As technology giants such as and continue to innovate with their own pieces of futuristic kit, Google Cardboard and Microsoft HoloLens respectively, virtual reality devices, gaming and applications are becoming increasingly appealing avenues for brands looking to take their to the next level.
Adam Doherty of Marshmallow Laser Feast, a company which uses new technology within the arts, experiential and live environment, has compiled this glossary on the immersive technology. It details the differences between virtual, augmented and mixed reality, highlights the most well-known headsets and companies associated with them, and explains technical VR jargon in plain English.
Virtual, augmented and mixed reality terminology
Augmented reality (AR)
Augmented reality differs from virtual reality in that AR places digital content into our real world, whereas VR tries to divorce users from the real world. AR uses a pair of transparent glasses, like Google Glass, and keeps you firmly locked in the real world but adds artificial images into your immediate surroundings.
4D
4D effects like added wind or water sprays come from outside the VR headset but are synched to the VR narrative. When married subtly with a VR demo they can make the experience feel more real. But the jury’s out on 4D. It needs to be handled sensitively to justify its inclusion by making the experience that much more compelling.
Gaming engine
This is the clever behind-the-scenes element that gives VR, AR and MR experiences their real time interactivity. Originally pioneered by video game developers, gaming engines means characters within video games can interact with each other. VR just takes this principle one step further. and are the dominant names in this field.
Gaze control
Gaze control is used to navigate an experience, in the same way that a PlayStation controller would navigate a game. This ability to control a VR interface or experience comes from gaze control, where the headset picks up on the direction of your neck and head. Highly sophisticated headsets can even determine your gaze by picking up on your eye movement. (It's not to be confused with head tracking, which ensures consistency between eyeline and visuals.) In its simplest form, gaze control can be used to select an item from a menu – a technique used by the Samsung Gear VR.
Gesture control
Similar to gaze control, gesture control is where sensors identify real-world hand movements as a cue to interacting with the VR scene.
Google Cardboard
Google Cardboard is a cardboard headset assembled from flat pack that accommodates compatible Android smartphones, thus turning them into VR devices. So Google Cardboard can potentially enable anyone with a smartphone to experience VR. This removes one of VR’s biggest barriers to entry: cost. Where an Oculus Rift headset plus the associated hardware will set you back hundreds, if not thousands, of pounds, the DIY Google Cardboard headset is available on Amazon for the princely sum of a tenner. With over 1.2 billion smartphones in circulation it seems the only barrier to entry for mass VR adoption is learning to optimise the experiences for smartphones.
Haptic
Haptic is the optional extra that creates sensory feedback on your hands, feet, or somewhere else on your body, as you experience virtual reality. So if your avatar bumps into something in the virtual world, your actual body will be on the receiving end of a simulated bump. This simulation can come from something as subtle as ultrasound; or bass vibration through a device like the . The goal is to create an extra layer of authenticity. Not many marketing VR experiences use haptic yet as it’s a luxury that busts the budget. But as technology inevitably gets more affordable, haptic is an area to watch.
Head tracking
So that a user can navigate a VR world, the experience needs to know where the user is and what he or she is looking at. This is done by tracking the user’s head movements so that the device knows where the user is in relation to the 3D space. Without spot-on accurate head tracking, you’ll get a degree of latency that results in VR’s dreaded Achilles’ heel, motion sickness.
Head mounted display (HMD)
Head mounted display refers to the all-encompassing nature of VR headsets. Like a pair of blinkered goggles strapped to your head, HMDs completely seal off your physical surroundings by blocking out everything in your peripheral vision. Without this approach, there would be no full immersion. The Oculus Rift HMD tends to dominate VR coverage, but there are other headsets out there that also offer a variety of high quality, minimal latency experiences, such as HTC Vive, Samsung’s Galaxy Gear VR, Archos VR glasses and Google Cardboard.
Immersion
The whole point of VR and MR is to immerse people in an experience by manipulating their perceptions with images, sounds and other stimuli until they feel physically present in an artificial environment.
Latency
This refers to the time delay between the person’s real-world movement and the movement that’s replicated in the VR space. The longer the lag between user motion and tracker system response, the sicker a user will feel.
Mixed reality (MR)
MR could arguably be described as sitting half way between AR and VR. MR blends a virtual world into your physical space. The key word here is blend, so rather than adding an unapologetically incongruous digital object into your field of vision as with AR, MR blends a digital object into your surroundings in an attempt to make you think it’s really there. To see MR in action, take a look at .
Oculus
Oculus is the name of the company that pioneered the Oculus Rift headset, one of the first HMDs to conquer VR’s notorious latency problem which made people feel sick, and then reached global fame by getting snapped up by .
Photo realism
Photo realism refers to the concept of creating a world that is indistinguishable from reality. Some VR experiences simply give you a chance to navigate a real-world scene that’s been captured on camera as a 360 degree video, but the more fantastical VR experiences have to be created with computer generated imagery (CGI) using a gaming engine. It’s pretty hard to get CGI looking authentically photo real in traditional screen-based film or TV content, so it’s even harder to pull off in VR or MR, where that added element of interactivity requires even greater creative skills and processing power.
Presence
This is the Holy Grail of VR. It’s the moment when immersion is so authentic and believable that your body and mind genuinely think you’re actually there in that virtual world. True presence requires the perfect marriage of technology, creativity, visuals and sound.
360 degree video
This type of video is captured using multiple cameras to create a fully spherical film. It means you can turn your head within a VR experience and see all around you, rather than the experience being cut-off at the edges. And with new platforms like , this type of content isn’t just used in VR. We can now create screen-based experiences that are also 360 degree. Unlike watching a standard video with a fixed point of view, 360 degree video viewers can use their mouse to scroll around the video for a different perspective.
Virtual reality (VR)
It can sound like 1980’s sci-fi, but if you think of VR as an artificial world built within a computer system, the idea becomes a little more digestible. A VR experience immerses the user in these computer-generated worlds, rather than just watching a traditional screen that’s surrounded by the real world. Once inside VR allows the user or users to navigate these digital environments whilst performing movements and actions within it; such as manipulating VR objects.
Adam Doherty is managing director at Marshmallow Laser Feast