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Wevr: The virtual reality studio you need to know
It's pronounced "weaver." And you might not be familiar with it now, but the LA-based virtual reality outfit is quietly positioning itself as the backbone of the industry. With one foot firmly planted in the production side of the business (the studio's recent slate includes Sports Illustrated's swimsuit issue) and the other in distribution, Wevr is primed for the impending mainstreamification of virtual reality. So when the public eventually goes gaga over VR goggles, Wevr will be right there, ready to deliver that content.
'Star Wars' and the coming holographic cinema revolution
"AR is going to hit us like a big bang," says ILMxLab creative director John Gaeta when I ask him whether augmented reality, as that holographic technology is known, has been undervalued by the public and press. "We're just trying to point out right from the beginning that there will be a form of AR that will be as hi-fidelity as the cinema that you see at some point. I can't say what year that'll be. But at some point, we'll have intimate holo-experiences with performance and things like that."
Nokia president talks Ozo and the company's big VR bet
"We had some projects in augmented reality. We had projects in the camera. We had projects in head-mounted displays," says Nokia Technologies president Ramzi Haidamus, speaking to Engadget at the Sundance Film Festival about the company's virtual reality pivot. "We had projects all over the ecosystem, so to speak. And it was a combination of: How good are we technically? How well are we protected from an IP perspective? And finally, where is the area where we're going to get the biggest advantage from the time to market?"
Funny or Die makes a fart joke in VR
The news itself sounded like a joke: Funny or Die, the irreverent comedy video site created by the likes of Will Ferrell, among others, was to premiere its first-ever virtual reality short at the Sundance Film Festival. Except this wasn't some Onion-style spoof headline; it was very much true. The piece, Interrogation, debuted last Friday on Gear VR at Samsung Studio, a pop-up VR lounge the company installed in Park City, Utah, for the duration of the festival. It stars Paul Scheer and Rob Huebel, faces better known for their work on FX's The League, as two cops trying to get to the bottom of a heinous crime. It is, in essence, an extended and immersive fart joke.
The future of entertainment's taking shape on a flying whale
When Alex McDowell tells me he's considering using virtual reality as "a new kind of literacy," as a way to educate using real science, it's clear that I'm dealing with a visionary. We're sitting beside The Leviathan Project, his "research project" that's taking temporary residence at the Sundance Film Festival's New Frontier exhibit, and dissecting the shifting parameters that define this brave new media world. McDowell's a film industry veteran who's worked on production design with the bold-faced names that've directed some of cinema's most unforgettable blockbusters. From the likes of David Fincher with Fight Club to Terry Gilliam with Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas and Steven Spielberg's Minority Report, McDowell's had a hand in guiding our imagination and steering our conception of the future for several decades.
How one illustrator forced Oculus Story Studio to redraw VR
During preproduction on its latest virtual reality short, Dear Angelica, Oculus Story Studio found itself in a peculiar situation: The chosen art style, illustration, had necessitated a design pivot. Rather than scan and rebuild the drawings of illustrator Wesley Allsbrook in CG -- a time-consuming process the studio felt would dilute her artistic voice -- the team needed a brand-new tool, one that would let Allsbrook draw directly within VR. And so engineer Inigo Quilez created just that. The end result is Quill, a new VR illustration tool that's evolving along with production on Dear Angelica and Allsbrook's needs and pushing the medium even further.
The VR arcade of the future will look something like this
I knew I was on solid ground. I knew that no matter if I misstepped, I wouldn't fall hundreds of feet, plummeting to my death in some CG-Egyptian ruin. And yet, I was shaky, desperately reaching out for a handhold to steady myself, unable to calmly place one foot in front of the other as I attempted to cross a chasm bridged by a collection of meager wooden beams.
