Michael Lenzi is the CEO & co-founder of Atomic VR, and they’ve spent the last couple of years experimenting with untethered VR experiences. They’ve created a backpack with custom hardware that can run a desktop GPU for up to an hour, and they’ve also created a Star Wars-inspired Lightsword Experience that can be played in a space up to 20 feet by 20 feet with a Vive. They’re currently not interested in mass producing their hardware solution, but are interested in enabling and developing eSports VR experiences that give you a more active workout.
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Michael says that the VR hardware manufacturers have been knocking it out of the park with providing high framerate and low persistence HMDs, but that being tethered is something that decreases the immersion. They’ve been prototyping and developing their own custom hardware in order to create an untethered & mobile Vive system. The Vive’s Lighthouse tracking solution is particularly well-suited for an untethered tracking solution because each unit does not need to be directly connected to a computer.
Atomic VR has been creating automotive visualizations that are full-scale and have natural interactions, and they’re also interested in other B2B applications as well as getting into eSports applications. They’re interested in creating experiences where you could have a workout while playing with your friends. In the process of developing and playing their 20×20 Lightsword Experience, Ben Teitler lost 30 pounds from all of the movement and activity that he got from playing their game:
They’ve also developed a Fruit Ninja inspired experience for the Vive called Ninja Trainer where you have to actively swing your hands as if you were slicing fruit. They originally accurately modeled a sword but found that this was too difficult and had to make it a bit easier to play. Michael says that this is an experience that he expects to have a lot of reply value because people can improve the more that they play it, but it also provides quite an invigorating workout.
He says that the Wii and Kinect started the trend towards more active gaming experiences, but that they were too easy to hack. Once people realized that you could just flick your wrist instead of fully swinging your arm, then a lot of the exercise was lost because it was less efficient in playing the game. With VR’s submillimeter accuracy, then he expects that VR eSports will more accurately mimic 1:1 movement and natural interactions.
Michael says that they have some more ideas for some peripherals that would make eSports VR experiences within a room-scale environment more safe, and that this will be also something that the VR HMD manufacturers will also be in the process of continually improving with passthrough cameras as well as mapping out your physical environment.
Finally, Michael says that he was inspired by Vivid Vision’s gamification of physical therapy, and that he expects that the combination of eSports and social gaming with introduce a lot of new ways to have fun with your friends. Overall, he sees that VR will enable a lot of new stories to be told where you feel like you’re actually there, and VR has the possibility to show us how we’re all interconnected and allow us to empathize with experiences that we were previously blind to.
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Rough Transcript
[00:00:05.452] Kent Bye: The Voices of VR Podcast.
[00:00:09.593] Mike Lenzi: Hi, I'm Mike Lindsey, CEO of AtomicVR. We're very much into fully immersive virtual reality systems. We started with large scale OptiTrack systems, untethered VR, active immersive experiences, and B2B applications.
[00:00:31.020] Kent Bye: Great. So, yeah, maybe tell me a bit about your untethered solution that you've been developing and where you see that going.
[00:00:38.407] Mike Lenzi: Well, I mean, obviously the tether is an issue, right? There's safety issue. We feel like it anchors you back into reality. And so being untethered is obviously... a great thing. But it's not just that, it's a combination of things that really increase immersion. Really high quality HMDs, I think Oculus, HTC Vive, and Sony are knocking out of the park, giving us low persistence, high resolution displays on top of chromatic correction, distortion correction, and so forth. So adapting those and tethering them is kind of like a thing that we've been very passionate about. We don't want to be in the hardware business, but we built them as a proof of concept that, hey, this should happen. We looked at some wireless technology. The limitations right now of WiGig is 1080p at 60 frames per second, and unless you have a home-brewed HMD, Those are the only things that can really run them. But, you know, as you know, with higher levels of immersion requires high frame rate. We're now up to 90 on both Oculus and Vive and we're at higher resolutions and that's just going to keep going up. So, we're prototyping. We're talking to a few manufacturers and we want to help make sure that we can get to an untethered state. Something we've enjoyed for a long time and I think a lot of people would be interested in that.
[00:01:56.647] Kent Bye: Yeah, so you're talking about literally a backpack that has a GPO that is fast and strong enough to be able to drive at 90 frames per second.
[00:02:04.589] Mike Lenzi: We're running desktop-level GPUs. We've prototyped devices that can run for an hour straight. Pretty much all the public Steam demos on Vive, we can run untethered. The Vive actually lends itself well to being untethered because the tracking technology is not tied to a computer. So that's a pretty interesting bit there. And if you can expand the Lighthouse technology for larger volumes, that makes it more interesting, right?
[00:02:31.680] Kent Bye: Yeah, maybe you could talk a bit about what is the limits that you've been able to push in terms of size and scale, but also how many people at the same time you've been able to put into an experience.
[00:02:39.760] Mike Lenzi: Yeah, well we started with OptiTrack, and that's, as you know, a motion capture system. It wasn't built for VR, but we wrote a layer for tracking that got too close to DK2 level tracking for a full large-scale environment. It's our belief that you can't really just put markers on a headset and say, hey, good enough, you know, you got a lot of jitter, it's not a smooth experience, you're gonna make people sick that way if you're gonna spend a little bit more time in there. And that's what we're trying to get to, is allow people to spend enough time in there and not get them sick and that requires really solid tracking. We've been working on for the last year and a half dialing that down. Now with the OptiTrack system you can expand that system from a 10 by 10 to 200 by 200 up to 10-16 people inside those spaces at the same time. Things can get pretty interesting there. One of our clients in the automotive industry, they want a 50 by 50 holodeck that their execs can kind of walk in. They don't want to press any controllers or they just want full-scale, natural interaction. They want to be able to walk away from the vehicle. They want to be able to walk inside of the vehicle. You know, basically design verification type of activities, yeah.
[00:03:48.952] Kent Bye: And so are you, as Atomic VR, primarily focusing on the software layer and producing these experiences, or you're also going to be producing some custom hardware, or what's sort of the plan going forward?
[00:04:00.611] Mike Lenzi: Yeah, I mean, it was kind of shocking to us because, you know, we know there are people doing backpacks all over the place and stuffing laptops in there. And we've done that. You know, we started with the wireless technology. We've always been passionate enthusiasts and hardware hackers trying to figure out what the best design is. We're not a hardware manufacturer. We don't want to be in the hardware business. We just wanted show them that this is a proof of concept, it is perfectly viable, and in the hands of the right hardware manufacturer, this could be a real product. And I think wearable technology in this case is very, very interesting and opens up a lot of different opportunities. You think about rebranding the units. I mean, people customize their PCs now. If you're wearing a certain solution, it gets kind of interesting, right? It could be an interesting fashion statement for someone. But on top of that, there is, again, real functionality, and there's a real use case for being untethered in VR, especially multiple people in the same environment. You can't have tethers, obviously. That can be a safety hazard, right?
[00:04:58.521] Kent Bye: So what are some of the problems or use cases that you'd be solving with this system, then?
[00:05:04.294] Mike Lenzi: I think, again, that automotive visualization is one. The thing that we're very much interested, our early passions for, and something that we want to see is something we're calling vSports. Being untethered allows you to do some really cool athletic activities in VR, and that, you know, that really requires awesome position tracking, which now we have with Vive and Oculus. being untethered inside those experiences is important. And so, you know, with eSports, I'll explain it like it's a derivative of eSports, but it has an athletic focus to it, right? Where you have to perform the moves one-to-one. And this is the first time that anything like this really existed. I mean, the Wii and the Kinect started this motion gaming industry, and they were wildly successful. But they were almost like a novelty, right? Like, you know, I was swinging the Wii controller really hard like a tennis racket, and the next thing you know, I'm on the couch. just twisting my wrist a little bit and eating a bag of Cheetos, and I could get a strike every time, right? It's not that compelling anymore. And now with VR, with sub-millimeter accurate tracking, you perform the motions one-to-one, right? So you can imagine casting a spell, or fighting the dragon, or dodging the bullets. It's really interesting. And being untethered just opens up the door to do a lot more, obviously, and, of course, much more safer.
[00:06:21.088] Kent Bye: So, I mean, yeah, just in terms of the safety, are you imagining that there would be objects in the room, or is it a flat room, or have you been able to prototype any of these vSports, and what actual actions are you doing?
[00:06:32.292] Mike Lenzi: Yeah, so one of our early demos, it was what we called the light sword trainer, kind of tips of the hat to the Star Wars universe. And so we've had that for the last year on the OptiTrack system. Yes, it requires some space. We realized that maybe not everyone is going to have that. 20 by 20 space in their living room. We think some people will clear out 10 by 10 or what have you to do something like this, but there's obviously a commercial component to this where, you know, maybe you can do the smaller scale thing at home and interact at some level and then interact with the commercial installation as well. So yeah, safety is an issue and I know that the big three, as I call them, are looking to enhance safety for the home environment, whether it's pass-through cameras or mapping out your environment. And we've got some ideas on some peripherals that could help with that as well, right? So certainly possibilities there.
[00:07:25.740] Kent Bye: Yeah, I guess the thing that I think of is that if you are having a virtual space that's larger than your actual physical space, and you kind of get so immersed that you just start running or moving quickly, and I think that's the thing with VR is a lot of experiences people try to move slowly, but if you're talking about vSports, you know, it implies that you're getting so immersed that you may actually be trying to move around at a faster rate, which could be, I think, potentially more dangerous.
[00:07:50.361] Mike Lenzi: Well, you know, we as humans adapt very quick, right? You're going to hit that wall once, you're going to knock that lampshade over once, and you're going to learn, hey, maybe I need to clear out a little bit more room or have a little bit more controlled environment. So it'll be interesting, let's just say that. But what drives this really is like, The ability to do something active, athletic, get your fitness game on, right? My co-founder Ben, he lost 30 pounds playing these games, developing and playing these games. He's a programmer. So, you know, I think it's a compelling reason to get a workout. If it's, you know, it's doing something that you like and enjoy as entertaining, it's a no-brainer to me, right? I'd rather do that than run on a treadmill with watching a screen of some news channel that I don't want to watch. So it makes for a good experience, we believe. And I think we're going to see the dawn of eSports here in the next couple of years. And we want to be a part of it and help build that.
[00:08:42.052] Kent Bye: What was the experience that he was doing in VR that he lost 30 pounds? I think this may be the first time I've heard of VR as a weight loss, gamification of weight loss.
[00:08:51.398] Mike Lenzi: Yeah, absolutely. It was the lightsword experience where, you know, you fight the drone, you've got your two laser swords and key ramped up difficulty, built in some AI where it can launch missiles at you, shoot lasers at you, but it also has a swinging laser sword that you have to parry with and fight with. And then on top of that, you can ramp up difficulty by deploying more drones and you're fighting not just one object at the same time with AI, but two or three. And so he's gotten actually really good at it where he's like dodging stuff, swinging at stuff, and you can get quite the workout in there. And we've got some ideas for multiplayer as well, which really brings in the social aspect of it, which we're excited about.
[00:09:32.767] Kent Bye: And yeah, maybe talk about what you're showing here at CVR with the Fruit Ninja-inspired NVR.
[00:09:37.925] Mike Lenzi: Yeah, I mean it was kind of a... we sat down, a few of us, and said, man, what would be cool in VR? Now, you know, we're all about vSports and motion gaming, so we already knew the sword was compelling. We did a bunch of different experiments with, like, you know, shorter swords or daggers or... different types of weapons, but the sword really just kind of lend well. It's like, you know, slice some fruit, right? Let's see how well we can make that. How, you know, and I think you got to try it. We've got a lot of great feedback. It's a very compelling experience. We modeled the sword as accurately as we could. People found that to be too unforgiving and so we kind of dialed it back a little bit and make it easier to do stuff. But yeah, it's a proof of concept. You know, we're getting wonderful feedback from the VR community and many people are saying it's their favorite experience, the comeback to experience, because it has replay value, right? I love the exploration experiences where you can discover a world, right? Or some of the more passive demos are kind of cool to see once, but we love VR. We just want to keep playing. And so this is one experience where it's like, you can actually get better as you keep playing. And then you challenge your friends. It's like, who's got the high score? So it's kind of a proof of concept. We felt like we did a good job there. We want to take it to the next level and make sure we're there at launch. So yeah.
[00:10:55.046] Kent Bye: As you move forward into the consumer launch of VR, what do you think is going to be your sweet spot in terms of your mission as a VR company? What type of experiences? Where do you want to fit into this whole ecosystem?
[00:11:07.045] Mike Lenzi: Again, we're really passionate about the vSports idea, but there are a number, I mean, we're interested in quite a bit in VR, like, you know, there's some obviously great opportunities to help companies use this immersive technology in new ways, and because we have untethered solutions, large-scale solutions, all the way to consumer solutions and tying them all together, That's a very interesting part of the business for us but compelling consumer content, we feel that there's not enough of it. I think everybody can agree that there isn't enough and so we want to help bring more of that into the ecosystem and help kind of unpoison the well of VR. There's been a lot of really bad experiences where It's early, right? So people are like, oh, let's do a roller coaster. And we found out, well, what happens? We make people sick. They don't want to come back to VR. And that's really a shame because VR's biggest challenge is evangelism. You've got to do one-to-one. You've got to try it for yourself to believe it. And if you try it once and you don't like it, it's going to be a long time. It's going to be a tough challenge to get that person back. And so what we're about is just making the highest quality experience, as compelling experience as possible, to try and reverse some of that stuff that's been out there. Luckily, we're not at consumer launch yet, but we want to make sure that what we put out there can represent what the best of VR can be, right? We don't believe in taking control of the camera. It should be one-to-one movement at all times for the camera. Otherwise, you just make people sick. So, you know, it's interesting to see the traditional game development community try to apply You know, we all said, oh, let's do Skyrim in VR and let's do all these, you know, open world experiences without thinking about locomotion solutions. And I know there are companies now almost trademarking their own solution of teleportation or whatnot. But yeah, I mean, there's plenty that can be done with the vSports concept where you bring the action to you. And yeah, that's kind of where we're going.
[00:13:03.759] Kent Bye: And finally, what do you see as kind of the ultimate potential of virtual reality and what it might be able to enable?
[00:13:09.484] Mike Lenzi: Well, I mean, again, I think the vSports thing is really compelling. But, you know, early on when I got into this, I thought it was just going to be all games. And, you know, there's companies like Vivid Vision that just blew my mind very early on at the first SVVR conference. I saw that application. It was just Absolutely fantastic. I mean, the pain that alleviates by gamifying physical therapy is just such a wonderful idea. And with vSports and fitness, you know, we've had decades of sitting on the couch, and that's cool too, and I don't think that will ever go away. But there should be an option that, hey, if I want to get a workout in and play something fun with my friends, there should be that option. And I think that's something that we want to help deliver. But things such as empathy, the empathy machine concept of opening up the world to eyes that I think are kind of blinded. If you don't travel, you don't see the rest of the world, you don't see what effects globalization has on other countries and just enabling a deeper understanding of how we're all connected and how we are living on this one planet together saying, how does what we do affect this country and should we care? Right? I think we should. I think it's a very compelling argument, you know? And if you live in that bubble and your eyes aren't open to what's going on in the other parts, it's too easy. It's, you know, ignorance is bliss. And so, to me, those social implications of allowing VR to proliferate and to enable more stories to be told that you feel like you're there, I think is a really compelling idea and something that's important for the progression of mankind. How was that?
[00:14:57.759] Kent Bye: Awesome, well thank you so much.
[00:14:59.020] Mike Lenzi: Thanks, thanks Kent.
[00:15:00.822] Kent Bye: And thank you for listening. If you'd like to support the Voices of VR podcast, then please consider becoming a patron at patreon.com slash Voices of VR.
