The following is a live blog from VRLA#3, the third virtual reality meetup in LA. It was by far the most ambitious meetup to date (basically, a mini conference). The original postings are on the Oculus subreddit. I’ve cleaned the posts up a bit.
Initial impressions from VRLA. Tons of people from what appears to be all walks of life, converging in the deep valley of Los Angeles. Many booths set up with people showing off their games, their inventions, and companies. We have an extensive roster of presentations going from 2:30 to 8 PM. Should be very interesting, and hopefully I’ll get a seat. This thing is mobbed. They have been providing free water though, which I think is pretty decent of them, and they seem to have plenty in stock. Like I said, more to come as the day goes on.
1st presentation: Jaunt talks “The Mission”, their 10 minute short film
Notes:
- more theater than cinema
- long shots, not a lot of cuts
- not a ton of post, what they shoot is what you’re going to see
- 2 day shoot
- used steadicam and tripods
- they actually dropped the camera from a parachute for opening shot (very cool)
- actors are playing to other actors, not a crew or audience
- used 2 360 cameras in most scenes
2nd presentation – Unity 5 VR
Notes:
- more designers than gamers in the audience
- long intro explaining unity, let’s get to the meat of this!
- unite 2014 is a conference for unity, apparently that’s where we have to go to get actual information
- He’s showing how to use unity 5. Think I’m going to check out the booths. Apologies for the snark, it’s very hot in here.
3rd presentation- 3D audio with VR SFX
Notes:
- sound is crucial in VR
- what makes 3D audio (or “audio presence”) — Distance and direction
- who is using 3D audio? Only AAA game development and then only sometimes
- are surround sound and 3D synonymous? No, more clarity in terms of distance and direction
- headphones are better than a surround sound speaker system, bc speakers introduce distance conflicts – the speaker is far from your ear
- most microphones don’t capture spatial cues (place, direction)
- audio should sound like it’s in the same space as you (e.g. Whispering behind you)
- vr experiences should use headphones
- spatial plugins can recreate directional audio when it’s been lost during recording. — GenAudio (guest speaker) now introduces AstoundSound, their spatial audio plugins
OR you can use:
- Binaural recording, or omnibinaural microphones: apparently it is good for recording fast moving sounds – you copy the way your body heard a sound, it has two ears. And you get “spectral color”
- When to use one or the other? If you like analog (like a sound designer) you’ll go with the mic. If you’re a programmer, you want plugins.
- The mic is good for fast moving audio. Low processing For optimum CPU performance.
- Plugins are way cheaper. Sound sources are vertical mobile which the mics haven’t mastered.
Good presentation.
4th presentation is an Unreal demo.
This would be hard to live blog. Also, phone is dying.
5th presentation: Freedom360
The owner showed the various freedom 360 rigs and his impressive 360 videos. His rig and products are well designed. We bought some gear.
6th presentation: DoDoCase
These little cardboard mobile VR viewers were a huge hit today. For $25, you can have an awesome VR experience using your smartphone. They sold out of all their cases within an hour. I’m going to get one when I get home. What a great way to share VR with people without then having to make a huge investment? Most people were gone by this talk. Chris Milk was hanging out and talking with people.
Final thoughts
It was a great day. I talked with a lot of very enthusiastic people. I can’t say that I came out of the meetup with a slew of new information regarding the Rift or VR, but I did get a cool picture of the VR community around Los Angeles. It was way more diverse than expected – All ethnicities and genders, young, old, a great mix. The DoDoCase being so easy and fun to use was a surprise. I came out with a new respect for 3D audio and how powerful it can be when used well inside the rift + headphones. The majority of the rift development and attention is still in gaming. Video is a very small community. But after today we can band together more easily to get over some of these initial workflow issues (shooting, stitching) and hopefully get some cool content out soon.