#webvr

Unterwasser by Kosmischer Läufer

from the album The Secret Cosmic Music of the East German Olympic Program 1972-83, Vol. 3 (2015) on Unknown Capability Recordings.

Last week, I realised that I completely forgot to share here a demo project that I made this summer. I had the opportunity to try the Oculus Quest when it came out and liked it so much that I bought it as soon as it came out.

The Quest supports an emerging technology called WebVR, which allows websites to control the headset and render immersive experiences to users without having to install any apps or even leaving the browser.

I’m fascinated with VR which not so long ago was the subject of various sci-fi and cyberpunk novels like Neal Stephenson’s Snow Crash and William Gibson’s Neuromancer. I believe that we’ll be hearing a lot more about VR in the coming years.

Being a programmer, I wanted to try developing a VR experience of my own. I’m a massive fan of The Matrix trilogy and the visuals in the films at the same time, and as it turns out, it lends itself perfectly for testing the waters of VR.

Anyway, here’s a short 3D experience inspired by the movie. If you have a VR set, it should work with it. If not, it will run in your browser in 360-mode on your laptop or phone. Here’s the link:

Inside the Matrix VR

Warning: Includes some abrupt sound effects.

Our first deliverable, the design document, was completed! Much thanks to the team for their hard work and cooperation. 

As I mentioned in the last update, I was making the design comp for the VR side of the ObTrail. Here’s how it turned out:

Though the final product will most likely differ, this is still a good visual representation of what it will feel like to be on the trail. 

Moving on to the second half of this sprint, I took on three tasks that will aid the development of our web page and VR environment. 

Norman

Open source app by James Paterson and Google Creative Lab is a 3D frame-by-frame line drawing animation tool coded with WebVR tech (so can run in-browser):

Artist and coder James Paterson wanted a way to freely animate frame-by-frame in 3D space around him. So he turned to WebVR to create Norman, the open-source VR animation tool he’d always dreamed of. With no prior knowledge of VR coding, James built and refined the tool on a web browser with Javascript. Norman allows James to create and showcase his distinctive VR animations, and shows how artists can create their own VR tools to bring their creative visions to life, right on the web. Watch an animated short made entirely with Norman, view the experience (using cardboard, VR Headsets, or just in your browser), or dig into the code of the actual tool.