I'm really new to VR. Literally this was my fourth session and I bet there's a lot of highs and lows I haven't yet seen.
I'm on a Quest 2 and even with its modest screen, it still shows something amazing. This really is the first baby step towards making real life virtual reality. Yet it also shows how limited we still are.
It's a gallery of various pictures, all in proper VR. Not the classic stereoscopic images, but actual VR. You move, everything properly moves to compensate. This includes the sun behind window panes, reflections and angles of objects.
To me, this kind of feels like witchcraft. But you also get a glimpse of how this might already be a dead in the water concept. The camera rigs are massive and setting it all up is tremendous effort. It reminds me of why VR and 3D videos never took off in the online sphere, especially in Youtube.
So far, this is a gimmick, but also this gimmick accidentally helped me step into something on my bucket list. To visit the Smithsonian. I'll most likely never make it to that museum. Flying across the ocean and paying basically a year's salary for the privilege of staying there for a weekend is just not feasible. However, this time it's not just images. It really did fool me that I was standing there. It felt real enough to give me glimpses of the feeling of being there and it feels like such a privilege. Same goes with going inside Discovery Space Shuttle. This tech can be utilized to create genuinely amazing experiences. I think it works best in insanely massive areas and in very small areas. With the medium sized areas, you feel exactly too constricted by the small area of view.
And this is the weakest point as well: The area of view you can be in. It's essentially the size of a person standing up with the width. It's a circle, so there's room to maneuver a very small amount, but it's limited. The dozens of cameras set up with ample lighting and intense amounts of setup will still keep you in that small area.
I personally loved it, but I also am new to this scene, it had things that I was in awe at seeing and my expectations were set relatively low for a very small tech demo. But this felt like the real deal. A branch of new technology taking its first step in the road of perhaps becoming something greater. Perhaps one day. I just am worried that this day might not come at least with these used methods.
