MTBS had a blast at TIFF, the Toronto International Film Festival. Realizing the potential of VR, TIFF organized a special panel featuring the likes of James Stewart (Geneva Film Company), Palmer Luckey (Oculus VR), Jade Raymond (Ubisoft), Ariel Garten (InteraXon), and Felix Lajeunesse (Felix and Paul Studios).
According to Palmer, 55,000 Oculus Rift DK2 units have been shipped to date. According to Palmer, “(VR) is the only medium that lets you experience anything”. When asked what qualifies as a great VR experience, Palmer explained that the number one priority is to not make people sick.
InteraXon makes the Muse, an advanced consumer-grade EKG reader that works in tandem with software to read your thought patterns and use them to somehow interact with your games and applications. Examples of their work include determining how relaxed you are or actually being able to dim lights with your thoughts. In her view, Muse is an opportunity to learn something new about the user with information that wasn’t there before.
Felix and Paul Studios make stereoscopic 360 degree camera rigs and content, and it’s their stuff that is being used for the Samsung Gear VR introduction sequence. His observation of VR content development is that technology moves forward exponentially faster than story telling, and that it will take time for the content world to adequately catch up.
Jade Raymond, Managing Director for Ubisoft Toronto said that “VR is finally on the cusp of being a real thing”, and that people are seriously thinking about VR in the Ubisoft world. They don’t have projects they can talk about yet.