iMyth

Blog

  • Manus VR

    I wrote about this company about a year ago and they are still going strong.

    https://manus-vr.com/

    These guys may provide a good tracking solution for hands and the Vive.!

  • iMyth Post 4/29

    I figured I had better be documenting iMyth progress as things move along.

    I suppose I have been lax in doing so:

    • 4/25 – My Vive arrives via Fed-Ex. No one is home to receive it :(.
    • 4/26 – AT the end of the work day, I high-tail it to the Fed-Ex depot and pick up my Vive.
      • Yeah!
    • 4/27 – After spending the bulk of the day with class and students, I start focusing on installing my Vive. It does not work. I put together an impassioned message to Vive Support explaining my dilemma.
    • 4/28 – Muchos meetings all morning. AFter getting back from the meetings, I install the Vive on the Galley PC. It works! The Vive experience is pretty awesome!
    • 4/29 – I try to apply the feedback I received from Vive Support. To make a long story short, my computer is not VR compatible. After all this time I thought it was :(. Boy do I look silly. I Guess that sort of explains why the Occulus refused to work on my machine as well. Bryant, the fello from CAH says my iMyth machine will be arriving from Alienware today. Gotta keep my fingers crossed.

  • Thoughts about Roomscale VR

    We are standing at the precipice of explorations into VR.

    I was originally hoping to be able to exploit the usage of the giant MOCAP stage at FIEA. However, One of the most important elements, getting the track data to the game has to be solved yet. I was hoping to use  Vicon pegasus to do the lion’s share of work. However, a week has gone by and I still can’t get the UE4 plugin to work correctly. This has many implications.

    The first of these implications is that we can’t use the tracking on the mocap stage. This would mean we would need to use the Vive’s tracking capabilities. There are some unknowns about this. Out of the box, how large is the range? There is a video where the folks at stress level zero are experimenting with about a ten yard difference between the length of the lighthouses:

    This might work for the iMyth Prototype. However, we would not be able to use props and sets.

    There is also another thought that the lighthouses can be hooked up to create a matrix of light emitters. This video interview with the lighthouse creator, Alan Yates, hints at some of the unlimited opportunity.

    By this video, in concept, there could be an infinite number of lighthouses providing an infinite amount of coverage. Once again we have the same problem of not being able to use props. However, the video also hints that sensors can be placed on objects and the sensors could report their position. This would take some, ‘hacking” to figure out. However, i Imagine some kind of prop/set system could be created.

    There is one final possibility which I know nothing about. There is the possibility we could use the vicon cameras as lighthouse surrogates. That means we could already have an array of lighthouses already in place. Once again, this implies that props and sets could not be tracked.

    Right now, I’m thinking that the best solution will need to be a home brewed variance from Blade to UE4. We would need to abandon pegasus and write our own solution. Could this be done? Vicon thinks it can be done. We now would need to find an engineer to do the work for us.
     

  • Disney Escape Games

    Hoo wee, I’m really excited about this post. This is all about Disney getting into the Escape Game business.

    This opportunity does give further confirmation that iMyth is on the right track.

    While iMyth is not chasing after the escape game market per se, we are pursuing the immersive theme world market which seems to be the evolutionary next step. Escape games 2.0 and beyond!

    Disney has:

    • Immersive Physical experiences
    • Collaboration with multiple participants and groovy interactors

    The only thing they don’t have is variability and randomness. According to their description, “Although this particular event was themed to the idea of “preserving time,” The Escape Challenge can be completely customized and tailored to fit any group’s event theme, message or objective. The specially constructed set is fully mobile and transportable, meaning it can be built and installed in function space available onsite a Disney convention resort or theme park event venue.” This may be an indication the Disney is starting to work customization and variability into the experience as well. Whether or not they are setting the stage for emergent narrative has yet to be seen.

    I really want to check this out.

    Here is the link to Disney Website.

     

  • Tosca AI Engine

    Part of my research and definitely a focus of iMyth is to be a generator of immersive theme world experiences. These experiences are not games but on-going interactions between the participant the current theme world. The theme world evolves and adjusts to ensure a rewarding and enriching experience for the participant.

    With that thought in mind, enter in the Tosca AI engine created by a Canadian company, Evodant. I was turned on to them through the Gammasutra article, How one studio is building game AI to replicate a human storyteller. The article goes on explaining the goals and ideals of Evodant as they create the Tosca AI engine and their new game, Gyre:Maelstrom to show it off. Ultimately Tosca listens to the participant and watches their activities. From these behaviors, the engine creates subtext in which to influence the participant’s experience unique doctored for that individual. This is just the sort of tool, I believe iMyth is working towards. Combined with Grammar based Universes, technology such as this will help shape the experiences of tomorrow.

  • Extended Vive Capability

    I bit the bullet and pre-ordered my Vive yesterday. Now I just need to wait for it to arrive in early April.

    In the mean time I will continue researching adding extended range to the Vive.

    Developers Stress Level Zero are doing just that with the Vive Lighthouse. Evidently, the lighthouse is just a dumb laser and the sensor does all of the work, picking up the laser signal and using the information to calculate position and orientation. These guys at Stress Level Zero experiment around, pushing the limites of the Vive’s ranch. Here are some of their results as posted in the Road to VR article, Developer pushes Valve’s lighthouse tracking to its limits.

    Evidently the lighthouse chain can be strung together. However, as expressed in this video, some hacking may be required:

    This would be very cool to employ a volume of Lighthouse emitters to produce a 3 D Lazer Mocap studio.

     

  • Experiences First!

    A couple of web article have come out over the last couple days which are really inspiring.

    In a few days, Activity on this web site will slow down in favor for the development of the iMyth experience. The iMyth experience is exactly just that, an immersive, theme world experience. This is not a game. This is not a story. However, this doesn’t mean that one cannot derive narrative or a competitive score while immersed in the experience. These are serendipitous bi-products which may occur but are never the primary focus.

    Evidence of this is expressed in the Upload to VR article, What the Billionaire saw in the Void. Instead of focusing on the sensational aspects of the experience, the article focus closer on the experiential side effects. There is a great quote in the article form Curtis Hickman, the lead designer for the experience, “People in The Void don’t want to rush, they want to take their time and absorb the experience,” Hickman said. “The Void is the exact opposite of where the rest of VR seems to be heading. We don’t see ourselves as making games, we see ourselves as making experiences.”

    In an entirely unrelated article, also from Upload to VR, The VR Scene Is Growing and Getting Weirder, there is a very interesting documentary about legendary film maker Phil Tippet and his experience with VR. In A nutshell, the video displayed Tippet encountering the VR media as less of a story telling devise as an experiential generator. In fact, there was a point in the interview where he found it necessary to abandon linear narrative entirely in lieu of the opportunity presented by this new media format.

  • Starcade in Los Angeles

    Here is some more support that the rise of  location based VR environments is upon us.

    In this article from PSFK, A Virtual Reality Arcade Is Coming to Los Angles, a company called Starbreeze Studios is creating an interactive experience to entice interactive game players. They seem to have their own HMD for now which is exciting since this means there is a lot of money being put into the technology out west. Now e have to lure that money, here on the east coast!

  • 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.