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783 episodes

#538: How Mozilla is Driving WebVR Content & Tooling with the A-Frame Framework

by kentbyeMay 25, 2017

Mozilla's mission statement is to ensure that the Internet remains a global public resource, open and accessible to all, and they've been helping bring VR to the web for the past three years. A-Frame is an open source framework that has gained a lot...

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#536: “Walkaway” Author Cory Doctorow on Gift Economies & Privacy

by kentbyeMay 17, 2017

Cory Doctorow's new sci-fi book 'Walkaway' is a optimistic disaster novel that imagines what society might look like if people walked away from competitive market-driven laws, norms, and technological infrastructure and into an open-source inspired...

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#534: Microsoft Technical Evangelist on Presence in VR Game Design

by kentbyeMay 9, 2017

The Microsoft Build conference starts this week, and I expect that we'll be learning more about the HoloLens as well as Microsoft's Windows Mixed Reality operating system. Microsoft has been evangelizing about virtual reality the past couple of...

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#530: Upload LA Opening Represents a Focus Shift From VR Tech to VR Content

by kentbyeApril 28, 2017

UploadVR opened up their new 20,000 square foot Upload LA co-working space on April 13, 2017. I had a chance to catch up with co-founders Taylor Freeman and Will Mason as VRLA to get the inside scoop. Mason told me that opening up this huge co...

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#529: VR Storytelling Highlights from Tribeca Film Festival

by kentbyeApril 27, 2017

The Tribeca Film Festival featured over 30 different VR experiences within their Storyscapes and Immersive Virtual Arcade, and I had a chance to catch up with curator Loren Hammonds about some of the highlights of the festival program with genres...

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#525: Flying in VR: How Mindride’s Airflow Takes Immersion to the Next Level

by kentbyeApril 13, 2017

One of the most immersive flying experiences that I've had a chance to have so far was Mindride Airflow. I had a chance to try it out last fall at VRLA, and the weightless harness combined with a variety of different wind speeds gave me a deep sense...

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#524: VR Unicorns’ #Archery takes the bow and arrow mechanic to its logical extreme

by kentbyeApril 11, 2017

Shooting a bow and arrow in VR is a satisfying game mechanic. It uses both hands in a 6-DoF interaction that can only happen in VR. VR Unicorns' #Archery takes this bow and arrow shooting mechanic to the logical extreme in a quirky fashion that's...

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#523: Viveport’s President on HTC’s New VR Subscription Service

by kentbyeApril 7, 2017

April 4th was the one-year anniversary of the HTC Vive, and HTC released the subscription service for Viveport for $6.99 to try out five new VR applications per month. I had a chance to catch up with Viveport president Rikard Steiber at GDC to talk...

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#522: Sundance’s Shari Frilot on the Power of VR Storytelling to See Ourselves in a New Way

by kentbyeApril 4, 2017

Shari Frilot started the New Frontier at Sundance in 2007, and programmed the festival's first VR experience in 2012 with Nonny de la Peña's Hunger in LA using an early Oculus Rift prototype made by Palmer Luckey. Frilot has since programmed around...

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#519: How ‘Rock Band VR’ Accidentally Became a Music Creativity Tool

by kentbyeMarch 25, 2017

The developers at Harmonix didn't set out to create an open-ended music creativity tool with Rock Band VR, but once they realized how compelling it was to simulate the feeling of being a rock star on stage in VR, then they completely pivoted the...

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#512: Experiential Poems: Exploring Emotions & Embodied Vulnerability with Cabbibo

by kentbyeMarch 8, 2017

Using language to translate an experience into words is one of the highest levels of abstraction that you can have. Using the power of visual metaphor through poetry is able to get to deeper levels of emotion, and virtual reality is able to remove...

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#511: Neurospeculative Afrofeminism: Building the Future You Want to Live Into

by kentbyeMarch 3, 2017

Labs is a immersive design collective made up of women of color, and they had a sci-fi VR experience at Sundance this year called Neurospeculative Afrofeminism. Their VR experience features black women as some of the pioneers of brain optimization...

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#510: Bigscreen VR’s Social Utility May Be VR’s First Killer App

by kentbyeFebruary 28, 2017

Last week BigscreenVR announced that they raised $3 million dollars for their 'social utility' VR application. BigscreenVR gives you access to your computer screen in VR, which is a deceptively simple idea but one that is unlocking new ways of...

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#507: ‘Tilt Brush’ Launches on Oculus + Unanswered Questions about VR Privacy & Google

by kentbyeFebruary 22, 2017

Tilt Brush launched on the Oculus Rift today, and I had a chance to catch up with Tilt Brush product manager Elisabeth Morant, launching. We have a broad discussion about adapting Tilt Brush for the Touch controllers, the Tilt Brush Artist in...

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#503: Conversational Gameplay & Interactive Narrative in Human Interact’s ‘Starship Commander’

by kentbyeFebruary 10, 2017

Human Interact announced this past week that they are collaborating with Microsoft's Cognitive Services in order to power the conversational interface behind their Choose-Your-Own-Adventure, interactive narrative title named Starship Commander...

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#502: An Elemental Theory of Presence + Future of AI & Interactive Storytelling

by kentbyeFebruary 8, 2017

Jessica Brillhart is the principle filmmaker for virtual reality at Google, and she been exploring the cross section of artificial intelligence and storytelling in VR. I had a chance to catch up with her at Sundance again this year where we did a...

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#501: Emotional Branching VR Stories: Combining Empathy & Interactivity for Compassion Acts

by kentbyeFebruary 4, 2017

Last year, Baobab Studios' Eric Darnell was skeptical about adding interactivity to virtual reality stories because he felt like there was a tradeoff between empathy and interactivity. But after watching people experience their first VR short...

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#500: Mindshow VR’s Collaborative Storytelling Platform

by kentbyeFebruary 2, 2017

There are a number of immersive storytelling innovations Sundance 2017 in a number of experiences including Dear Angelica, Zero Day VR, Miyubi, and Life of Us, but Mindshow VR's collaborative storytelling platform was the most significant long-term...

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#499: VR as the Ultimate Empathy Machine with Gabo Arora

by kentbyeJanuary 31, 2017

Gabo Arora founded the United Nations VR, and directed some for the more well-known VR empathy experiences starting with Clouds Over Sidra in December 2014 in collaboration with Chris Milk and Here Be Dragons. Milk first showed Clouds Over Sidra...

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#498: Keys of Owlchemy Labs’ Success: Agency & Plausibility + What is Real?

by kentbyeJanuary 25, 2017

Owlchemy Labs recently announced that Job Simulator has grossed over $3 million, and so it's worth reflecting on some of the design principles of agency and plausibility that have proven to be some of the key affordances of the virtual reality...

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#497: The Future of VR Arcades with VRsenal

by kentbyeJanuary 22, 2017

HTC announced the Vive Tracker at CES this year, which will enable a range of VR peripherals that are targeted to from consumers to high-end virtual reality arcades. One of the higher-end peripherals that debuted was VRsenal's VR-15, which has built...

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#491: Brain-Controlled VR Experiences: Challenges & Potentials

by kentbyeJanuary 4, 2017

When I attended the Experiential Technology Conference in May 2016, I heard from a number of commercial off-the-shelf brain-control interface manufacturers that their systems would not natively work with VR headsets because there are some critical...

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#490: Making VR Experiences Wheelchair Accessible

by kentbyeJanuary 3, 2017

Brian Van Buren is a narrative designer at Tomorrow Today Labs, and he's also a wheelchair user who has been evangelizing how to make virtual reality experiences more accessible. I had a chance to catch up with him at the Intel Buzz Workshop in June...

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#489: From 2D Illustration to 3D VR Art: The Role of Artists with the Uncanny Valley

by kentbyeJanuary 2, 2017

In July, I was invited to give a talk about virtual reality at the bi-annual Illustration Conference with indie VR developer Ashley Pinnick, who studied as an artist and illustrator. On today's Voices of VR podcast, we talk about the process of...

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#486: “Everything We Do is Experiential:” The Many Innovations of Felix & Paul Studios

by kentbyeDecember 23, 2016

Felix & Paul Studios have been innovating on their own immersive VR camera technology since they pioneered the first-ever stereoscopic VR video with Strangers with Patrick Watson. They went on to sign a deal with Oculus Studios to produce a number...

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#484: Creating a Synthetic Peak Experience in VR with SoundSelf

by kentbyeDecember 17, 2016

Robin Arnott had a peak experience from a LSD trip at Burning Man, and wanted to see if he could replicate this type of peak psychedelic experience within virtual reality. The result of four years of work is a transcendent experience called...

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#483: ‘SUPERHOT VR’: The Joy of a Slow Motion, Full-Body Experience

by kentbyeDecember 15, 2016

SUPERHOT VR is one of the standout VR games to come out with the Oculus Touch launch with it's unique blend of the mechanics of a first-person shooter but with the strategy of a puzzle game. Physics-based interactions in VR are already compelling...

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#482: Designing an Escape Room Puzzle Game with “I Expect You to Die”

by kentbyeDecember 12, 2016

VR escape room games are one of the emerging genres that are particularly well-suited for the affordances of VR, and Schell games' I Expect You to Die sets the standard for creating this type of puzzle game. I had a chance to catch up with game...

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#477: Top 50 VR Storytelling Interviews + Oculus Story Studio Roundtable Discussion

by kentbyeNovember 29, 2016

I had a chance to talk about storytelling in VR with three of the co-founders of Oculus Story Studio during Oculus Connect 3. Saschka Unseld, Maxwell Planck, and Edward Saatchi were showing off a preview of their third VR experience Dear Angelica as...

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#474: Android Jones on Using VR for Spiritual Transformation & Unlocking Creative Flow

by kentbyeNovember 14, 2016

There was an immersive dome experience at VRLA called Samskara that was based upon the Hindu Vedas produced by 360art. It featured different Hindu mythological characters reimagined by visionary artist Android Jones. I had a chance to talk to...

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#470: The Art of Dying VR Art Show

by kentbyeNovember 1, 2016

On October 28-31, there was a virtual & augmented reality art show in San Francisco called 'The Art of Dying.' It featured 15 VR experiences and another dozen artists exploring death and grieving using immersive technologies. The show was produced...

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#467: Oculus Story Studio’s ‘Quill’: An Immersive Storytelling Tool

by kentbyeOctober 27, 2016

Oculus Story Studio has been exploring VR storytelling through a series of short narrative experiences starting with Lost and Henry, but they wanted to push the envelope of immersive storytelling with their next short titled Dear Angelica. They...

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#463: HTC’s VP of Content on VR Industry Verticals & Game Genres

by kentbyeOctober 17, 2016

Joel Breton is the Vice President VR Content at HTC, and I had a chance to catch up with him at the Casual Connect conference in July to talk about the different industry verticals that they've identified. These include commerce, games, healthcare...

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#462: Denny Unger on Valve’s New Controller Prototype & Future of Non-Linear Storytelling

by kentbyeOctober 14, 2016

Valve premiered a prototype of a new type of VR input controller at Steam Dev Days in order to get some preliminary feedback from developers. They've created a capacitive-touch controller that is attached to your hand so that you can open and close...

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#461: 3D Modeling for the Masses with Oculus Medium

by kentbyeOctober 13, 2016

Oculus Medium may be the first professional 3D modeling creation tool for the Oculus Touch controllers. It was created with the goal to democratize the process of creating 3D art and prototyping 3D-printed objects. The Medium developers didn't set...

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#460: Robo Recall Design Insights from Epic Games Developers

by kentbyeOctober 11, 2016

Epic Games has had a long history of releasing new demo content at big gaming and developer conferences to showcase the latest Oculus hardware, and this year was no different. Oculus Studios provided funding to further develop the Bullet Train demo...

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#455: VR First-Person Shooters & eSports with ‘World War Toons’

by kentbyeOctober 3, 2016

At PAX West, Reload Studios made a strong push for cultivating World War Toons as a VR eSports title. They were livestreaming a couple of shoutcasters announcing a four-on-four player capture the flag game of World War Toons, which is a free-to...

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#454: Cohh Carnage: A Twitch Streamer’s Perspective on VR

by kentbyeOctober 2, 2016

Cohh Carnage is a professional Twitch streamer, and I had a chance to catch up with him at PAX West after he had a chance to scout out the expo floor for games that he's interested in streaming. As streamer, he has to cultivate a sense of presence...

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#453: DIY Volumetric Capture with Depthkit

by kentbyeOctober 1, 2016

Alexander Porter & James George want to democratize volumetric capture with Depthkit. Depthkit combines depth sensor devices like the Kinect or RealSense cameras with high-end digital SLR cameras. They're able to create a 3D mesh from the captured...

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#452: Warehouse-Scale Tracking with Worldviz + Vection in VR

by kentbyeSeptember 30, 2016

Andy Beall is the CEO of Worldviz, and has been doing VR since 1992. I had a chance to catch up with him at SIGGRAPH where he told me about the type of work that Worldviz has been doing in the VR space since 1992, including creating warehouse-scale...

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#450: Giving Virtual Honor Flights to WWII Veterans with StoryUP VR

by kentbyeSeptember 28, 2016

At VRLA, I had a chance to catch up with Sarah Hill, who is the CEO and Chief Storyteller for StoryUp VR. She's been doing some VR for Good projects including giving virtual Honor Flights for WWII veterans as a part of Honor Everywhere as well as...

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#447: VRLA Highlights + 2017 as the Year of Mobile VR

by kentbyeSeptember 25, 2016

Anshel Sag is an analyst for Moore Insights and Strategies where he has focused on mobile computing platforms. I had a chance to catch up with him at VRLA where talked about his content highlights there as well as why he thinks that 2017 is going to...

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#442: Framestore VR on Digital Lightfield Workflows & VR Ad Campaigns

by kentbyeSeptember 21, 2016

When I was at SIGGRAPH this year, one of the hottest topics was figuring out the workflows for how to deal with the complexity of capturing, processing, and distributing volumetric digital light fields. Otoy's Jules Urbach had a lot of insights, and...

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#441: What Dungeons & Dragons Can Teach Storytelling in VR

by kentbyeSeptember 19, 2016

Dungeons & Dragons is a form of collaborative storytelling that isn't constrained by time or budget. Because it's all happening within the theater of the mind, then if you can imagine it, then it can be constructed instantaneously within everyone's...

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#440: Spherica’s Stabilization Technology Used in HBO’s ‘Westworld’ VR Experience

by kentbyeSeptember 18, 2016

HBO premiered a VR experience for their new Westworld series at TechCrunch Disrupt, and they used Spherica's camera stabilization technology in order to pull off an extended live-action tracking shot in VR. Common advice given to new VR filmmakers...

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#439: Ted Schilowitz on Bringing VR & Interactive Storytelling to Hollywood

by kentbyeSeptember 17, 2016

When Ted Schilowitz was looking for what to do after traveling the world as the first RED Camera employee, he happened upon an opportunity to serve as a futurist for 20th Century Fox for looking at how to use emerging technologies for storytelling...

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#438: “Luna”: A Deep Game, Narrative Puzzler about Recovering From Grief & Trauma

by kentbyeSeptember 15, 2016

One of the best VR experiences I did at PAX West this year was Funomena's Luna, which is a unique blend of tactile puzzles, creative world building, musical improvisation within the context of an emotionally-charged narrative. Luna is designed by...

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#436: Providing Wide-Area Tracking for VR Arcades with OptiTrack

by kentbyeSeptember 13, 2016

OptiTrack premiered a new demo at GDC that shows the extent of their tracking technology precision. They put passive tracking markers on a basketball and football that allowed people to go toss a ball back and forth to each other in VR. I had a...

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#433: ‘Rick and Morty Simulator’: Making Narratives More Plausible through Interruption

by kentbyeSeptember 8, 2016

When Owlchemy Labs' Alex Schwartz saw that Rick and Morty creator Justin Roiland was a fan of their Job Simulator VR experience, then he reached out and met up with Justin in Los Angeles. They came up with the idea of creating an interactive Rick...

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