iMyth

Tag: Immersive Theme-worlds

  • Meet Tickle: The First iMyth Hero—A Trickster with a Heart of Gold

    Meet Tickle: The First iMyth Hero—A Trickster with a Heart of Gold

    What if laughter was a weapon? What if teasing could be an art form? What if the power of playfulness could change the world? Meet Tickle—iMyth’s first Hero, and a force to be reckoned with.

    Tickle bends reality with her own invention: tickle bending—a mysterious skill that makes people feel like they’re being playfully tickled, without ever being touched. Sassy, fearless, and sharp-witted, she turns every encounter into a game, using humor and mischief to outsmart even the toughest opponents. But beneath her cocky bravado lies a heart searching for something deeper—significance, connection, and a way to rise above her past.

    Born Thi Beiphong, Tickle’s early life was shaped by comparison—overshadowed by her sisters’ brilliance and abandoned by the people who should have loved her most. She reinvented herself, crafting a skill no one else could master, carving out an identity that was truly her own. Now, as the go-to problem-solver in the city’s underworld, she walks a fine line between chaos and heroism. She may be a trickster, but her ultimate goal? To make the world a little brighter, one laugh at a time.

    Tickle isn’t just a character—she’s an experience. And soon, through iMyth Heroes, you’ll be able to meet her yourself. Ready to step into her world and see what tricks she has up her sleeve? Join the adventure today.

  • 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.

  • 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

  • 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.

  • 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.

     

  • 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.

  • 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.

     

  • 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.