Oculus Rift Beginnings and Projection Mapping

Following up on the previous post, the Oculus Rift has been integrated to its audience since its foundation. This product started by being funded by the own audience on KickStarter. Via this website, the company could present the Oculus Rift to the public and at the same time, conveniently and very smartly, start a crowd-funding project, which had a huge success because of its high demand. People everywhere supported the project and still do. These same people are the ones who not only test the device but still want the perfected and latest version of it. Here I include their personal blog, which focuses only on the products whereabouts, latest news and updates and standardizations. So just go to the link and never feel lost and out of group with what we are talking about.See also how the public has supported this product from the beginning and ahead you can appreciate how virtual reality differs from something really similar.

I have gone deeper into almost all themes related to newest visual effects and special effect creation with technology. One thing I am missing is that is very important and is definitely the most innovative experience so far in visual constructions and holographic projections is what is known as projection mapping. These huge and full of light representation of a visual is a projection developed on top of an object, mirroring it and portraying other images at the same time. It could be described as pixelated images, but the pixels are so small that they are rarely noticed, which is the goal. The main objective is for the image to be felt real for the human eye. The process of projection mapping is as simple as using two mirrors looking at each other. Except it requires the use of a third mirror, which would enable the image to be seen through and all around as a fourth dimensional figure. AVConcepts describe this process as “giving the video shape and dimension”. 
Virtual Reality and Projection Mapping are two different things, but for the eye they look very much alike. What typically differentiates one from the other is how is constructed and produced to their distinctive audiences. The last video is what typically is known as architectural projection mapping.

Founder and CTO of Virtual Reality's Oculus Rift

The Oculus Rift is the newest technology in virtual reality. Designer and founder Palmer Luckey came up with an incredible way to feel physically interacting in video games. This is what virtual reality is all about. You literally step into a re-created virtual world and can control any movement inside it. This makes up for the appearance that you actually live in this kind of world while you interact with it. As he mentions, his goal was to create a device that would let you plug in and insert yourself in a virtual world or in other words, a gaming world. John Carmack is the developer of the virtual graphics in the device reproduces. He has worked in the most selling computer based games, like Doom. With his vast experience and expertise and young Luckey’s drive to create this kind of technology, the Oculus Rift took a huge step in the gaming industry. Now it is not only possible to experiences the emotion and rush of the game from an observation point of view, but also you can control that point of view by being the one controlling the game. In other words you are not controlling a person in game that you can watch through a screen, but you literally are the person inside the screen.

When the team got to try the prototype of the Oculus Rift, their impressions where beyond astonishment. They described the device as being the key to a new road in the industry even a new kind of industry. This is incredibly interesting because to think that now we have reached a technological age where gaming is no longer gaming, but a “real life” possibility, changes the whole perspective of what the gaming industry is in entertainment. Palmer Luckey’s main objective is open up a pricey product making it accessible to an average gamer. Is something way more exciting than playing a regular video game that shows up in a television screen; you will not see the screen once you put on the device over your eyes, you will be entering the world itself and feel physically capable of being inside as a first person “self” instead of just handling a third person character. The real importance fact that he discusses is the latency of the view. He points out that instead of a view that would take some time in mirroring the movements it would be a view that follows your exacts movements.

In John Carmack’s interview he talks a little about the product’s “dev kit” which would soon be in the hands of developers in order for them to perfect it as best as possible. Also he points out that the Oculus Rift was “born from mobile technology's constant push forward”, meaning that it can be accessed by almost anyone who wants to. Is important how he refers the current technology and gaming devices compared to the Oculus Rift because he take the same posture as Luckey. It is definitely incredible the technological advances we have achieved today, demonstrating astonishing visual graphics and special effects through various and numerous styles and video games. But this product actually approaches this areas through different perspectives since you would no longer be spectating a controllable video game, but you would actually be the game, inside and living it. He says and I quote, “when you are inside things you really are changing the equation, you feel something different and you experience something different”.