Inside an exhibition hall in Vancouver’s East Convention Centre, about 30 feet away from a colossal 11-storey cruise ship that eclipsed the building, I experienced a new, different marvel of human engineering — virtual reality. Hosted by Vancouver’s Archiact Interactive, a full service virtual reality studio, CVR 2016 (Consumer Virtual Reality exhibition) provided consumers like myself with a glimpse of the future, one where our notions of entertainment, education, journalism and technology are completely transformed. With over 2,000 people streaming through the exhibition doors to explore this new technology, the event was an indisputable success and a clear indication that Vancouver is capable of fostering this growing industry.
The incredible turnout for CVR 2016 appeared to be both a marvel and an obstacle. While the public and the exhibitors alike were amazed by the ceaseless flow of people, the event seemed noticeably unprepared for it. The endless line for registration could give Best Buy on Black Friday a run for its money, an inevitable consequence of only having three registration desks for a crowd of 2,000. The story inside was quite similar. Demo lines, even the ones for small booths, took in excess of an hour, with the popular VRstudios motion-capture shooting game supposedly clocking a mind-boggling four hour wait for a 10 minute demo. However, the people attending were utterly unfazed. There was some cheerful conversation during registration about what might be in store for them that afternoon, and inside everyone eagerly awaited their turn for whatever world they were about to enter. The exhibitors too were tireless in their passion and dedication towards making sure everyone enjoyed their few minutes of immersion.
From a technological perspective, the exhibition was no less impressive. Exhibitors displayed the latest in VR technology and notable panelists presented insightful discussions about VR design, entertainment, education, journalism and the future of the technology. I got to try out the HTC Vive and its famed motion-capture system — which was by far the most riveting experience of the evening — along with the Oculus Rift, Gear VR and numerous games, apps and other forms of immersive entertainment. It was impossible to watch all the panel discussions, but the ones I did see were stellar, providing meaningful information about the industry, applications and how our lives will be influenced by VR in the near future.
The virtual reality industry is currently comprised largely of different forms of games and entertainment, but the event made a noteworthy effort of encouraging its smaller applications such as education, commerce and journalism. This resulted in an exceptionally versatile event that Archiact is sure to set as the foundation for future CVR conventions.
Games
Virtual reality is a still a developing industry. While the technology has the potential to be applied to a variety of fields, the entry market is mainly games and entertainment. As a result, most of the booths in CVR 2016 featured immersive games, much to the avail of the hundreds of kids scampering around the exhibition hall.
The big ticket items were VRstudios’ Barking Irons, a wild west shootout played in a six-by-six meter motion-capture zone; Cloudhead Games’ The Gallery: Call of Starseed, a role-playing game where you play Alex, a character looking for your missing sister; and a variety of compelling games published by the host, Archiact Interactive. There were countless other smaller publications, including the National Film Board of Canada’s Cardboard Crash, which explores the complicated issue of ethics behind AI decision-making in a charming-but-allegorical way.
CVR 2016 was my first time dabbling in the world of VR, and the immersive experiences were far better than I had imagined, though none came close to the remarkably breathtaking adventure of being Alex in Cloudhead Games’ ’80s-inspired game The Gallery. My 15 minute demo, which I had to schedule a staggering six and a half hours in advance, began with a short tutorial on moving and grabbing objects using the two Vive controllers, which was demonstrated in this Tron-like virtual arena where I smashed luminescent glass bottles on cement pillars. I vividly remember spending the first minute just staring down, watching myself curl my robotic hands into fists repeatedly. My physical movement was tracked by two incredibly precise motion sensors, allowing my VR avatar to instantaneously respond to my walking, jumping, crouching or any sort of physical movement — believe me, I put it through an arduous test. Moving large distances, however, was accomplished through an established teleportation trick that was enhanced and seamlessly integrated into The Gallery by the team at Cloudhead Games.
The moment the actual game began was quite astonishing. The bewildering sensation of looking around and comprehending this strange world I was thrust into was awe-inspiring. Soon after, I heard the voice of a young girl and in that instant, I became Alex, wandering a derelict environment looking for my missing sister.
Thanks to the astonishingly precise motion-tracking technology courtesy of HTC, my interactions with objects in the game felt very natural, very real. One of my first interactions in the game was picking up a tape-recorder, then using my other hand to pick up a cassette and inserting it into the recorder. While it’s an innate procedure in everyday life, recreating this feeling in VR is quite difficult, especially to a degree where it feels so natural.
While high-quality graphics are key to immersion in virtual reality, my short experience playing the game made me realize that a deeper form of immersion was achieved through its purpose. In The Gallery, my goal as Alex was to unravel the mystery behind my missing sister. It’s with this purpose in mind that solving all the puzzles and piecing together all the hints becomes a self-fulfilling, emotional experience. Being immersed in The Gallery reminded me of my experience playing The Last of Us, where the technological excellence of the game was enriched by the emotional attachment I formed with the characters. It was only a 15-minute demo, but I believe The Gallery has achieved that narrative distinction, which I hope is continued throughout Episode 1 and the remainder of the series.
Education
Over the last few years, a number of companies have entered the education market by providing schools with packaged educational content, VR tools to pursue topics of interest in a flexible environment, as well as instructor training. Numerous studies, research publications and articles have attested for virtual reality’s immersive experience being significantly beneficial to students and users as a form of learning. As the technology develops it is sure to offer schools, universities and research institutions a new dimension for education.
At CVR 2016, the principal advocator of VR education was foundry10, a non-profit research organization that studies learning based in Seattle. Self-described as the catalyst for the development and implementation of ideas that enhance creativity and learning experiences, the team at foundry10 strives to understand how people learn and what learning should look like. More importantly, they provide the tools and opportunities to children and teens to pursue topics of interest and create things of value. Their research and outreach programs cover a diverse range of topics, from robotics and virtual reality to hip-hop dance.
Lisa Castaneda, CEO of foundry10, and her team are currently running a pilot VR program in six different schools, researching the implementation and use of VR in the classroom setting. In addition, the organization will be running an experimental study exploring learning in VR versus traditional learning. The company is extremely interested in virtual reality’s potential to enhance learning in everyday classroom settings, and it holds high hopes for the growth of the industry.
I got the chance to speak to Tom Swanson and Colin Katagiri, two members of the foundry10 team who discussed education in VR as panelists during the conference. They described the various student-focused programs they are running from the implementation models they’re testing, to the ground feedback they’re receiving from teachers and students. It’s still a work in progress, but so far they are very optimistic about VR’s potential and its impact on education around the world.
Journalism
VR provides a new, exciting medium to watch and experience journalistic media. At CVR 2016, I watched a short clip from Hidden in Plain Sight, a documentary co-created by UBC’s International Reporting Program and VICE News that aims to explore the issue of migration and HIV in Chile.
The clip was only about three to five minutes long, but it feels significantly longer once you're immersed in the Chilean landscape. I’ve watched my fair share of documentaries with somber themes and grim circumstances, but the riveting experience through VR was something else. I felt like I was walking the streets of Chile with an invisibility cloak, through hospitals and villages and homes of Chilean residents. I could see them, tormented by pain and misery, but they could not see me. It invoked a heightened sense of sorrow and sympathy and other feelings I find difficult to describe. The interviews with the Chilean victims, too, felt much more personal and intimate.
From my short taste of VR journalism, I hypothesized that the key to this medium of storytelling is to let the audience explore it themselves, let them witness the events rather than imposing a rigid direction. I believe that for it to be most effective, it must be treated differently than traditional film, with new techniques and trains of thought designed for immersive storytelling.
My infant conjecture, speculated minutes after my first experience, was later endorsed and more eloquently illustrated by Taylor Owen, assistant professor of digital media and global affairs at UBC. As part of a three-person panel including Maria Lantin, director at the S3D Centre, and Alexandra Samuel, contributor for Harvard Business Review, Mr. Owen discussed VR as a medium for journalism, its ramifications and its capabilities.
“With other forms of journalism, the act of representation is transparent. In VR, it’s a little different. You are trying to trick the user into thinking they’re there. You are trying to immerse them in a place they otherwise would not be able to experience. That presents a whole bunch of ethical considerations because these scenes are highly constructed,” Mr. Owen clarified in a statement to The Globe and Mail.
Mr. Owen’s research explores the new narrative form for virtual reality, but also examines the core journalistic questions the medium challenges. He, and countless others, recognize the astounding potential for journalism in virtual reality. Despite predicting that it will only play a minor role in the VR ecosystem, encourages users and journalists to fully utilize this immersive medium.
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CVR 2016 was a wondrous success. The combination of immersive demonstrations and informative presentations were an excellent way to both dazzle and educate the enthusiastic audience. The logistical issue of lengthy lines is reasonable considering that this was the first event hosted by Archiact on this scale and the incredible turnout was justifiably unanticipated. Archiact has shown that Vancouver can influence the global virtual reality industry and it will be immensely exciting to see the growth and progress of virtual reality in CVR 2017.