Real Virtuality was selected at the 2016 Sundance’s New Frontier Festival that took place on January 21-31 in Park City, Salt Lake City, Utah. The festival is one of the world’s premiere places to debut new independent films and highlights the best in storytelling technology.
With the support of swissnex San Francisco and Pro Helvetia, Artanim showcased there a new VR scenario mixing real and virtual worlds. Users participated in a time machine experience where they were transported into different futuristic environments: a space station, Dark City and a cave.
The VR experience and the technology was incredibly well welcomed, as the following quotes can attest:
The latest Real Virtuality experience at Sundance is an epic new level of advancement. It is as close as we can get to a holodeck for now. Jonathan Nafarrete, Journalist, VR Scout
The mother lode of Sundance. The most daringly original VR presentation I’ve seen, “Real Virtuality” shows how big the medium can be Steven Zeitchik, Journalist, Los Angeles Times
What’s cooler than VR? Not much except maybe Real Virtuality by Artanim James Finn, Executive Vice President, Marketing and Communication, 20th Century Fox
Several big names also tested our Real Virtuality system. Just to name one, Robert Redford, founder of Sundance characterized our experience as “Spectacular”!
Real Virtuality was presented in Los Angeles at SIGGRAPH 2015, the leading conference on computer graphics and interactive techniques. Real Virtuality is a multi-user immersive platform combining a 3D environment – which can be seen through a VR headset – with a real life stage set. Users are tracked by a motion capture system allowing them to see their own bodies and move physically in the virtual environment.
The experience offered by Real Virtuality brings a once in a lifetime experience. Unlike other static position VR systems, Real Virtuality allows users to become immersed in a VR scene by walking, running, interacting with physical objects and meeting other people. Because user’s movement exactly match their avatars movements in the 3D environment and are streamed to the users with very low latency, there is no discomfort or interface required. The bodies of the users become the interface. The VR platform offers a “matrix-like” degree of immersion over a large area, up to hundreds of square meters:
Humanity has essentially recreated, on the basest level, The MatrixG. Clay Whittaker, Journalist, Popular Science
The demo “Walking through a pharaoh’s tomb” created in collaboration with Kenzan was selected as one of the three finalists for the Immersive Realities (AR/VR) contest. Artanim’s team was in Los Angeles from August 9th to 13th to present the project with the support of Pro Helvetia.
Yesterday, we tested with Tobias Baumann, game designer and freelancer, the Oculus Rift with our Xsens MVN in Unity 3D. The goal was to virtually hit columns of cubes and balloons. Some simple applications to start with, but resulting in a nice full-body immersive VR experience. The first tests were convincing. We will definitely continue working on this topic with Tobias. Stay tuned!
We're proud to announce the launch of our new immersive #VR experience "Escalade - The Darkest Night", created in partnership with the Compagnie de 1602 and offered exclusively at the @Dreamscape Geneva center.
