New CreativeXR funding programme awards £3500 for the development of immersive storytelling projects.

Digital Catapult and Arts Council England just announced the shortlisted five projects that will receive a total of £350,000 in funding to develop immersive storytelling experiences. The funding provided by the programme was achieved alongside match funding and support from a range of creative technology and cultural organisations such as Innovate UK and Immerse UK, and is part of a broader effort to support the development of the UK’s VR industry, which is expected to grow by 76% to reach £801m by 2021, making it the largest and fastest-growing VR industry of any country in EMEA.

Digital Catapult and Arts Council England just announced the shortlisted five projects that will receive a total of £350,000 in funding to develop immersive storytelling experiences
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These projects have all graduated from the CreativeXR programme, which was created to encourage content makers to explore creative storytelling in immersive mediums such as Augmented, Virtual and Mixed Reality. Designed to raise artistic and technical ambition, the programme has enabled the development of new skills, tools and business opportunities. Teams have been given workshops and marketplace events with industry leaders as well as access to Digital Catapult Immersive Labs in London, Brighton, North East Tees Valley and Belfast.

These projects have all graduated from the CreativeXR programme, which was created to encourage content makers to explore creative storytelling in immersive mediums such as Augmented, Virtual and Mixed Reality
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Run by the organisations in collaboration with commercial partners including Google, BBC and Sky, the programme is dedicated to supporting the development of virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR) products and their application within the creative industries. When it launched in October 2017, over 1,000 teams registered their interest, with 250 submitting proposals for the Open Call.

Experiences range from letting you participate in the ‘Dambusters’ mission to an interactive theatre journey which puts viewers in the shoes of a father and son coming to terms with the onset of dementia
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This pool was finally narrowed to a group of 20 – no easy task according to Jeremy Silver, CEO of technology innovation centre Digital Catapult. The final five projects will now have the chance to develop those projects further with this funding, making those experiences publicly available.

These experiences range from letting you participate in the famous ‘Dambusters’ mission to an interactive theatre journey which puts viewers in the shoes of a father and son coming to terms with the onset of dementia.

“CreativeXR has allowed content creators to focus on R&D and develop riskier projects aimed at the arts and culture space,” says Silver. “The value of taking these projects to full production will be both in surfacing new creative approaches and ways of working, but also in stimulating commissioners and giving confidence to investors in this new medium, where the UK has such world leading strengths.”

CreativeXR has allowed content creators to focus on R&D and develop riskier projects aimed at the arts and culture space
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The successful projects all use immersive technologies, combined with a range of traditional storytelling techniques such as documentary, poetry and theatre to provide audiences with unprecedented cultural experiences. The funded projects are:

• Fatherland by Limbik, Norwich & Portsmouth: An interactive theatre experience using real-time motion capture and VR technology that brings to life the journey of a son and father coming to terms with dementia and disembodiment in a modern world. Completed in partnership with University of Portsmouth.
• Traitor by Pilot Theatre, York: A two-player interactive high stakes thriller, combining VR with live action, completed with support from Pilot Theatre
• When Something Happens by Boom Clap Play, Belfast: An epic journey through the history of the cosmos – from the big bang to modern life – written and narrated by poet Boston Williams. Completed with support from Northern Ireland Screen and Northern Ireland Science Festival
• Immersive Histories by All Seeing Eye Ltd, Stroud: An immersive VR experience allowing an audience to physically step into history and experience the famous ‘Dambusters’ mission from on board Guy Gibson’s Lancaster. Completed with support from Other Set and the RAF Museum
• Municipal Dreams (working title) by VR CITY LTD, London: An immersive journey into the complicated history of the notorious Aylesbury Estate, using stereoscopic 360 video, photogrammetry and 3D modelling. Completed with support from Royal Holloway University, Creation Trust and IDFA

“Each of the five organisations are developing cutting edge, immersive content, and are illustrating what the UK can contribute to this growing global market. In time, we look forward to audiences enjoying the immersive experiences that they are creating; connecting with art, history and culture in ground-breaking new ways,” adds Francis Runacres, Executive Director of Enterprise and Innovation, Arts Council England.

The UK has a history of supporting budding sectors with such projects and initiatives, and it has proven a highly successful strategy both from a creative perspective and in boosting the Creative Industries, which account for a large proportion of the nation’s GDP. It will be interesting to see if an how other countries such as the US follow suit in fostering innovative immersive content production.

The UK’s VR industry is expected to grow by 76% to reach £801m by 2021, making it the largest and fastest-growing of any country in EMEA
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This article originally appeared on The Next Web

Investing in creative storytelling https://t.co/etb4RQx9s0

— TNW Contributors (@TNWcontributors) July 30, 2018

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Alice Bonasio is a VR Consultant and Tech Trends’ Editor in Chief. She also regularly writes for Fast Company, Ars Technica, Quartz, Wired and others. Connect with her on LinkedIn and follow @alicebonasio and @techtrends_tech on Twitter.

The post Supporting Creative Storytelling in VR appeared first on Tech Trends.

The global immersive industry is set to hit $162bn by 2020. 

A report by research firm CCS Insight forecasts that 16 million Virtual Reality (VR) and Augmented Reality (AR) devices will be shipped in 2017, which translates into a year-on-year growth of 47 percent. The market value of devices sold into the channel is currently estimated to be $1.6 billion but is expected to grow nearly tenfold to $11.9 Billion and 99 Million Devices sold in 2021.

Smartphone-based VR and AR devices are expected to account for the majority of those sales (13 million units) due to their lower cost and wider availability, with the remaining 3 million distributed among the three major players currently dominating the dedicated VR space, namely Facebook (Oculus), HTC (Vive) and Sony (PlayStation VR).

Yet CCS Insight analyst George Jijiashvili notes that although the expected growth is encouraging, there have been snags along the way, and all three manufacturers have opted to cut down their prices in order to boost sales and gain greater market share.

In the upcoming fourth quarter, however, the firm expects to see the impact of the new Microsoft-powered Windows Mixed Reality headsets to be felt. The HMDs which will start becoming available this month and are being manufactured in partnership with Acer, Asus, Dell, HP, Lenovo and Samsung should not only provide a boost to the end of year sales in 2017 but also lay the foundation for strong growth in 2018.

VR shows more potential in the Chinese market since its forecast in 2016
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According to the forecast, VR is showing considerably more potential in the Chinese market since its forecast update in 2016. This is a result of growing interest in the technology from large Chinese companies such as Alibaba, which has offered shopping by VR, and Tencent, which is expected to launch its own VR headset.

CCS Insights are also optimistic about the potential of Augmented Reality
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CCS Insights are also optimistic about the potential of Augmented Reality, boosted by commitment to the technology on iPhones through its ARKit platform and the advent of Google’s ARCore to Android smartphones.

The new Microsoft-powered Windows Mixed Reality headsets are expected to have an impact
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Digital Catapult announced a new Immersive Lab in Brighton
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This continued optimism in the growth of the immersive industry sector is also reflected in the expansion of creative and networking spaces designed to foster entrepreneurship initiatives in the area.

Digital Catapult, for example, recently announced that it was opening a brand new Immersive Lab in Brighton to further support what it describes as the UK’s “burgeoning immersive community” following the successful launch of its London Lab which hosted over 80 events, meet-ups and demos and welcomed over 1100 attendees through its doors since opening earlier this year.

The lab will be a meet-up point for companies to collaborate
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The move is part of efforts to propel the UK to take a “bigger slice of this pie” in a market still dominated by the US, which holds 75% market share in comparison to the UK’s 5% as highlighted in Sir Peter Bazalgette’ review recently.

“The immersive labs are part of Digital Catapult’s wider strategy to develop the best ecosystem for AR, VR and MR developers to create and experiment with the next generation of immersive content. The lab will be available to businesses of any size, alongside researchers and investors, to demonstrate, innovate, test and experience the latest immersive technology and content.”

Brighton is one of the biggest immersive hubs due to its strong background in gaming, film and software and hardware development, with many companies already working in these fields according to Phil Jones, Lead at Digital Catapult in Brighton.

“The opening of the Immersive Lab here is part of the wider strategy to bring these organisations together and encourage their collaboration to accelerate the immersive industry’s growth both regionally and nationally,” he explains.

The lab will be a meet-up point for companies of all sizes and individuals to collaborate and exchange ideas and expertise. Digital Catapult is developing a network of hubs nationwide to create the best environment for the immersive community to collaborate. In each lab, the gaming, filmmakers and software developers will have access to the latest equipment for testing, unlocking new types of content and business opportunities. The labs are meant to be a place to showcase emerging content, meet potential investors, collaborate with researchers and trial new proof of concepts.

The UK already has a rich heritage in sectors where immersive technologies are likely to have the largest and most immediate impact; the creative industries manufacturing and health. So, establishing immersive labs in key regions across the country like this one in Brighton will further benefit the development of the industry,” says Aurelian Simon, Head of Immersive at Digital Catapult, adding that the UK already has a significant presence in the global fast-growing immersive market – currently valued at $5.4 billion – and is home to the largest number of up and coming VR companies in Europe.

As the CCS Insight report emphasized, content is key in achieving and maintaining steady market growth in the immersive space, and companies like Digital Catapult are crucial in fostering this broader ecosystem:

“The growing availability of 360-degree material is underlined by Facebook’s recent revelation that it now hosts 70 million 360-degree photos and 1 million 360-degree videos, and that the videos have generated 580 million views,” says Jijiashvil. But other materials including sports, film, TV and pornography, are now playing a bigger role in that growth.

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Alice Bonasio is a VR Consultant and Tech Trends’ Editor in Chief. She also regularly writes for Fast Company, Ars Technica, Quartz, Wired and others. Connect with her on LinkedIn and follow @alicebonasio and @techtrends_tech on Twitter.

The post Report: Augmented and Virtual Reality Market Growth appeared first on Tech Trends.