Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/863766
j u ly . a u g u s t 2 0 1 7 c g w 4 7 decades, however, we are going to grow accustomed to virtual and mixed realities in our everyday lives. Bolas has been given the nickname "the godfather of VR" by his peers. He is generally acknowledged as the most significant pio- neer of research into virtual reality, analyzing the issues of representing a consistent 360-degree computer-generated environ- ment that the brain would find believable. These days, Bolas describes himself as "a researcher exploring perception, agency, and intelligence." He is director of the Mixed-Real- ity Laboratory at USC's Institute for Creative Technology. He is also associate professor of interactive media at USC's School of Cinematic Arts, and cofounder of Fakespace, which builds tools used by VR centers. Bolas's VR breakthrough came in 1988, when, as a student working on his Stanford design thesis, he received a place in NASA's VIEW program, where the earliest efforts to design the related hardware and soware were under development. According to Bolas, it was here, with the VIEW program, when the story of VR really began to take hold. One could be forgiven for thinking that Oculus Ri was a major breakthrough in the development of VR. Aer all, Facebook paid upward of $2 billion for the company, but in fact much of the relevant hardware and soware had been in development for some time at USC, in Bolas's department. It was, and still is, open source, free for anyone who wants to make use of it. "From my perspective, the real break- throughs in reducing motion sickness and making VR accessible to a wide audience were about finding a way to do a wide field of view, with phone displays and with inertial tracking," says Bolas. The wide field of view was the key to giving the viewer a convincing "immersive" experience. The seminal moment for the USC researchers, in Bolas's estimation, was their discovery in 2012 of the UltraOptix 7x aspheric lenses, which provided a 90-de- gree field of view (FOV), the minimum need- ed for VR immersion. Alongside this was the Fakespace Labs' Wide5 HMD, which actually provided a 120-degree FOV – more than has since been achieved by any of the consumer HMDs so far. Experimentation established that a 90-degree FOV was sufficient to create a convincing VR experience. The ambition was to disrupt the indus- try by making VR affordable so everyone could enjoy it. For this reason, USC's R&D work in the field is available for free, as open source. The concept was catching the imagina- tion of many, not least Palmer Luckey, who, in 2011, following publication of the lab's work on the smartphone HMD, went to work at Bolas's lab at USC. He was part of the team that came up with the FOV2GO Models A and D cardboard prototype, and Bolas suggested that Palmer utilize a Kick- starter campaign to further the concept. The rest, as they say, is history. This is only a brief overview of a long and arduous process taking place over the last 30 years. Bolas and his many collaborators at his Mixed-Reality Lab (including USC Professor Perry Hoberman, an expert in the field of stereoscopy, and Thai Phan, MxR's resident development engineer) were caught up in the excitement of research. But the rest of us might ask, what good is it? We can see the marvel of it, the fun, but in this world, the problem is always how to make it work for the consumer. How VR will become a consumer must-have (and it is surely destined to achieve that status) is for the entrepreneurs of the market to test and the consumers to decide. Virtual Reality The potential for VR in entertainment is already being exploited. Games, that major arena of innovation since the earliest days of CG, are bound to make great use of it – aer all, gamers obviously enjoy immersing themselves in virtual worlds. Dramas, com- edies, thrillers… in fact, all forms of acting entertainment are a different story, as it may be more complicated to adapt an offering in this space to the uncertainties of a 360-degree environment. One problem writers and designers are wrestling with is how to focus the audience on a particular scene of action. Another ma- jor consideration is how to accommodate all the possible scenarios as the audience wanders freely through the world of the movie – an issue already encountered by narrative game developers. At the very least, one must consider the vast amounts of data involved: The visuals and voice tracks that must be stored, sorted, and transmitted, not to mention created in the first place. Is a viable market in sight? nDreams nDreams is a game development company founded in 2006 by CEO Patrick O'Luan- aigh and now focusing on HMD apps. Its offices are in Farnborough, England, not far from London. "We've done many brainstorms about where VR could go and what would be interesting, and you end up with pieces of paper that could cover a whole wall," LOW-COST HMDS (LEFT) HAVE SPARKED AR, VR, AND MR DEVELOPMENT. RIGHT: NDREAMS' VR "GUNNER" GAME.