“Academy Award-winning creative developer Johannes Saam explains what is and isn’t Virtual Reality.”
The generation of new virtual reality technologies and some immersive experiences are happening at a quite faster pace that many of the people still don’t find a grasp of what actually Virtual Reality is.
“The visual effects guru Johannes Saam explained that- a lot of the time, the terms ‘virtual reality,’ ‘augmented reality’ and ‘360-degree video’ are mixed up and used interchangeably, which is not entirely correct.”
In this world, if someone who is capable of clearing up misconceptions that are associated with VR, it no one other than Saam.
This ultimate Academy Award-winning creative developer has been at the visual effect of the world for more than a decade. His work has been capable enough of carrying viewers everywhere from post-apocalyptic Australia in Mad Max: Fury Road to the mythical home of the Norse gods in Thor.
However, he is now working as the senior creative developer at one of the most popular and internationally renowned visual effects company, Framestore, where he is found deploying his expertise in running projects based on the VR gamut.
It is expected that by the end of the year 2017, the Virtual Reality industry will be at a position of $7 billion, and over the later four years, this scale is expected to rise in tens. Regardless of its skyrocketing growth, Virtual Reality is a continuously progressive and evolving Wild West technology that is still out of the understandings of many people.
Being an enthusiastic professor of VR, Saam states- the similarities and differences between single viewpoint 360-degree video, immersive VR experiences and the real world overlays of augmented reality (AR).
360-Degree Video: Drug to VR
Though 360-Degree Video is not as immersive as VR or AR on the domain of virtual experiences, it supplies a unique purpose.
These 360-Degree Videos fall into two major categories: monoscopic and stereoscopic videos.
The monoscopic videos can be viewed on the platform like YouTube and are navigated using a mouse. ON the other hand, the stereoscopic videos need a VR headset and are navigated by looking from side to side or up and down.
While streaming a 360-degree video, like the one that Saam helped Facebook with, to create earlier this year using the Surround 360 camera, the user can undoubtedly explore an entire world, but just from the from the speck in space chosen by the filmmaker. Moreover, this limitation isn’t preventing the 360-degree videos being a setup from videos shot using classical cameras.
Saam stated- “They have the potential to be immersive because rather than looking at a video on a flat screen, you’re getting transformed into an experience.”
The struggles like the Intel True VR Game of the Week employ a Samsung Gear VR headset app for bringing up the Major League Baseball fans into the operation. With this, the fans can see the game from the players’ perspective by selecting up to four camera angles for each game they play. These can also be watched by a produced VR broadcast experience.
The Computer-Generated World of Virtual reality
For those that are not content with the passive experiences provided by 360-degree videos, its high time to step into VR.
Saam explained that Virtual reality picks up where the 360-degree video ends. “Not only can you rotate your head in a swivel, equipment actually moves around in the space, either by teleportation or by physically moving.”
The VR requires the user to wear a headset or head-mounted display (HMD). Counting on the experience, the users might also need other equipment like handheld game controllers, haptic feedback devices or room scale sensors.