Visualise heads to LA for Oculus Connect

Well, we’ve just had our minds blown at Oculus Connect in LA, trying the new Oculus Rift prototype – Crescent Bay. The device has the same/similar resolution to the Samsung Gear VR, built in Audio (less wires) and crucially, the largest field of positional tracking to date.

The positional tracking on this device is even enabled if you are looking away from the camera, unlike on the DK2. So we could stand up, in front of the tracker and have a full 1.5m cubed field of movement. This meant we could crouch down to virtual models on the floor and peer in to them or move around a ‘life size’ alien. Most stunning of all for me was an example of a battle scene in slow motion, you were moving through explosions on a street scene with shrapnel flying and incredibly bullets that you could dodge by swaying out of the way, a la the Matrix!

This headset and the demos provided by Oculus gave me my first experience of the elusive ‘presence’ (the feeling of actually being somewhere else, forgetting reality), it’s a truly incredible device capable of delivering a mesmerising experience.

While the positional tracking is an incredible feature it is going to be while until we can utilise it in VR Video, we inherently have to shoot the content from a single position which means leaning with the headset can’t give you the view from another position that you would expect – this can only be done 3D models or by 3D scanning an environment. Very much reducing the ability to capture dynamic scenes.

So the Crystal Cove headset is incredible in many ways, and will be an ideal demo kit for putting clients in experiences, places and events that we shoot but it will be some time until Video VR can use it to it’s full potential.