What
is virtual reality and what should it be?
Virtual
reality is a make believe place that does not exist in a physical sense but within
a computer generated three dimensional environment allowing the user or
player to interact and explore within the virtual site as a low cost function
with side benefits. In a virtual setting a side benefit can make a tedious
task to be simpler such as online food shopping, with a few clicks all foods
can be ordered within a few minutes and delivered to your door. In business a
virtual office would be able to hold a staff meeting without the need of a
large room, all staff would be able to dial in with their phones and
computers. Virtual shops can be open 24 hours a day and offer thousands of
products online cheaper because the overheads are minimised to be only the
warehouse, no staffing or shop rentals. In essence virtual reality should
make things simpler, faster, safer, cheaper, and save you time.
Virtual
reality of today has now moved far ahead of the simple way of the VIEW MASTER
in the late 1930s. As technology advances so do our virtual reality systems,
it opens the endless potentials and possibilities to explore new ways of
gaming and even new ways of storytelling. Yet the human race has a long way
to go to get to that point. Given that virtual reality (VR) is primly aimed
at the gaming community and military warfare research. The storytelling has
changed from Films and motion captures and have adapted into VR technology
systems to give the player or film viewer more of and exciting, visual
experience and understanding of the environments that they may be working in
or even training with out the risk of real word hazard.
Immersive surroundings
enclose a player such that all they recognize is a part of a new world. Long before
the central processing unit or personal computer, oral storytellers fashioned
new virtual and immersive worlds all the time. Audiences still become wrapped
up in the story world, seeing all of the facts, making associates between the
events in the story and their own lives. Hence, in a virtual reality atmosphere
that uses story, the player is even more immersed. Knowing more about how a
participant is immersed in narrative would allow a virtual reality designer
to work more efficiently.
(Reference 1, 2, 3)
This essay
examines three aspect of virtual reality, narrative technology and the future
of Virtual reality games. This contributes very much to an player sense of
interest in the VR encounter. These fundamentals also plan out well from oral
storytelling to new forms of media and many VR applications.
What
virtual reality should do is take the fundamentals of a real setting and make
it feel real, the customer would be able to do more with less, making the
experience enjoyable. However in gaming the virtual environment is more for
leisure and fun so the experience becomes more memorable rather than job
satisfaction. In a game a person becomes aware that they are in an artificial
world and accordingly adjust their virtual character behaviour to progress
into the new world.
(Reference 6, 7, 8, 9)
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Story
telling is a form of communication and it is how people share their ideas,
their thoughts, and their experiences to each other. Story telling has been done
by many cultures going back many centuries, from campfires to classrooms,
from books to radio to films. As the listener of the story they would have to
imagine the scenario from the words of the storyteller, picture the event in their
minds and then capture their experience. In the movies, the cinema would
provide the narrative with its use of a large screen for the visual graphic
and the actors for the viewer to follow, but it lacked the interaction, the
viewer can only follow the movie as the director produced the film. In a virtual
setting the viewer now becomes one of the characters and is now part of the
story, they are now in the middle of a plot, and then they would control
where they go and what they do in equal spectacular visionary forms via the
graphic cards. The interaction between the game and the game player is self-involving,
central to the game player, and providing a pleasurable experience. In a way the virtual reality becomes a
large part of the narrative, the only difference between the virtual
environment and cinema is the means of the display being the big screen
instead of the PC graphics and the interaction from just being a viewer to
being part of the scene in relation to the story.
(Reference 1,
3)
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In
a general sense technology has been evolving ever since the discovery of the
wheel, the wheel was a tool that allowed us to do more in terms of transport
and deliveries. But we also progressed into the printing press, the
telephone, and the internet that in a sense allowed humans to interact all
around the world seamlessly. Technology now days is a fast paced and it is changing
all the time, new hardware that doubles functionality supersedes the old hardware
which was new a few months before that, we can now fit more into less, and new
video cards can do sharper images with more colours, we also have motherboards
with multi cored cpu’s, and so on. Technology has gone far beyond its Y2K bug
to new boundaries that seem infinite, all in the size of an iPhone.
Virtual
reality environments still we have a long way to go because many people still
want virtual reality to be the future of gaming and simulations. The virtual
reality system is only now being introduced to us as a new gaming experience, such as with the Sony
Oculius Rift – a 3 dimensional head display. But most up to date virtual
reality environments are displayed either on a computer screen or with
special head mount display, and some simulations include additional speakers
or headphones targeted towards VR users. Even some advanced systems now
include tactile information, generally known as force feedback in medical, gaming and military applications.
Furthermore, virtual reality covers remote communication environments, which
provide virtual presence of users with the concepts of Skype (tele-presence)
and being able to interact with the remote environment.
The simulated environment can be similar to the real world in order to
create a life like experience for example, in simulations for pilot or combat
training or it differs significantly from reality, such as in VR games.
(Reference 4, 6, 9)
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The
future of Virtual reality games: From humble beginnings such as the two-dimensional ping-pong from the
early 70’s to the now World Of War craft, it is hard to predict where the
future of virtual reality will lead us into.
The one thing we should expect is a three dimensional
feature into the arena, to entice the general public into the three
dimensional aspect such as the Oculus Rift or Microsoft “HoloLens”, it will have
to be mainstream and affordable.
An alternative to 3 dimensional headsets, game
developers would enable their games to use secondary screens to give the
player a wider view of the game that will add to the effect to the player.
I imagine people will expect more true to life
graphics showing the perspiration of a characters face with the sweat marks running
down a persons face as he leans to take a shot at the threatening alien with
the Sun glaring into his eyes. All of this with the matching true sound of a
sniper rifle gun firing into the sunset. (Reference 5, 9)
I can see secondary gaming devices becoming more
relevant in the gaming world as they can aid in the experience of playing
games by its inbuilt screen showing a map or your inventory relating to your
game in a seamless fashion without leaving the game field. The secondary
device would also allow you to stop playing on the primary screen and then
allow you to continue playing on its secondary. The secondary device could be
your mobile phone interacting with your gaming unit.
Games will also need to be affordable, open source
games will allow game developers to build and sell their games cheaply for a
market share into the games arena. It may not have the graphic and sound
quality but it has the potential to provide leisure at a lower cost to the
consumer.
Augmented reality is another possibility for gamers
where it will allows your mobile phone to take in your surrounding areas and
virtualise a gaming concept such as skirmish.
Cloud gaming will be a place where consumers will be
able to buy, play, and update their games from a cloud server via a stable
internet connection. The scope of Cloud Gaming will cover computers and
mobile devices, the actual game is stored and played on the Clouds server,
the results of the game is streamed over the internet onto customers device.
I
believe soon we will be able to have access to these Virtual reality systems
where we can see a different parts of the world or universe, or even playing
games and watching films. This technology might be the next big thing to come
out and revolutionized the way we interact with in games, movies and
knowledge.
(Reference 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9)
By
Christopher Kralevski
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Reference
(Towards a narrative theory of Virtual Reality, By Sandy Louchart, Ruth Aylett)
(Defining Virtual Reality: Dimensions Determining
Telepresence, By Jonathan Steuer, October 15, 1993)
(MOTOROLA LABS/HUMAN INTERFACE LABS, BY KEVIN BROOKS)
(VR storytelling wars begin, but
will anyone be watching?, By Justin Cone, JANUARY 30, 2015)
(Future
of Gaming: 5 Exciting Emerging Trends, By Michael Poh)