Blue Angels Airshow in 2022. (Image courtesy Blue Angels.).
The Discovery Grid will host its seventh anniversary party on Saturday, July 1 at the Louisville region, featuring a virtual Thunder Over Discovery 2023 aviation event which will coincide with the real-life Thunder Over Louisville aircraft event, showcasing vintage and modern aircraft in action.
Both grid residents and hypergrid visitors are invited to the experience. The hypergrid address is discoverygrid.net:8002:Louisville.
Arrive early for each session because doors close to prevent possible disruptions as people enter the region. You will also need to set your OpenSim viewer to a shared environment, enable advanced lighting for the full effect, and set your viewer camera and music and sound settings as suggested by the hosts here, to enjoy the sessions at best including scenery with fast-flying aircraft.
Planned are two Thunder Over Discovery showing sessions, one starting at 2.00 p.m. Pacific Time to accommodate the grid’s Euro-zone residents and visitors. The other will take place from 6 p.m. Pacific Time and will cater to the grid’s North and South Americas region residents and visitors.
An hour of DJ music will precede each of the aircraft showing sessions, the first music session hosted from 2.00 p.m. to 3.00 p.m. by DJ Calliope Angel at Club Thunder and the second by DJ Jack Stone from 6 p.m to 7.00 p.m. Pacific Time at the same venue. These two music sessions will feature thunderous music, dance, and light show according to Discovery Grid.
After each of the two DJ music sessions, there will be a vintage airplane wing-walking acrobatics and skydiving airshow for 15 minutes by the Puddle Jumpers, followed by F-22 maneuvers for five minutes, followed by a precision acrobatic and formation flying performance by the Blue Angels for 20 minutes — all with surround sound.
The PyroVR company will then conclude each of the two flying sessions with a pyro-musical fireworks performance for 20 minutes. The fireworks synchronize with a music soundtrack and there will be a new custom effect for this year. Please wear headphones or connect to a surround sound system, and pick a sound HUD to enjoy a precise 3D audio mix.
(Image courtesy Discovery Grid.).
Here are videos of similar performances during the Discovery Grid’s 2022 Anniversary.
Nearly 400 valid responses came in for the Tenth Annual OpenSim Grid Survey, and Craft World received the highest overall scores, followed by Encore Escape, Utopia Skye, and 3rd Rock Grid, in that order.
Craft World, which will turn ten years old on January 27, is not only one of the oldest OpenSim grids but is a non-profit community dedicated to the arts. With around 500 active monthly users and about 200 regions, it is a mid-sized grid with a solid reputation for artistic events and open-source content.
This is the first time in the survey’s history that Craft has taken the top spot.
Overall scores of the 15 grids that had the most responses. (Hypergrid Business data.)
Where do OpenSimmers live and visit?
Between them, the respondents had visited more than 80 different grids and named 50 different grids as their primary homes.
Where do OpenSim users make their home? (Hypergrid Business data.)
Two of the respondents said they split their time evenly between two grids, and I’ve counted them as residents of each.
I also asked our readers about the grids that they had visited.
OSgrid, OpenSim’s largest and oldest grid, was the most visited — 71 percent of our readers had been to that grid. The next most visited was DigiWorldz, at 53 percent, followed by Kitely with 51 percent.
Where do OpenSim users like to travel? (Hypergrid Business data.)
Most residents said they were very happy with their grids — 91 percent would “absolutely” recommend them to others, 7 percent said “maybe” and the rest would not recommend, or did not know.
Would you recommend your grid to others? (Hypergrid Business data.)
Technology, support, community, and content
I did not ask people to compare different grids and tell me which one is better. After all, nobody out there has visited all the grids and tried them all out. Instead, what I do every year is ask people what they think about the grid that they spend the most time on.
Typically, people rate their home grid highly. And that makes sense — after all, that’s the grid they decided to spend their time. That’s why most grids had average responses of “very good” or “excellent” — which I scored as 4 and 5, respectively, when I tabulated the numbers.
As grids get larger, however, they also get more people who are generally discontented. In addition, larger grids may have problems maintaining their technology or support. And, as a result, smaller grids often do very well in these rankings.
You’ll notice that the difference between grids is often a fraction of a percent, so please do not take these results as pure gospel. Plus, with the relatively small number of users we have in OpenSim, the margin of error is high — one highly dissatisfied resident can skew the results quite a bit.
Technology
This year, when our readers were asked how they would grade their grid’s technology, Craft World and Encore Escape tied with perfect scores, followed by Utopia Skye and then Kitely. Those who lived on their own personal grid scored their grid the lowest for technology, which makes sense since they would have to provide their own support.
OSgrid was second to last. OSgrid is the largest OpenSim grid, allows people to connect regions that they host at home, for free, on their own computers, and all of its management is by a team of volunteers. OSgrid is also the testing ground for new OpenSim features and releases. All these factors combined mean that any particular region might be running slowly on a home Internet connection, or be using an older version of OpenSim.
These survey results also only show how users feel about the technology — not about the effort that the grids have put into their platform. Kitely, for example, has done a great deal of work on custom code, in addition to contributing code fixes back to the community. And OSgrid is where the OpenSim developers do their testing. Neither of these contributions are necessarily reflected in the poll numbers.
How readers rated their home grids on technology. (Hypergrid Business data.)
Support
In support, seven grids received perfect scores from their residents — Craft World, Encore Escape, Utopia Skye, Keng City, Discovery Grid, Dorena‘s World and 3rd Rock Grid.
OSgrid scored lowest, but, again, the grid is all volunteer-run and regions are hosted on home computers. And there’s only so much that volunteers can do to help since everybody’s home computer and networking configuration is different.
How readers rated their home grids on support. (Hypergrid Business data.)
Community
For community, Dorena’s World and Encore Escape both had perfect scores, followed closely by 3rd Rock Grid and Keng City.
How readers rated their home grids on community. (Hypergrid Business data.)
“My personal grid” had the lowest score for community, for obvious reasons. Okay, if it’s not obvious to everyone, then let me explain. You see, a grid that you run yourself, on your own computer or on your own server, will only have the community that you yourself can gather together. If it’s a one-person grid for, say, creative building, then you’re not going to have much of a community at all. Well, unless you’re one of those lucky people who are their own best friend.
Content
In content, 3rd Rock Grid and Craft World both had perfect scores, followed closely by Tranquility and then Utopia Skye.
How readers rated their home grids on content. (Hypergrid Business data.)
For the latest list of all grids on the OpenSim platform — or some fork of it — check out our Active Grids List.
If you would like to see a full list of results — minus any identifiable information — please email me at maria@hypergridbusiness.com.
I’m not mad. Just disappointed.
Before I go into the comments that people left, a few words about a couple of grids that were left out of this report, despite — initially at least — having enough responses.
You see, a total of 646 ballots were actually cast in this survey, but over 200 were invalid ballots cast for Greek Life or Sacrarium. More than half had invalid email addresses.
I was pretty concerned about this, so I sent out confirmation emails to Sacrarium voters to double-check.
Only 22 people responded. To the rest, there was either no answer — or, even worse! — people responded to say that that they had not voted in the survey. Someone had used their email address to cast fake votes. And — surprise! — all the fake ballots showed perfect scores for Sacrarium.
For Greek Life, only four ballots were real.
Last year, Sacrarium had 25 votes in the survey, and there were real comments from users, a variety of scores, and other indicators that the votes were real. Ironically, if Sacrarium hadn’t tried to stuff the ballot this year, they would have done reasonably well, with a fifth-place showing overall out of 17 grids. There was no reason for them to have cheated.
There was no evidence of fraud by other grids. Other than a handful of duplicate votes, which I deleted — and which could well have been cast by accident — a random check of other votes showed no bad emails. I paid particular attention to ballots where the scores were unusually high or unusually low.
As a result of this behavior, as well as information from credible sources that I’ve since received about these two grids, I will no longer be including Greek Life or Sacrarium in my stats reports or grid lists.
Additional comments from the respondents
The following are representative comments about the grids. There were more than 70 comments in all, some of them quite lengthy, and if anyone wants to see them, or use them on their websites, just email me. Again, I won’t include any personally identifiable information.
In addition to leaving out some of the repetitive comments, I’ve also skipped those that had negative personal attacks or that seemed libelous. And, of course, I also edited out any personally identifying information. The comments have also been very lightly edited for spelling and grammar.
3rd Rock Grid
“Amazing upgrade of arts and educational content on this grid!”
“My favorite thing about 3rd Rock Grid, outside the fact that they are very upfront about being against content theft and have been around for over a decade, is that they have a very active community that promotes the arts, education, and creativity. It’s not just clubs. I find their community to be very inspiring.”
“Such a great community-based grid with very affordable regions. Many user created environments are available to explore.”
“We are the third oldest grid in OpenSim, still alive and well after 11 years!”
Craft World
“This grid is investing a lot in educational content and in community and artistic happenings.”
DigiWorldz
“DigiWorldz has taken a complete turn for the worse in the past several months. They have reworked the software to the point that not many scripts operate correctly now except what the grid operator has worked out a workaround prior to releasing the new software, and breaking old, perfectly operating scripts in the process. And as far as community, all that is left are are a few clubs that over-advertise then complain openly in group chats when nobody comes to their clubs. What was once a nice, enjoyable grid has turned into a disaster.”
“Probably the most friendly and customer focussed grid I have ever been on.”
“Recently there has been a lot of downtime and about every second time I have tried to log in my region is not there. Why?”
“Seems as if DigiWorldz has hit a lull. Residents are still friendly and maintain club events on a regular basis but morale seems low. Maybe now that DigiWorldz Community Chat has been reinstated, it may brighten up the future — along with people coming back inside from the nice summer weather.”
“There have definitely been glitches, but the owners seem to take them seriously and work to resolve them.”
Discovery Grid
“Discovery has the kindest, most friendly people of any of the grids I have been on since I started in virtual worlds in 2008. Balpien and Tenbears and the other admin work tirelessly to update the grid with the most current and stable codes, work with the residents on any and all issues and suggestions on what we want our world to be!”
“I come from InWorldz where I knew many, many people. We all came to Discovery together. Some have come and gone and some have gone but returned. Some live on more than one grid, but the community we have on Discovery is second to none when it comes to activities, friendship, land ownership and more.”
“Discovery is, in my opinion, the best little grid anywhere and I am fortunate to live there in a community that is thriving and I am excited to be part of its future.”
DreamNation
“A very close-knit and friendly environment, especially for motivated learners.”
“Support is often slow to react and non-communicative, but the community rocks!”
“The most open and free grid I’ve been on with a goodly amount of very close community.”
Encore Escape
“Any of our mentors or regulars are always willing to help where they can, whether to just answer a simple question or help you build your avatar to have you looking the way you want to look. If you don’t get what is being shown or told to you, it will be explained until you get it. I can’t say enough good things about my friends and co-workers on The Encore Escape and hope to see you here one day soon.”
“An amazing grid for anyone who loves beautiful friends, great times and love.”
“The Encore Escape is a wonderful grid full of great friends, awesome support and good shopping… overall a joy to be a part of and my homeworld.”
“The Encore Escape is growing exceptionally well! We are just a bunch of people who enjoy one another company and friendship. We are always having events here and the nights are filled with activities from live singers with amazing voices, karaoke where everyone can join in, including people from other hypergrids, singing, poems, stories . . . whatever you have to share, than there is the Poker Run, which is so much fun, and even a building class with a fantastic teacher. We all get involved in every aspect that The Encore Escape has to offer. There are so many directions that we can go here.”
“We have some awesome creators, DJs, hosts, and an honest to goodness, down to earth staff here at The Encore Escape who gets involved in the activities along with their users within the grid themselves. It’s a one-on-one thing here, where everyone gets involved with everybody and always work side by side in helping each other out.”
Great Canadian Grid
“Awesome, friendly grid. Reasonably priced. Great, caring owner. Good support. Just all around great.”
“I actually do recommend it all the time, when I have the chance.”
“It’s nice to be able to contact the grid owner and have them personally answer you back.”
HG Luv
“HG Luv grid best move we ever made.”
Keng City
“Great grid for the African American experience.”
“I have my own grid, Orchid Heights, but also have a shop at Keng City. Except for Kitely and Keng City I would never recommend other grids.”
Kitely
“Because they have a marketplace it’s the best Opensim grid.”
“Have been recommending since it was in beta and will continue.”
Mobius Grid
“I think Mobius is doing very well for a niche grid. Everyone is friendly, there are some amazing unique regions to explore, and the only stability problems I can recall were on my end, LOL. Also, I love how the staff are developing new features for OpenSim, like the display names. My only gripe is I feel there could be more communication if or when staff members are working on something, be it in-world or dev stuff.”
“For anime and video game fans.”
“While Mobius doesn’t have the largest population of users or content, it tries its best to keep with the times and to be innovative. Mobius being motivated to improve OpenSim is the very reason I agreed to be their developer.”
Nara’s Nook
“Nara’s Nook is a world I go to for an in-world writer’s workshop group about once a week.”
“I remain connected to OSgrid simply because I like using their asset server. I am not particularly interested in socializing and I procure my own content. I give the grid low marks for technology and support because it is supposedly a test grid but releasing code into the wild that has not been rigorously tested by quality assurance first is not a proper way to develop software these days.”
“It is the most awesomeness grid I have ever been to. Love it!”
“It just works and that’s all you need, really.”
“My virtual home. Great supportive community. Freedom to be you. I will be here till I’m not anywhere.”
“OSgrid seems to have an active administration and support community. Technologically, it leads many other grids — not surprising, given its history. Their software and instructions for self-hosting regions connected to the grid are clear, simple, and easy to use. It is by far the best experience on the hypergrid from my point of view.”
“Should be able to grid hop to all grids and not be blocked.”
“To be fair, I would like to see a market street like Second Life that provides all grids a place to sell their stuff on, since some people are not allowed to visit other grids due to some copy botting. This would solve a lot of problems and headaches and drama.”
OurGrid Life
“OurGrid Life runs the latest software, physics, and script engines, has an owner personally involved in both support and in community activities, and has a tight-knit community of artists, creators, and performers. There are regions and activities on this grid that I have never seen anywhere else.”
Phantom Rose
“Fred Beckhusen [creator of Outworldz’ DreamGrid installer for OpenSim] has brought Phillip Rosedale’s dream to fruition! I run his DreamGrid package on a server my husband set up for me. It’s very professional and Fred is adding new features all the time. This allows many creative people like me to have the freedom to do something different. You should really do an in depth article about Fred and what he is contributing to the metaverse. He is an amazing and generous person.”
Tranquility
“Friendly people, lots of freebies.”
“Great place, no drama and no BS.”
“Very friendly and attentive staff and no lag in regions/”
“Tranquility Grid offers excellent service to new starters, and have the time and day for people. Well done, Chris, all help was appreciated.”
Utopia Skye
“Amazing people, amazing events and community, I was a hypergrid visitor but they entertained and embraced me and it felt like home when home no longer did. After seven years as staff in another community, I’m now a full time committed member of this one, and my friends from other grids love it too! Special mention for Mike, Calli, Eagle and the particle king Lexx Moore, they work super hard to make this an amazing grid and deserve to be recognized.”
“For a small grid, the drive to improve the server code is great. Good feedback as well on everything they do.”
“I wish I knew all the people, but I don’t… other than that I wish more peeps would come over and try the grid out, overall its been great.”
“Mike has spent a ton of time working on stability and it shows. In our events, especially our Saturday events, we routinely get a large number of visitors and our art events garner a lot of participants. It’s a small grid but a reliable one with an honorable owner.”
“Grid is excellent for building but not for club people and socializing.”
Zindraya
“As the owner of Club Equinox, I have seen a lot of changes in the grid over the last year. Some good, some not so good. It has the potential to shine. The current grid owner tries to do a good job here.”
Welcome back to another week of virtual reality (VR), augmented reality (AR) – and anything in between for that matter – news, here on VRFocus. First and foremost, I hope you all had a good weekend, for myself this meant dealing with a lot of problems caused by other people.
Which is the worst kind of problem. There’s one thing clearing up a mess when you yourself are culpable, that’s fine. You understand the situation and there’s a level of acceptance. When you essentially get landed with a steaming pile of manure courtesy of someone else things can, unsurprisingly get a bit testy. Especially when it impacts your free time.
Needless to say, the person concerned got a bit of a telling off from myself about how they had, essentially, “thrown me to the sharks” as I put it, to ward off their own laziness. Which is, perhaps, a little unfair on sharks.
The phrase did stay in my mind though, so I thought we’d start the week by looking at some sharks – and lo and behold if there isn’t an actual new video from Discovery on the subject. Released as part of their Shark Week series, it’s even called Understanding Sharks. Discovery take us all on a trip to the Bahamas and to Tiger Beach, which is home to some of the largest examples of tiger sharks anywhere in the world.
The tiger shark is a near threatened species, which means that while it isn’t endangered it’s not exactly without concern either, and one that is quite capable of killing a human. The great white might have the record in that area but it’s the tiger shark that is in second. It’s actually not that surprising a tiger shark would kill a human since it has a reputation for pretty much eating anything. Like an underwater goat, it’ll consume pretty much anything in order to survive – which isn’t always good for it since that also includes man-made rubbish.
Discovery takes to the water with Dr. Neil Hammerschlag as he explains how his team tracks these very solitary creatures and how the data is used to better protect the species. You can check out the video below.
Another week is set to come to an end and it’s certainly been a busy one for us folk at VRFocus. But then again, when isn’t it a busy week for us? Today we’re heading under the sea again, this time with the team from Discovery, to check in with a ‘near threatened’ species – the Caribbean Reef Shark.
Prepare to be surrounded by dozens of sharks that aren’t like the vision painted by Hollywood and are instead quite happy to leave you well alone. After all it is they who have to be wary of us. The team share stories about how the sharks have individual personalities and how their lives and environment is threatened in this promo for 2015 documentary Racing Extinction
“Anchor species like manta rays and whale sharks are vital to the survival of our oceans. But they are largely threatened around the world.” Explains Discovery “Join marine biologist Luke Tipple as he swims alongside these magnificent animals and shares why we all need to protect them.”
Racing Extinction is an eco-thriller that examines mankind’s role in mass extinction. Academy Award-winning documentary filmmaker Louie Psihoyos joins scientists, environmentalists, artists, and engineers to draw attention to this pressing issue. If you love nature, especially the beautiful creatures you can find in the sea, I can tell you that you’ll be both shocked by its contents and appalled at just what is going on. The sea isn’t being fished, it’s being wholesale harvested – and the damage might well be permanent.
You can check out all the Discovery VR content via its app which is available on a number of platforms listed below. Or you can just check out this particular video below that.
Die beiden VR-Teams von Discovery und Google kündigten eine Kooperation zur gemeinsamen Produktion der VR-Reiseserie Discovery TRVLR an. Die VR-Serie soll zum Start 38 Episoden über die Geschichte und Kulturen der Einwohner der verschiedenen Kontinente erhalten und bereits am 3. November 2017 beginnen. Die Ausstrahlung erfolgt auf YouTube, der Webseite von Discovery sowie der eigenen Discovery-VR-App. Die Serie lässt sich mit einer Google Daydream, GoogleCardboar,SamsungGear VR und dank WebVR-kompatiblen Browsern mit der Oculus Rift und HTC Vive ansehen.
Discovery TRVLR – eine spannende Reise um die Welt
Die neue VR-Reiseserie Discovery TRVLR entsteht durch eine Kooperation zwischen Discovery und Google. Der Fokus liegt auf den Bewohnern der Orte rund um den Globus sowie ihren Traditionen, Ritualen und kulturellen Aufgaben. Dabei erzählen beispielsweise auch abtrünnige Außenseiter, Gurus und Unterhaltungskünstler von ihren Erfahrungen und Werten sowie ihrem alltäglichen Leben.
Insgesamt 38 Episoden enthält die Serie zunächst. Die Kapitel sind nach den sieben Kontinenten unterteilt in Nordamerika, Südamerika, Europa, Asien, Afrika und Australien. Zu jedem Kontinent wird es sechs Episoden bilden. Eine Ausnahme bildet lediglich die Antarktis, über die nur zwei Episoden ausgestrahlt werden. Die Zuschauer dürfen die diversen Orte per 360-Grad-Videoaufnahmen betrachten und per immersiven Storytelling in die unterschiedlichen Kulturen eintauchen.
Für die Dreharbeiten reisten die Verantwortlichen über die ganze Welt und bekannte Namen produzierten die verschiedenen Kapitel. So leitete zum Beispiel Saschka Unseld – bekannt von den mittlerweile geschloßenen Oculus Story Studios – die Arbeiten als Creative Director.
Die neue 360-Grad-VR-Reiseserie DiscoveryTRVLR erscheint am 3. November 2017. Die Ausstrahlung erfolgt auf YouTube, DiscoveryVRsowie in der Discovery VR App.
Discovery and Google today announced the launch of a new 38-episode VR video series called Discovery TRVLR, a product of both Discovery and Google’s internal VR teams. The first 6 episodes is slated to launch on Friday, November 3.
Discovery TRVLR comes exclusively to YouTube and DiscoveryVR.com, and on the Discovery VR app. This means you can watch on Google Daydream View and Cardboard, and with a little extra creativity, on Oculus Rift and HTC Vive with Opera’s new experimental browser and Gear VR through Samsung Internet.
According to the press release, the VR video series drops you “into the lives of fascinating locals in every corner of the globe across all seven continents, [e]xploring unique cultures through a visceral 360-degree storytelling experience.”
There are seven chapters in the Discovery TRVLR series, each exploring a different continent. Episodes are centered around fascinating locals including the Guru, the Renegade, the Entertainer and the Explorer, who will share the unique rituals, traditions and quests that encompass their culture.
Chapters for North America, South America, Asia, Africa, Europe and Australia consist of six episodes each, while the chapter for Antarctica features two episodes, for a total of 38 episodes in the series.
Saschka Unseld, Emmy Award-winner and creative director at the now defunct Oculus Story Studio, is Creative Producer for the series. Episodes filmed in North America, South America, Asia, Africa, Australia and Europe were written and directed by Addison O’Dea and produced by cinematic VR studio Here Be Dragons. Episodes filmed in Antarctica were directed by Barry Pousman and produced by Yes Please Thank You.
Immersive content studio HERE BE DRAGONS has today announced the closure of a $10 million USD series A funding round to help expand its virtual reality (VR), augmented reality (AR) and mixed reality (MR) productions.
The round was led by Discovery Communications Inc., with additional participation from David Droga, creative chairman and founder of Droga5; and David Jones, founder of You & Mr. Jones.
The studio will use the investment to expand its award-winning team, creative services and ideation. As part of the equity round, Rebecca Howard, SVP Emerging Platforms and Partnerships, Discovery Communications, will join the HERE BE DRAGONS board of directors.
“With a strong presence in the entertainment industry and a reputation for being on the cutting-edge of technology, Discovery is an ideal lead for us – one that shares our vision for the future,” said Patrick Milling-Smith, CEO and managing partner of HERE BE DRAGONS. “This investment will help to further broaden our creative and technological offerings – from creative ideation through production and post – while we continue to innovate and produce experiences that push the boundaries of what next-generation immersive storytelling is capable of.”
“Discovery and Here Be Dragons share a passion for creating thrilling, cutting-edge content that takes viewers places they never thought possible,” said Karen Leever, executive vice president and general manager, Discovery Digital. “We look forward to what comes next from the incredibly talented team at Here Be Dragons.”
If there’s somewhere you seriously do not want to get into difficulties, it is either somewhere very, very deep. Or alternatively somewhere very, very high. The sheer logistics of help actually coming your way, to save you from a potentially life threatening predicament, are nothing to be dismissed. In such situations your rescue is down to two factors: The availability of specialist rescue teams and the bravery of those who serve on them,
Yet such teams do, of course, exist. Even on Mount Everest, Earth’s tallest mountain, there are teams who will set off to rescue climbers who have come into difficulties. Today’s video features one such unit, a rescue helicopter. One of several search and rescue helicopters that are always on standby for those in trouble. They can take off at a moment’s notice but even for a helicopter Everest is no picnic. The air is thin, helicopter and pilot are being pushed to their limits. Even the weather before the pilot and behind them must be taken into account.
Today’s video sees us in the seat of one of these helicopters courtesy of Discovery, offering us all a view that even those who scale the mountain never get to see.
VRFocus will be back next week for more Life in 360°
Another week full of news relating to virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR) nears its end on VRFocus. With today’s video being all about fish – no, we’re not going under the sea again. In fact we’re staying very much above it.
Thanks to the team from Discovery we’re off once again to Japan, where we will be following a fish from the market to the plate. Seeing the path it takes before being turned into a delicious sushi meal by masters of the craft. It’s a quick but rare look into the sort of journey some of our food travels.
VRFocus will be back next week with another look at the world through a 360 degree lens.
The American Heroes Channel recently released a new 360-degree video titled Civil War: Letter From the Trenches. The video is planned to serve as a companion piece for Blood and Fury: America’s Civil War, a TV series scheduled to debut on Dec. 14th on AHC. The series will show the war from the perspective of soldiers during iconic battles throughout the campaign.
Letter From the Trenches on the other hand will focus specifically on a Confederate soldier that’s under heavy enemy fire in the thick of combat. Instead of taking a more measured, slow-paced, and passive approach to immersive video like most content creators, this video appears to be designed to shock and rattle viewers directly. The sounds and sights of bullets whizzing by amidst cannon ball eruptions isn’t exactly a cheery way of spending an afternoon — especially when you factor in how powerful 360-degree audio and visuals can be at tricking you into thinking you’re actually somewhere dangerous.
The experience will use a combination of Go Pro cameras and fish-eye lenses to bring viewers closer to the battlefield than ever before with this reenactment and furthers the discussion of not only mature and serious content in virtual reality — but also how VR could be used to revolutionize historical documentary-style films as well. Reliving moments from history, such as the Civil War or the Wright Brothers flight, is an excellent use-case for educational VR.
Cream Productions’ co-founder and CEO, David Brady, told The Hollywood Reporter that, “above you there’s cannonball contrails, and those are spatially directed so you can follow with your eyes as your ears tell you where they are going. The effect is to hopefully make the viewer turn their heads to see all of this.”
The video itself, Letter From the Trenches, is available now for free at DiscoveryVR. There are various ways to watch the video, as it can be viewed within your browser, on Google Cardboard viewing devices, as well as on the Rift, Gear VR, and HTC Vive.
Which is the worst kind of problem. There’s one thing clearing up a mess when you yourself are culpable, that’s fine. You understand the situation and there’s a level of acceptance. When you essentially get landed with a steaming pile of manure courtesy of someone else things can, unsurprisingly get a bit testy. Especially when it impacts your free time.
