You can now experience what it’s like to swing across New York as Spider-Man himself with a free VR experience created by Sony Pictures and Intel

VR and Spidey do seem like a perfect match
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I always get excited about a new Marvel film coming out. For the Stan Lee cameo if nothing else! But I have liked many of the Spider-Man films the studio has brought out over the years, so I’m curious to see what the latest instalment – Spider-Man: Homecoming will bring.

It's always exciting to see a new Marvel film, if only for the Stan Lee cameo
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To wet our appetites during the build-up to the film’s release Sony Pictures created a free Virtual Reality Experience (VRE) which was showcased in the US across selected Cinemark locations as well as various events worldwide. But if you have a PlayStation VR, HTC Vive and Oculus Rift you can now also try it out in the comfort of your own home. Just be sure to move the furniture out of the way first!

This companion piece to the Columbia Pictures feature lets you suit up as Spider-Man, hone your web-shooting skills, and sling high above New York City in pursuit of the Vulture. To create this VRE, developers utilized Intel hardware and software to create a fully immersive experience.

Intel sees VR as the jumping point to more immersive experiences
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According to Nicole Smith, Global Brand & Innovation Communications Manager at Intel, the company sees Virtual Reality as the jumping point (pun intended?) to more immersive experiences. The technology, they believe, will evolve to make use of next-generation sensing and digitizing technologies and will eventually include physical and virtual interactions within the same environment.

“Personal computing is radically evolving to become capable of experiences hardly believable today, and Virtual Reality’s highly sensory and immersive nature is central to that evolution. This collaboration is a first for Intel and Sony Pictures Virtual Reality, starting a new era in Intel/Hollywood VR production partnerships using premium cinema content,” said Doug Fisher, senior vice president and general manager of the Intel Software and Services Group. “Together with our silicon, the pervasive power of the Intel software ecosystem offers VR content and game developers the opportunity to create fully immersive experiences that bring the next evolution of compute to mainstream audiences. We are excited to be a part of this blockbuster partnership,” he concluded

Here’s the low-down of the tech used to create the experience, which you can also check out in the trailer.

Boosted by Intel hardware technology and software tools, the award-winning developers at CreateVR* used dual Intel® Xeon® processor-based Dell* workstations to quickly create and render 360-degree, ultra-high-resolution graphics of New York. The premium version of the superhero feature was best realized with the performance of the instruction architecture of the latest Intel® Core processors for ultra-high-resolution content streaming content streaming, encoding and video playback, while Intel® Graphics Performance Analyzers were used for better visual fidelity, higher-resolution and higher frame rates. In addition, Intel® Threading Building Blocks helped developers leverage Intel multi-core performance and heterogeneous computing.

The developers used a variety of Intel-optimized software, including Adobe*, Allegorithmic*, Autodesk*, Epic Games*, Mettle*, Pixlogic* and The Foundry* for authoring, digital sculpting, rendering and production, to deliver amazing performance and realism in the VR experience.

“Virtual reality experiences demand PCs with powerful computing performance—and that is where Intel technology excels; in fact, Intel processors are recommended by leading PC-based virtual reality vendors, including Microsoft, HTC Vive, Oculus, and others. Intel also has many technology assets that can improve the VR experience. A great example of this is Intel’s WiGig technology, which HTC announced they will integrate into an accessory for the Vive,” says Smith “Intel is deeply committed and involved with virtual reality development and innovation– one of the most exciting new immersive technologies in a decade. VR spans business and consumer uses as well as mobile, wearable, desktop and server platforms.”

For companies looking to get into Immersive technologies such as VR/AR/MR/XR our Virtual Reality Consultancy services offer guidance and support on how best to incorporate these into your brand strategy.

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

The post Virtual Reality Lets you Become Spidey appeared first on Tech Trends.

With Virtual reality fast becoming mainstream there’s huge demand for creative content showcasing the technology.

VR is an entirely new medium, however, with rules of its own that need to be discovered, tested and codified before we really experience its full glory. The National Theatre in London started pioneering VR content production in 2015 with its fabulous wonder.land experience based on the musical inspired by Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland (albeit with a distinctively modern twist).

VR is an entirely new storytelling medium
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I talked to the NT’s Head of Digital Development Toby Coffey about that project a few months ago, back when wonder.land had been selected for the first ever VR selection at Cannes. He told me that in spite of how the project had been done on a tight schedule and relatively low budget, it received overwhelmingly positive responses from the public, with over 90,000 taking part in the experience. This was clearly a rabbit hole worth exploring.

Over 90,000 watched National Theatre's wonder.land VR experience
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Which is how, on an extremely rainy British summer afternoon, I find myself in a modest room full of intriguing props and VR gear, in London’s traditionally arty South Bank district. My Virtual tour starts with revisiting wonder.land. It’s a different experience from the first one, where I had used the Samsung Gear headset while sat in Toby’s office.

This time around, I sat on a toilet seat and used the Oculus, which afforded much sharper resolution and heightened interactivity due to its motion-tracking feature. For a few minutes I’m serenaded by an elusive Cheshire cat in a colourful psychedelic world. And if you’re wondering why one would do this sitting on a fake toilet cubicle, it ties in with the plot of the musical where Alice is a modern teenage girl being bullied at school. She locks herself in the school toilet in order to escape to an alternative reality – through her mobile phone. The Internet, as Toby tells me, is Alice’s own wonderland.

The Internet is Alice's Wonderland
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Next up is HOME/AAMIR, a film directed by Coffey himself, which transports the viewer to the Calais Jungle refugee camp, in all its visceral squalor. This is a longer, slower-paced, deliberately uncomfortable experience, where you have time to look around various shacks and makeshift streets of the encampment guided by the narration of a Sudanese refugee. At one point, as Aamir recounts the terror of making the crossing in a “plastic boat” there is no footage, just darkness and the ominous sound of waves. Later, you huddle with a group of refugees hiding inside a container hoping to make the crossing to England undetected. You can only see their eyes, by the dim light of a mobile phone.

You experience what it's like for a refugee hiding in a container hoping to make it across to England
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As with a lot of 360 video, the experience is sometimes a bit jarring, but it definitely showcases the potential of the medium to create a heightened sense of empathy. The fact that I can focus on random details such as a tattered piece of tarpaulin fluttering in the breeze or the open door of a filthy portaloo as it swings backwards and forwards makes it feel a lot more real, and I’m therefore much more able to imagine the horror of what it is to live that existence.

It’s all quite intense, so while I’m waiting for my turn at the next experience – which centres around the Easter Rising in Ireland – I allow myself a quick pit-stop to decompress. There’s a HTC Vive setup in one corner and I’ve been meaning to try Google’s Tilt Brush for ages. Sometimes high expectations lead to disappointment, especially with such cutting-edge technology. Not so this time.

With VR all your surroundings become a malleable canvas
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One of the most interesting things about VR is that immersion really is not dependent on what you would normally associate with realism
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After reluctantly leaving my masterpieces behind, it’s time to experience Easter Rising: Voice of a Rebel, which was produced by BBC Learning, Crossover Labs and VRTOV. I sit at an old-fashioned desk installation and put on the Oculus (motion tracking is a key part of how the interactive narrative unfolds) to enter a highly stylized world which lets the user live the events of 1916 through the memories of one of its protagonists, Willie McNeive.

One of the most interesting things about VR is that immersion really is not dependent on what you would normally associate with “realism”. Photorealistic, sharp experiences can feel a lot more disconnected than ones using basic, cartoon-like characters. So even though Voice of a Rebel is in no way set in a “realistic” environment, the interactive triggers set in the story make me feel more invested in it than would have been possible through sound or video alone.

Interactive triggers make me feel more invested in the story
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The National Theatre is looking to bring this experience to the public from early September as a free installation in the Lyttelton Lounge, and there are plans for production and research collaborations between the Immersive Storytelling Studio and the National Film Board of Canada. They also tell me that future projects at the studio will explore hardware such as PlayStationVR (due out later this year) and Mixed Reality gear such as Microsoft HoloLens. Watch this space!

For companies looking to get into VR/AR/MR our Virtual Reality Consultancy services offer guidance on how these technologies can enhance and support your brand strategy.

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 National Theatre Launches VR Immersive Storytelling Studio in London appeared first on Tech Trends.