Research, Ideas and Proposal

Proposal 

My proposal is to come up with ideas and concepts to create a virtual reality headset that can create further immersion other than 3D sound and vision. A virtual reality that can simulate the feeling from weather and an environment from a game. It could have a way of simulating harmless pain for the player depending on what happens to their character in the game. 

Research

I will be looking in to different projects and experiences that involve immersive interaction using the ideas to apply to a VR headset. I will also be analysing different VR headsets themselves to generate ideas for my own headset design.

Stitches Great Escape 

In Disney World’s Magic Kingdom there is a 4D simulation ride that is based on the beginning of the movie Lilo and Stitch when Stitch escapes from the alien mother ship. The ride has the audience sitting in a circle around the room with their backs against the wall and during the simulation the room is dark with sounds of Stitch, creating the illusion that he is in the vents behind the audience. At times the sound of Stitch gets really loud suggesting he is right behind you with warm air blowing on the back of your neck to simulate he is breathing on you and it smells of specific foods like he has just eaten. When Stitch is in the middle of the room he spits his saliva which confuses the guns pointing at him, but when he spits a spray of water hits the audience.

The Battlefield 3 Simulator

The company “Running In The Halls” based in Huddersfield created the most realistic video game simulator based on the game Battlefield 3 in 2011. The simulation used paint ball guns that triggered to shoot the player when the character in the game was getting shot at.  

The Pain-station

The Pain station was developed in 2001 by two students and it is a interactive version of the game pong found in the video game museum in Germany but losing will inflict pain. Both players have to put one hand on a metal plate while the other hand is on the dial that controls their paddle in the game. The metal plate has two buttons on it that the player must keep pressed while their hand lies flat on the plate. On the screen will be the standard game of pong but if a player misses the ball, coloured power ups appear in a line behind the paddle and then if they miss the ball again and the ball hits one of these power ups the metal plate will cause pain to the hand that rests on it depending on the power up that was hit. The red power up causes a bulb to turn on under the plate burning the players hand, the blue power starts a whip to slash back and forth hitting the top of the hand and finally the green power up sends small amounts of electricity through the metal plate shocking the hand. The first player to remove their hand from the plate letting go of the pressed buttons will lose the game.

  

Playstation VR Headset

The PlayStation VR headset is the one that is considered the most comfortable. To put on it has a adjustable head band that can be pulled to make the head space bigger but goes back to its original shape when let go. This allows the user  to hold it over their head while pulling it so that when they let it go it stops at the shape of the head making it quick and easy to wear. On the front of the headset is five blue lights that the PlayStation camera detects and tracks while on the back of the headset there is another two blue lights that allows the player to look all the way around them. The player is very limited with the PlayStation VR however because they will always have to be in view of the PlayStation camera so sometimes the player might wander away from the camera or the camera can’t detect the lights because the room is too bright.

This type of headset for my concept won’t be ideal because there isn’t enough room on the back part that goes over the players head to add any external features to the device. The headset using light to track would also be a bad idea for external features because if the headset did lost track of the headset it couldn’t send the information to trigger the feature leaving the player with a frustrating experience.  

Oculus Rift

The Oculus Rift is much more expensive than the PlayStation VR but comes with a more reliable technique to track motion. First of all the Oculus Rift uses flimsy plastic that goes over the players head receiving feedback from irritation where wearing the headset is uncomfortable, the PlayStation VR on the other hand uses a solid plastic but layers it with cushioned leather. However the motion tracking is a constant wonder with no interruption because the tracking information comes through the same wire that the information to display the screen does. This gives the player more freedom so they can stand up while playing and also get low to the ground to check under objects like beds or desks in the game. 

Again the design of the headset wouldn’t work for external features because there is no room to attach external devices on it. The idea of motion tracking coming through the wire instead of using light to track might be the way to go because the trigger for the external features need to be constant and accurate to get the best experience.   

Star Wars Rebel Pilot Helmet

The VR headsets out at the moment won’t be suitable for my ideas but looking at the shape and design of the helmets actors would wear in the Star Wars movies seem to be a more feasible starting point. 

Speed Helmet

The speed helmet professional cyclists wear also has a good shape and design for a possible VR headset and it also looks more modern and attracting to my target audience.

VR Prototype

This early VR prototype gives me the idea to give the pieces that stick out at either side a purpose for my idea. Maybe the pieces could shoot water or warm air on to the front of the faces.  

Ideas

Horror Shivers

A head massager inside the VR headset. A head massager when it is pushed on the scalp sends a sensation of shivers down peoples spine and it is known that if someone sees a ghost or there is a disturbing presence near by people get the same feeling. If the game is a horror game that uses ghosts, when the ghost gets near the player it sends a signal to the headset to drop the head massager on the players head to send the shiver down their spine. In a more casual scenario the massager could be used for building tension in any horror game when the player senses something scary is going to happen. 

Warm Climate

A VR headset that takes the shape of one of three helmets above. This is so the helmet goes over the entire back of the head and then having four small heaters on the four quarters of the inside of the headset that discretely warms the air inside the helmet which could simulate the player being in a hot moist rainforest or a desert. It could also simulate someone breathing on the players if something came up behind them.

Water Gun

A VR headset that is similar to the warm climate idea in the term of a helmet shape and on the inside going around the inside of the headset will be little nozzles that spray water on to the player. If the player’s character in a game goes underwater or gets water poured on them the nozzles activate and spray water around the players head. 

Hyperrealities Research

Hyperreality is when there is a perfect blend between reality and fiction to an extent where it is difficult to determine what is real or not.

There are tons of examples of hyperreality especially when it comes to stories used in movies, animations and games.

South Park

A couple of episodes of South Park point out very interesting incidents with hyperreality that could happen if technology advances to a certain point where separating reality from virtual reality is mere impossible.

Series 18 Episode 7 - Grounded Vindaloop

The episode is about Eric Cartman playing a prank on one of the more innocent South Park characters  Butters. Cartman makes his own DIY fake oculus rift virtual reality headset and convinces Butters that it is real and that it works. The clip below is one of the incidents I mentioned that looks at an interesting theory where Butters feels so immersed that he can't tell that he is in the real world (even though he has being in the real world all along but Cartman has told him that he has being transported into a virtual world of his own life) so he starts to cause mischief thinking that there are no consequences. This theory is a perfect example of hyperreality and it could be a possible future if technology advances as fast as it is doing so.



The other incident during the episode happens towards the end where we realise that Cartman pranking Butters is not real and that is the virtual reality of another character, and then that character realises that they aren't in the real world but in a virtual reality of another character. This keeps going until the 4th or 5th character and by then as the viewer you are so confused and don't know what is real or not anymore. The south park team Trey parker and Matt Stone pull off this modern idea of hyperreality to the "tee" because they manage to trick the audience into believing that they don't know what it is real anymore and how they feel because of this is a legitimate reaction from if this actually happened to them. At the point when reality and virtual reality in the South Park universe is a blur the South Park team decide to end the episode with a "thinking outside of the box" trick and the last person to take the virtual reality headset off is the character Stan but this Stan is a live action Stan which means that the whole cartoon was virtual reality and the real real life was reality.



PlayStation VR

PlayStation very recently released their first virtual reality headset before known as "Project Morpheus". Released on the 13th October 2016 PlayStation VR as it is now simply called promises players that they can be realistically immersed in their favourite video game universes through a headset that uses the PlayStation Camera that tracks the players movement by tracking the lights that protrude from the headset itself. The months running up to the headsets release PlayStation showed some interesting advertisements focusing on how the headset can immerse players into the world and the adverts are a great example of Hyperreality as is the purpose of PlayStation VR itself.





Unlike augmented reality where the virtual comes to you in the real world, virtual reality takes the player into the virtual world and both of these PlayStation advertisements try to capture that. Of course virtual reality could work for movies where the user stands in the middle of the action and can look around but eventually they will feel like they are not really there because no one is interacting with them. Now games that use virtual reality is where it will work best because the player will be able to interact with objects and people in the game and the response from these virtual characters  will create the real immersion required for virtual reality.

Idea: Simulating pain and other feelings in VR.

Virtuix Omni

A big question we all have when it comes to Virtual Reality and that is how do we simulate moving around in a VR experience? A man named Jan Goetgeluk also asked himself the same question and started to research and experiment in to finding a solution. Jan continues to find the Virtuix Omni a invention that allows players to safely walk on a treadmill while wearing the Oculus Rift VR headset to simulate the immersion of the game they are playing.



The beauty about this device is it has a treadmill that allows the player to walk 360 degrees so they can move in any direction in the game they are playing. Special shoes must be worn with a sole that matches into the grooves of the treadmill to ensure precise balance and friction which prevents injury. Another idea has being passed around that uses the principle of motion capture to capture the players movement as a whole. Cameras surrounding the player are able to track even more precise movements of the player than just walking. The treadmill on its own only moves the characters in the game when the treadmill is moving not what the player themselves are doing so having the cameras around allows the player to jump or move one leg out in front of the other for the game to recognise what the player wants to do and simulates the same movement in their character.

Idea: Having a device that simulates hot or cold temperatures, wind, rain, even maybe a impact system for when objects touch the player in the game.

MyndPlay

MyndPlay is a UK based company that are experimenting and researching into mind control. This topic is very interesting as we only can imagine this kind of stuff to be real in movies and fictional stories. MyndPlay began using technology that appears to be a simple headband but can measure brain waves depending on what the user thinks about and during the task they are doing at the time.



The showreel shows MyndPlay recording brain activity during various tasks for example a man driving a Mercedes at intense speeds. The data they gathered from these different activities allowed them to invent a way for the user to interact with digital content with their minds. The showreel continues to show a man creating art on a TV screen just by thinking and another case where a man is watching a fight scene from 47 Ronin where he chooses what happens and how the fight turns out just by thinking about it. The headband can track very specific brain waves people create when they think about certain things, it reminds me of finger prints because each and everyone of us can be identified through a very unique pattern in our finger prints and the head band detects very unique brain waves which allow us to interact with our minds. This discovery leaves so many questions about the future: How will the experience in cinema's change? Will we all be able to change what happens in a movie just by thinking about it? Will we ever have to use a mouse or keyboard or a TV remote or even our mobile phones again? When you think about having ultimate privacy inside your minds might also change, imagine if people can then read other people's minds without them knowing. I can imagine if that is the case everyone would have some kind of pin number or password they have to think of before they can proceed.

Resident Evil 7 Demo: Kitchen

One of the first demos for PlayStation VR and the first real horror experience in PlayStation VR. Resident Evil 7: Kitchen Demo presents a very immersive, scary simulation of a women gone mad provoking the player while they are tied to a chair. This reaction video from the members of IGN proves the game does it justice but what happens if we could further the immersion? The idea comes from a similar video where a women says "It would be more scarier if I could feel the pain of getting stabbed" during the part the player gets stabbed in the leg with a knife. This gives me the idea of creating virtual gear that could also simulate feelings from the game's surrounding.




Rooster Teeth's Immersion

Rooster teeth are a company who host web shows and make animations to entertain an audience. Rooster Teeth have a running show called "Immersion" which bring the ideas and mechanics from a video game to reality by performing experiments show what these would look like in real life.


In video games there are at most times objects that can be destroyed very easily and normally have items inside for the player to collect. For example vases in the famous video game The Legend of Zelda are destroyed by the player by picking them up and throwing them to collect rupees the game's currency that lie inside. This episode of Immersion sees the "lab rats" Michael and Gavin put in various rooms full of real life objects that are commonly found in games, where they use weapons and tools to smash them open to find a key which allows them to proceed in to the next room. The experiment is to see if destroying these objects in real life acts in the same manner as when they are destroyed in the games. In most games the player can just touch the object and it shatters but in real life it could take much more effort to get inside crates or vases.