National Film and Television School & Mary Matheson — Immersive Director/Executive Producer and Course Director MA Immersive Storytelling Royal Holloway, University of London

Virtual Reality is viewed using a headset. It completely replaces the real world with an immersive 360 degrees environment. VR can be captured using 360-degree cameras or created using Real Time Game Engines, both of which are covered in this course. 

360 video allows ‘three degrees of freedom’, known as 3DoF. This means you can turn your head up and down, left and right, and look behind you, as well as in front. Real Time Game Engines allow you to create “room-scale” environments where you can move anywhere in the scene – left, right, up and down in a 3D space. This is called ‘six degrees of freedom’, or 6DoF. 

StoryFutures Academy Masterclass: Vicki Dobbs Beck, Executive in Charge, ILMxLAB

VR Headsets Explained

Virtual Reality headsets, also known as head-mounted devices, known by the acronym HMD.

  • Tethered headsets are connected by a cable to act as a PC or video game console. The headset acts as a display for a powerful PC or Gaming console. The most popular tethered VR headsets are HTC Vive, Oculus Rift and Playstation VR. These offer 6DoF experiences. 
  • Stand-alone headsets are not connected to other devices and do not require a PC or console to run. Stand-alone headsets include the Oculus Quest and Quest 2, the Pico and the Lenovo Mirage. Some stand-alone headsets are 6DoF and some are 3DoF. 

Here are links to the most popular Virtual Reality headsets: 

Link to economic forecast: PwC ‘Seeing Is Believing’

Augmented Reality 

The Big Fix Up by Aardman and The Fictioneers 

BBC Civilisations by BBC and Nexus Studios

Depending on what device you have, you should be able to find these AR experience in the Apple App Store or Google Play Store 

https://www.with.in/watch/clouds-over-sidra/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OV0aU-hecfk (unity)

Virtual Reality 

Clouds Over Sidra by The United Nations 

Gloomy Eyes by Arte

You can find these experiences in one of these stores, depending on your VR device: Oculus, Viveport, Steam VR, Playstation VR

The three pillars of WORLD BUILDING

  1. Immersion — feel immersed — suspension of disbelief
  2. Presence — feel you are there
  3. Agency — control of the story or affects  (the balance?? Between leading and being led)

Outlining the user experience (UX) is relevant for any immersive production – AR/VR or MR. It runs through the entire production process from ideation to development, prototyping and testing to pitching and distribution. Everyone on your team needs to know the UX and contribute to it – creator/directors, producers, developers, etc.

The UX starts before and ends after the experience itself.

Onboarding: This is where your audience might put on a headset, or walk into a location based experience. They need to know what they are doing (both technically and in terms of the story). What is their role? What are they expected to do in this experience?

The Experience: map out the timing, pacing and visual scene for the experience. Each scene or interaction is outlined along with what the viewer or user will be seeing, hearing and doing at that moment.

Decompressing: what happens after the experience finishes? What do you want your user to do? Do you want them to debrief? Do they need time to ask questions or take in what they have just experienced?

Important questions to ask yourself about the user:

  • What is your intention/goal? What do you want people to take away from the experience?
  • What is the user’s role in the experience?
  • How are they guided through the experience?
  • What is the audience interaction (haptics, controllers, branching narrative)?
  • What do you want the audience to think, feel and do and how do you create that?

There are several techniques you can use to pre-visualise your idea:

  • Storyboard on paper using the PDF template provided below. (Print out the PDF and sketch your scenes).
  • Build a scene using Lego to create your 3D world
  • Use post-it notes to map out the scenes of your concept, using different colours to represent sound, visuals and interactivity
  • Create a visual outline using Miro software
  • Make a moodboard with Pinterest or Padlet

Before you begin, ask yourself:

  • What’s your story?
  • What do you want to say?
  • Who is this for?
  • Who is your audience?
  • What’s the best XR technique for your experience?

5 Websites to Visit 

5 Podcasts to Check Out 

===END OF PART 1

Location: Online training