Assignment Brief:
For the assignment, I was tasked with creating a 360° VR prototype experience based on Lewis Carroll’s “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland.” Lewis Carroll’s book is a story of a girl who falls down a dark rabbit hole and finds herself in a fantasy land filled with creatures and objects that cannot be described.
Before coming up with designs for my VR experience, I considered whether to have the experience as a full playable game level or as a 360° video. If I chose to create a VR game, I would be able to allow the player to interact with objects and to be able to freely move around the environment. This would allow me to add more immersion to the experience, as the user will be able to walk around in their available space and be able to move in the digital world. The user would also be able to interact with certain objects, and if I create triggers and events, I can allow the user to freely progress the narrative on their own. Despite allowing for more immersion, I chose instead to create a 360° video for a number of reasons:
The first reason for choosing to create a 360° video and not a playable game is the time I would have to spend creating the different mechanics. For example, I would need to make my own interaction system inside of Unreal, and I do not have the time to complete this and other mechanics that I may need. Another reason is that the user would need a headset and controllers that work with the controls that I implement. However, if I create a 360° video, the user will be able to use their phone to look around the environment.
Creating a 360° video allows me to have the camera stationary in the middle of the environment, and as long as the user isn’t moving, they will not get motion sickness. My plan is to create an environment that morphs around the viewer, creating slight optical illusions without making the viewer nauseous. To avoid motion sickness in the 360° video, I considered multiple ideas, but the main ideas that I had were not moving the viewer, frame rate, and render resolution.
- Moving the viewer: In a 360° VR video, the viewer will not be able to move around the environment as this is a limitation of using 360° video. A way you can get the viewer to move around the environment is by moving the camera in the render engine, but this may cause motion sickness, as the pre-rendered video will move in ways that the viewer will not be expecting, and having that disconnect from the viewer’s eyes and their motion will cause nausea. A method I could use to combat this is by keeping the viewer in a fixed position and assuring that they will have ground below them to make sure they feel that connection to reality.
- Frame rate: Having a low frame rate will cause high latency and will make the VR experience unpleasant for the user. We have been asked to create a video which is at least 24 fps. However, I plan on making my video higher frame rate to allow for more comparability in the VR experience.
- Render resolution: For this VR experience, we have been tasked with making the video in 4K resolution to allow for more detail and a better viewing experience. Anything lower than 4K would result in a blurry image, which would ruin the immersion of the video.
Space.com(2021) What causes motion sickness in VR, and how can you avoid it? Available online: https://www.space.com/motion-sickness-in-vr [accessed 27/02/23]
youtube.com(2023) Moab, Aerial 360° Adventure Video – Insta360 Sphere vs GoPro MAX FPV. Available online:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_MdofiAurW0 [accessed 28/02/23]