3 min read R&D

09 Research

09 Research
Photo by julien Tromeur / Unsplash

Mediums

Through my research and past modules I have come across projects using a wide range of mediums. Each have their own affordances and I will list some here along with observational notes relating to user experience and technical aspects.

  • Projected / Projection mapped indoor spaces
    • Physically co-located audience offers a shared communal experience
    • No wearables required
    • Location needed
    • Flexible projection options depending on surfaces
      • Option to project on surroundings
      • Option to project onto objects within the space e.g. spherical blimp as I have done in past works
    • Projectors are easy to source by professional rental
      • Can be planned ahead of event set up to make sure all specs are suitable
  • Fulldome
    • High degree of immersion
    • No wearables required
    • Communal experience
    • Possibility for a hidden spatial sound system mounted outside of dome
    • Can vary in size and accommodate different audience sizes
    • Projection blending looks tricky but there are useful tools and guides available both free and proprietary
    • Planetariums offer domes ready to go without set up
      • I have potential link to Liverpool Museum Planetarium
    • Possibility to construct my own dome (I have built one already in the past)
      • This is relatively simple and inexpensive and can result in a structure that can be reused or sold
      • Join hubs can be 3D printed (free files exist online)
      • Choosing the projection material and hanging it without creases is more of an unknown to me and may prove tricky, but I am confident it is possible
    • Movable domes can go on tour easily and be set up indoors or outdoors
  • Virtual Reality (Metaverse or location-based)
    • High level of presence and immersion
    • Users cannot be distracted (e.g. by their phones or family) due to being inside the headset, leading to greater focus on the experience
    • Multiplayer possibility through game engines for a virtual communal experience (noting my past research into social VR).
    • Co-located experience possible with enough devices
      • Possible Covid considerations around sanitisation depending on regions laws at the time of event
      • If using standalone device (Meta Quest) experience needs to run on that
      • If using tethered PC VR one machine per headset may be necessary
      • Option to stream over wifi for untethered PC VR
    • Research shows many more have access to headsets now, and its increasing
    • Virtual world creation has endless possibilities due to lacking limitations of real world including physics
    • VR development can take a lot of time to get high quality results
  • Virtual (Livestream)
    • 2D or 180 or 360 options
    • Stereoscopic is possible
    • Viewable on any device, including VR headsets
    • Bandwidth considerations (upload speed needs to be enough)
    • A dedicated streaming computer is recommended
    • Question of what agency, if any do livestream viewers have?
      • Comments
      • Live input into experience through a web api

Summary

After considering all of this I am leaning towards designing an experience that is an in-person co-located experience, with the potential to livestream it for a secondary audience who have less agency. The benefits of this include a communal group audience experience which can have a powerful impact on the participants. It also allows for in-person discussions after the event which can offer an enhanced overall experience which can lead to greater audience connection.

By designing an in-person event the challenge of system latency can be reduced due to the use of a local area network which will operate at very low latency and high bandwidth, meaning that any kind of data can be passed around a digital system easily. This means that a high-fidelity live audiovisual performance can be simple to achieve technically speaking.

I would love to create a multiplayer VR experience (in the Metaverse) which offers far greater access in terms of the number of people around the world who could do the experience, and the valuable data that could be captured due to this which would be used to improve the experience iteratively. However, I think that the barriers are too high for achieving this within the scope of this project (I am working independently on it without a large experienced team)… namely VR development speed, multiplayer implementation unknowns, game engine audio engine limitations. Another big problem will be the latency issues that might come from using advanced music production such as synthesis and algorithmic sequencing… and how this can be controlled live feeding this experience to all users simultaneously. I think that all of the technical barriers will be reduced greatly over the coming years, and estimate that an experience like this would be achievable for this project in several years.

By choosing an in-person event, the idea can be tested and evaluated, with the option to develop it into a VR experience in a future phase.