Virtual Reality is the future! But when is the future?
Virtual Reality is Booming, in Slow Motion
A Very Promising Media
2016 was expected to be a cornerstone for consumer Virtual Reality adoption. Indeed, 5 million Samsung Gear VR were shipped, a few million premium headset (Oculus Rift, PS VR, and HTC Vive) were sold, and millions or dozens of millions of cheap Google Cardboard and alike headsets found a home. A conservative estimate gives at least 10 million VR equipped users.
The Chicken and Egg Problem
Set The Creation and Experience of Immersive VR Contents Free
The success of Snapchat — and Instagram — “Stories” as well as of Facebook Live Videos demonstrates the tremendous public interest in contents created and published on the go, as they generate unmatched proximity with their creator.
We believe that it is possible right now to not only attract more regular users of Virtual Reality but also to create Virtual Reality experiences that are deeply human. All we have to do is let anyone, anonymous or star, artist or editorial author, become “present” for an audience in immersive virtual experiences, even with the cheapest headsets. This is the double experience of LiveHumanVR.
A good Metaverse first needs to be filled with real people.
LiveHumanVR Experiences
I am a LiveSpectator
Some kind of glitter floats in the room and adds charm to the scene. A shiny particle of dust virtually tickles my nose. I’d almost forget that Lady Gaga is sitting in front of me at a piano. She looks at me. “Hey, LiveSpectator! Tonight I’d like to start with a whole new song. Then, as usual, we’ll decide together which songs to sing along.” By summoning the navigation menu, I can see that there are 32 455 other LiveSpectators, but it really feels as if Lady Gaga was performing exclusively for me.
20:56, I’m singing Poker Face along with Lady Gaga and the 5 478 other LiveSpectators who opened their mike. I feel a pat on my shoulder. My roommate is home, he politely suggests that I move the massacre to my bedroom. Without the chorus effect, I can’t deny that my performance isn’t as inspiring as it felt. The meeting was almost over anyway, let’s have dinner. Before going to bed, I discover the LiveShow of a historian who tells anecdotes of the antiquity in the 3D reconstitution of a Roman temple. Interesting, but I’m exhausted. I add him to my favorites to catch his replays and next meetings. Tomorrow, I’m meeting with Mark Zuckerberg. He hosts LiveSpectators every month to answer questions from the community. One of the issues I submitted is in the top 10 and will probably be on the agenda.
I am a LiveShowrunner
Almost time. I install my foldable green screen. I put my webcam in position. I switch on the spotlight that I recently installed to improve the quality of my projection. I stand in front of my webcam, check the framing n my smartphone. All set, 23 persons are already waiting for me. I click on “Start LiveShow.”
The show went well. Some interesting questions that allowed me to further dig into the subjects. I’m going to go through the slides again to check the public reactions and answer questions that I may have missed. I’ve been invited tomorrow for a meeting “in real life” with other LiveShowrunners from London. There will be other teachers and speakers, but also comedians, singers, and sports commentators. They told us to expect a surprise. Word is Daft Punk would be planning a giant LiveShow, and wish to discuss it with experts…
Daft Punk in my VR Headset? Now we’re talking.
Let’s do it? What to prototype?
Isn’t everyone already working on this?
It is possible of course that a studio somewhere is working on developing something like that. But this angle on VR is clearly not the most common. Most public experiences, published or in production, focus whether on creating full virtual experiences or on capturing VR record of real events or places.
The mix of virtuality and reality that we envision for LiveHumanVR could be confused with Augmented Reality. It’s actually the opposite. With LiveHumanVR, the real element (the human) is integrated into a virtual environment whereas with Augmented Reality virtual elements are incorporated into real environments.
Oculus Rooms from Facebook is a great experience of presence in Virtual Reality. But it aims to tackle reciprocal presence where LiveHumanVR focuses on unilateral presence. In the current state of technology, reciprocity requires digital reconstruction of protagonists. The artistic choice of cartoon-like avatars demonstrates that realistic reconstruction is not possible in a scalable way.
So you say that technology is not ready?
Which brings us to the keystone of LiveHumanVR concept: a relatively low-tech unilateral projection that makes the experience plausible without any technical breakthrough, just by combining existing technologies.
The cut-out human in 2D video
Convincingly realistic human projections become “easy” to capture, cut out, and broadcast live, along with activation triggers of animations pre-loaded in the LiveSpace.
Think of cardboard cut-outs and the way they can trick you from the right angle. Now imagine them moving and talking.
Prototyping the “presence” feeling
You can contribute to the project if…
- You work at Oculus, or another developer of Virtual Reality Platform and/or hardware (Sketchfab?) and have comments on our market analysis, or ideas to help us move forward.
- You develop virtual environment from dawn to dusk and wish to help to build the prototype or more.
- You are well versed in live video and have comments or advice on broadcasting and embedding a live cut-out video.
- You project yourself as a LiveSpectator, or LiveShowrunner and have feedbacks for us.
Leave a comment and contact us!
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