Virtual space, the current frontier
Oculus Rift sends you on digital trip
I’m about to be “teleported” to outer space by having my entire body scanned. A light flashes three times, my cue to act goofy for six seconds. Behind me a three-dimensional representation of my body appears in space on a large video screen, moving in near real time as I do. I’m then swooped up off the screen.
Shortly after, I don Oculus Rift, the mind-blowing virtual reality 3D headset from Oculus VR that is likely to take the gaming market by storm when it ships. For 45 seconds, I watch the virtual alter ego I just created explore digital worlds. As I move my head around Oculus, I visit different parts of virtual worlds — with the scene alternating between a frozen tundra, a marshy volcanic area and a desert landscape.
I’m taking part in a pretty awesome computational photography tech demo at South by Southwest, courtesy of Microsoft Research and the guys most responsible for it, James George, a Brooklyn-based media artist and his partner, Alexander Porter, an “experimental photographer.”
The reconstruction of my body in the Microsoft Research demo is made possible by four Kinect cameras paired with four Canon EOS 5D Mark III digital cameras. My image is captured on all sides.
The Kinect cameras provide a sense of depth; the DSLRs add the color textures on top of your virtual clone, Porter says. “When you see yourself in the image, it’s not so abstract,” he says. “This is sort of the digital world entering the real world, and vice versa.”
Every pixel is accounted for in its proper space. Porter compares the experience as a cross between
Tron and the Looney Tunes character Marvin the Martian. “So many of the techniques and the tools we have now were previously science-fiction objects.”
Still, the company has no immediate commercial plans for the technology. But you can envision how this might eventually be deployed in cinema, interactive games, possibly even education.
George is interested in the artistic possibilities. “Art has a practical place in the world,” he says.
“It’s important that we look at these technologies not as products that are coming out but how they make us feel, the stories that we tell through them, the emotions we can have when we share (these) experiences.” That still seems a ways off. But Microsoft did demonstrate an upcoming Xbox One game called Kinect Sports Rivals, which also lets you capture your likeness, using Kinect 2.0.
The effect is not as dramatic or realistic-looking as was the demonstration involving George and Porter, which could be because it was so intoxicating. But while Kinect Sports Rivals appeared to be fun to play, I didn’t think the stylized version of yours truly in the game looked much like me.
You can customize your character’s appearance (hair color, facial hair, etc.) before challenging friends in wake boating races and other competitions. The $59.99 Xbox game is expected in about a month. My virtual trip to space is going to take longer.