing a product which will enable, walking and otherwise full mobility within a VR environment.

    Admitedly, this is a neat concept. However, I can’t visualize the application beyond a military trainer for single level simulations. This may be a cool concept to launch initial ideas with. However, I don’t believe it will have long term, Immersive Theme-world potential.

     

  • The Seven Deadly Sins of the Metaverse

    For some reason this article posted on UploadVR has been haunting me, The Seven Deadly Sins of the Metaverse.

    Upon first reading I somewhat passed it off. However, while running this morning, a thought hit me and took. Maybe, I better revisit this article and post it to my blog.

    Indeed it is somewhat relevant as it identifies the mistakes the last internet boom created in the early part of the 21st century. The more I thought about it, the more I realized these problems would also affect the development of the IMyTH experience.

    According to the article, “We can define a metaverse in a number of different ways. At a minimum, a metaverse must allow users to experience and perform actions with others in shared virtual spaces.” Thus, The IMyth experience will ultimately be dependent on users interacting with each other and performing actions within this so called metaverse. I don’t think there are solutions for them currently. However, I would like to re-post these problems so we can be aware of them and start generated experiences which are not.

    1. A METAVERSE MUST KEEP PACE WITH TECHNOLOGY IF IT INTENDS TO REMAIN RELEVANT. USERS AND DEVELOPERS DEPEND ON THE PLATFORM ITSELF FOR THEIR TECHNOLOGICAL INNOVATION. ADDITIONALLY, THE MORE COMPLEX AND INTEGRATED A PLATFORM GETS, THE SLOWER ITS INNOVATION BECOMES.
    2. A RAPIDLY EVOLVING SOFTWARE AND HARDWARE ECOSYSTEM IS EXTREMELY UNFAVORABLE TO THE DEVELOPMENT AND OPERATION OF A METAVERSE.
    3. USERS (AND THEREFORE, DEVELOPERS) WANT A GENERAL-PURPOSE MACHINE OF UNLIMITED SCOPE. IT IS A CHALLENGE THAT A METAVERSE PLATFORM ENGINE CANNOT MEET.
    4. THE REAL CHALLENGE ISN’T TECHNICAL. IF IT WAS, SOMEONE WOULD HAVE SOLVED IT BY NOW, OR WE WOULD HAVE FIXED SOMEONE ELSE’S BROKEN IMPLEMENTATION.
    5. COMPETITION DIVIDES THE EXPERIENCE. CONTENT WILL BE STRANDED AND USERS WILL BE FRAGMENTED, BOTH OF WHICH DIMINISH THE OVERALL EXPERIENCE.
    6. IT IS VERY RISKY TO CREATE A METAVERSE.
    7. A METAVERSE CONTINUES TO BE A SOLUTION THAT IS LOOKING FOR A PROBLEM TO SOLVE.

    While these issue may directly apply to the concept of metaverse, I think they can easily be extracted to massive immerse theme-worlds. Thank you Chet Faliszek for your observations.

  • Google Attempting VR World Domination

    A couple of articles today track the behavior of Google.

    It would seem the media giant is assembling a team to create its own suite of VR tools. This is no doubt an attempt to achieve VR domination. Who can blame them. The wave is crashing hard. The big boys are getting out their big guns to claim big territories in the new frontier.

    Adudio will play a huge role in the achievement of immersive theme-worlds and google want s to be the pack leader by setting its own VR audio standards.

    Google also seems to be designing its own VR engine. This is a no-brainer. It has been clearly evident for quite a while the mechanics for immersive theme-wolds will be more demanding and more varied than thos supplied by modern game engines. MOst game engine will provide a launch pad for a broader, more diversified VR engine.

    They are also building a VR camera from scratch.  I’m not to sure I understand the motivation for this one. There are already many players in this field. What could google gain by building a specialized and dedicated camera? As technology continues to roll out we’ll have to see how things are inter-related.

  • Possible Alternative to Hand Tracking

    The parade of new VR/Immersive technology keeps on rolling.

    Here is the newest solution for generating a hand avatar for an experience created by Manus Machina.

    This seems like an alternative and competitor for technologies such as Leap. Leap uses optical tracking but devices such as this use actuators to track the hands position and rotation.

    At the end of the day the best solution will be where the user does not have to keep his hands raised in front of him in order to operate the GUI. Gloves and optical tracking tech are cool but folks get tired after about a minute of raising their hands beyond hanging. Remind you that computers and even video games allow the user to rest their arms or wrists against some stationary surface. – Something to think about.

  • So Far So Good For The Void

    Although information has been rare, it can be found.

    Here is a review of The Void and things seems to be working for this fledgling startup.

    VRScout at the Void