Category: VR Playhouse

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‘Mr. Mercedes’ VR Escape Room to Land on HTC Vive July 22nd

Mr. Mercedes, the AT&T Audience Network mystery thriller TV series based on the titular Stephen King novel, is getting a VR escape room soon.

Dubbed Mr. Mercedes: Lair Escape, you step into the basement lair of one of the scariest killers from the mind of Stephen King, Brady Hartsfield (aka ‘Mr. Mercedes’). The VR escape room tosses you into the photorealistic recreation of the psychopath’s lair where you’ll have to solve various puzzles to find your way out. The title is said to incorporate footage directly from the set of Season 2 of the series.

Mr. Mercedes: Lair Escape was created by VR Playhouse, Double A Labs, and AT&T AUDIENCE Network, and was developed with Unreal Engine and Nurulize Atom View, a tool for volumetric data processing, color management, and delivery.

The title is headed to Viveport, HTC’s digital storefront for HTC Vive games, on July 22nd.

Mr. Mercedes: Lair Escape is currently available for demo at San Diego Comic Con, lasting from July 19th to July 21st. RSVP is required, so if you’re at Comic Con this weekend, click here to sign up.

The post ‘Mr. Mercedes’ VR Escape Room to Land on HTC Vive July 22nd appeared first on Road to VR.

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¡Viva La Evolución! Blends Music and Technology

Virtual reality (VR) and 360-degree video has already been successfully used to bring live music experiences and innovative music videos to fan. Now, Los Angeles-based creative studio VR Playhouse has teamed up with director/producer Fifer Garbesi to introduce music fans to the godfather of the Cuban Rave Scene.

The 360-degree film ¡Viva La Evolución! Takes viewers on a journey through the electronic music scene of Cuba, showing the life of Joyvan Guevara, who is known in Cuba as Djoy de Cuba, a driving force in the Cuban race scene.

The film will show Guevara’s work in the electronic dance music scene, and ive an insight into his daily life. From his efforts at the deck during an epic all-night rave which sorted out the powr, to his rides on a scooter as he comments on how times are changing.

Director Garbasi said the aim was to capture the vitality of possibility of this period, where Cuba faces many changes, and at the same time show views the effervescent spirit of Joyvan Guevara and his influence on the Cuban music scene.

The creators of the film make a point of showing how Cuba mostly lacks modern digital technology that many of us would take for granted, while displaying the colour and life of the culture and its electronic dance scene and noting how the Cuban tech sector is now developing rapidly.

“I really wanted to show that this music adopted these different sounds from all around the world,” notes Garbesi. “But also incorporate this incredible Cuban tradition of amazing percussion.”

VR Playhouse art

VR Playhouse faced several restrictions in its attempt to capture the footage, coming up against the rigid government guidelines and having all but one camera confiscated at customs, but the creators tried to turn the setbacks into positives by creating a more intimate portrait of Cuba and Djoy de Cuba.

A 360-degree trailer for the film is available to view below, and the full experience can be found on Facebook 360, Littlestar, Oulus Video Samsung VR, VeeR, Vimeo 360 and YouTube 360. VRFocus will continue to report on new and upcoming VR and 360-degree experiences.

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How Do Two Live One Life? VR Playhouse Introduces The Surrogate

As we’ve seen with increasing regularity the idea of using virtual reality (VR) to tell a different kind of immersive story is becoming more and more common place. Sometimes these come in the form of a videogame such as Artifact 5’s intreguing title Anamorphine which is due to come out in the near future. We’ve also seen creatives turn to VR to help craft their messages in more cinematic experiences and we’ve seen many times on the site all manner of topic covered in pieces for the likes of the Sundance Film Festival and Raindance Film Festival.

The Surrogate - ScreenshotToday’s news comes from Los Angeles, California. Home of VR Playhouse, a full-service production company and creative studio that specialises in creating new worlds in immersive media – both VR and augmented reality (AR). Founded by Christina Heller and Ian Forester, the latter of whom recently discussed his ideas for which industries will drive VR’s growth in 2018. The company have produced a broad range of prodjects, some of which we have previously featured on VRFocus.com. Everything from music videos to commercial tie-ups with the likes of Toyota.

Today the team announce a brand new VR experience by Creator and Director Peter Flaherty and Producer
Logan Brown which fuses 360 degree video with a CG environment to produce a look into how technology affects our everyday inter-personal relationships. Produced in a way that, according to the studio, channels the same attitude to contemporary storytelling as popular series Black Mirror.

Called The Surrogate, viewers enter the life of Juliana Bach who after being immersed in a world now overflowing with VR and AR experiences has now started suffering from anxiety from it all. The player takes on the role of a surrogate who Bach has hired to live her ‘physical’ life for her, and now she guides the player as they explore an old house Bach once shared with her former husband. Where you go in the twisting maze of rooms beyond the facade of a modern home is up to you – but how are two people supposed to live one life without living it together?

The Surrogate - Screenshot
“I wanted to take a different approach to how we are dealing with this kind of immersive technology as a storytelling tool by offering the viewer a story that combines cinematic live action with an interactive environment,” explains Flaherty. “The technology inspired me to tell a story that looks ahead to what our shared cultural future may hold in the coming years. I wanted to communicate how powerful this exciting new technology is, but how overwhelming it could be to live in a world proliferated with layered media.”

You can find a preview of the work on the Oculus Store, VRFocus will have more about the work being done by VR Playhouse and other creative studios with the VR medium very soon.

 

 

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5 Industries that Will Drive VR Growth in 2018

As we enter 2018 there’s a great deal of expectation being placed upon the growth of virtual reality (VR) and the coming consumer initiation of augmented reality (AR). However, while this year may not see the mass adoption that these immersive mediums are destined for, there are many areas which will a significant uptake in 2018. VR Playhouse’s CEO, Ian Forester, has delivered his thoughts on what aspects of VR will see the most growth, and why.

VR Playhouse art

VR Playhouse is a Los Angeles-based creative studio focused exclusively on creating immersive content. Founded in 2014, the company has worked with numerous clients from various industries, including Toyota, Disney and Sony Music, and has also experimented with the creation of unique music videos. Forester has been involved in the industry for several years now, and in that time has developed an understanding of the trends that immersive media has followed.

Below are Forester’s predictions for the top five trends that will develop throughout 2018, as the expansion of the VR medium becomes more widely adopted by other industries. VRFocus will continue to keep you updated with all the latest VR projects from Forester and VR Playhouse.

Training and Simulation: Continuing and professional education for adults will see a major surge in 2018, with immersive experiences popping up for professionals renewing industry licenses and undergoing highly technical training. Careers and tasks with a high degree of technical knowledge and intricate safety processes will be able to simplify their training procedures with VR training. Costs can also be trimmed for businesses by allowing VR to track and measure performance of certain duties by employees.

Design Tools: For product design, space design and home design, expect to see a multitude of new VR/AR tools that help aid the design process and streamline communication from designer to customer and reduce costly review periods.

VR Playhouse Ian Forester

Anxiety Relief: Virtual reality has shown a high degree of efficacy in treating pain or anxiety. With the highly addictive nature of drugs commonly used to treat these afflictions and a widespread opioid epidemic, therapeutic VR experiences can help to lower prescription drug rates and set up patients with treatment plans that are less risky long-term.

Data Protection: VR as a viewing mechanism provides vastly more unconscious feedback than any other medium. This year, industry insiders will be forced to consider the ethical concerns of data mining in VR and will be well-served to put best practices into place before the financial benefits of this data get on the radar of the wrong parties.

Retail Revitalization: Brick and mortar retail locations have been continuing to feel the heat from online retail giants and shopping malls have been getting hit worst of all. But there is a huge opportunity for VR to seize this stagnant public space for location-based entertainment (LBE), creating arcades and similar environments that allow consumers to engage with VR experiences in a public setting. This will not only serve to broaden (albeit slowly) the consumer reach for VR, but will also help revive the shopping mall experience with a revitalized level of interactivity, technology and entertainment.

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Can VR Bridge the Culture Gap & Counter Cultural Indoctrination?

Depending on who you were rooting for in the US election, last night was either a shocking and sobering wake-up call to a reality that you don’t feel a part of or it was a jubilant celebration of a victory that was doubted and underestimated by the mainstream political and media establishments. Either way, what’s clear is that there’s a cultural divide in America that’s split nearly evenly between the percentage of people who voted in the election. Trying to understand the other side of the cultural gap can feel like entering into an entirely different parallel universe, and I feel like virtual reality has an important role to play in bringing more empathy and understanding to each side.

ian-foresterI had a chance to catch up with VR Playhouse co-founder Ian Forester at Oculus Connect 3, where he shared with me some of his vision for how VR could change the way that the learn and understand the world. He sees that there are three primary ways that we learn about the world including our direct sensory experiences, our direct observations of other people, and then a lot of indirect cultural indoctrination that comes from the mainstream media, education, and the culmination of all of our social interactions.

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Ian sees that VR has the potential to provide us with a wider range of direct sensory experiences with a diverse range of people and cultures within social VR experiences, and that this has the potential to give us more access to learning from our interactive direct experiences rather than from information that we’re consuming from different sources of external authority.

It feels like the United States is at real crossroads right now with the political culture gap that exists right now, and this interview with Ian starts to discuss how VR could help us move beyond our existing methods of cultural indoctrination. Rather than passive consumption, VR allows us to have interactive experiences that could help engage and connect us to each other in new ways that transcend the capabilities of any other technologically-mediated interfaces.

Tilt Brush art by 3Donimus

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Music: Fatality & Summer Trip

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Life In 360°: Toyota Hits The Roads Of California

We’ve covered a number of automotive videos in 360 degrees on Life In 360 down the months. Be it the latest attempts by Formula 1 to film in  the medium, Formula E’s attempts to create virtual races, car stories, car shows, car advertisements, you name it and at this point we’ve covered it. Probably twice. Still as the medium becomes more popular and additionally more accessible so to increases the interests and the frequency in which we see it.

Today’s video falls under the promotional category and is for Japanese manufacturer Toyota, promoting a new version of it’s Prius line. Again, not the first time they have been featured on Life In 360°, previously teaming with Discovery to create a video that explained how the hydrogen cell works in the Toyota Mirai. Last month a patent was also revealed detailing Toyota’s work in the field of augmented reality (AR) and the development of an AR inclusive windshield.

The advert is a product of Los Angeles studio VR Playhouse, another name likely familiar to regular VRFocus readers, and follows the story of  friends taking a trip in their Prius cars across a America and embarking on a number of classic summer adventure scenarios.  All designed to show-off the Californian state and the redesigned Prius in its ‘CA Style’.

“We wanted to show the idea of people travelling, going on adventures, and spending time with friends.” Explains the director, VR Playhouse’s director DJ Turner. “Incorporating not only iconic locations like San Francisco and the Central Valley, but also parts of NorCal life that you don’t often see, like tubing in the river. Northern California has so much to experience, and the Prius is a great way to do it all. I hope the 360 video encourages people to get out and explore, wherever they may be.”

 VRFocus will bring you another example of 360 degree video on Wednesday.