[salient]

I saw a video of some of the Verge guys trying it out at CES, and pretty much all of them were like "I don't want to take this off" at the end. It sounds like Oculus Rift will change gaming forever, and not just gaming.

There could also be done a lot of revolutionary new things with movies, like seeing through a character's eyes, etc (cameras mounted to the main character Google Glass style?). Even watching a normal movie on Oculus Rift is probably going to be a better experience than going to the cinema, because you could virtualize the cinema in front of you, and recreate that atmosphere.

[erikpukinskis]

I suspect the Rift will force an interesting battle between pre-rendered and realtime graphics in film. Because of parallax effects, there is no way to pre-render footage for the Rift while still maintaining the level of geometric correctness the Rift provides. I suspect we'll see some pre-rendered 3d movies for the Rift, but they'll feel pretty weird.... It will be pseudo 3d, like current 3d films, not the true binocular, immersive, persistent-world effect that Rift games provide.

With realtime rendering, however, you will get the complete, geometrically correct 3d images with head tracking. I suspect what this means is we'll start to see 3d films that are rendered in realtime. Essentially like the cutscenes we see for AAA video games, except they'd be feature length without any gameplay in between. If VR really takes off, we might even see companies like Pixar re-release their films for realtime viewing.

I would love to see a company like Pixar produce new realtime 3d films for the Rift, but it seems unlikely that would make financial sense for them. I suspect what we'll see instead is indie shorts first, followed by larger and larger budget films. The same trajectory that CG films took in the first place.

An interesting implication of this is that live footage will be basically impossible to incorporate into a true VR setting. As video resolution gets higher we may see multiple angles of scenes being recorded in ultra-high-def, and then digitally combined into a voxel scene. Probably data from something like the Kinect would have to be mixed in too, to resolve all of the voxels. That could be replayed on a Rift, but the director would have to really constrain the kind of lighting, materials, and motion for that to work well. It would be extraordinarily difficult, and I suspect you'd still have a lot of strange artifacts.

This could actually be a big shot in the arm for pure digital film production!

[potatolicious]

I have a Rift and I'm bullish about its prospects for gaming, but I'm pretty skeptical about using this for non-interactive entertainment.

What would be the point of allow the user to move around (in a limited fashion anyhow) inside the movie? It doesn't improve storytelling (as games can by adding interactivity and perspective) - it strikes me as a gimmick, much like 3D films in general.

You get the whiz-bang coolness of "OMG I'm in this thing!", but ultimately it's a lot more gear than a straight-up television/movie screen for next to no gain. 3D movies had a few years of glory but is now deeply unpopular - I foresee the same for VR-movies.

[andrewfong]

I suspect there'd be a niche but viable market for non-interactive or semi-interactive content. Off the top of my head, I can see a handful of use-cases where immersive VR would be a huge plus over a two-dimensional image:

* Being able to view complex choreography (martial arts, dancing, etc.) from different angles

* Conveying a sense of size and scale -- e.g. Pacific Rim, Godzilla

* Recreating some emotion or feeling imparted by the surrounding environment -- e.g. the franticness of a war zone, the claustrophobia of a submarine

[simias]

Porn is also an obvious use case. And porn could drive the market much more than anything else.

[vladimirralev]

Absolutely. There is a ton of work going on to shoot a movie, camera angles, positioning, orientation, shaking, motion speed and smoothness. If you take this away it will be like hiring the most incompetent camera-man confined to a wheelchair to shoot all movies you watch.

[daloots]

I have actually kind of done a very simple version the Kinect thing: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CQZQeCumzcA

[christoph]

Fully agree. When you see something like this - http://vimeo.com/75321405

You have to consider that from a consumer tech point of view, linking that film set to an Occulus Rift at the moment, is not a huge leap. In fact, it's so close, almost the biggest problem it faces is going to be on a creative level of re-thinking how to tell stories in a new medium. I don't think we're more than 5-10 years away.

[prawn]

There is already a demo for the Rift where you are placed in a virtual cinema complex (multiple screens, a patron walks past, the dorky carpet, etc). From the main hall, you can enter a cinema to watch an existing movie or choose one from your hard drive to play. It enables you to choose whichever seat you want which is a funny gimmick.

[utnick]

Or sports watching, Not sure if this is possible yet, but I'm imagining a 360 degree camera at the courtside of every sporting event. Then this is streamed to you at home so you can focus in on whichever part of the play you choose and feels like you are sitting courtside of a game.

[mrfusion]

Why stop at court side? You could be I the middle of the court!

[daenz]

> you could virtualize the cinema in front of you, and recreate that atmosphere.

Oculus IMAX. I like it.

[salient]

Here's the video I saw:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n0VCj7VKvFk&feature=youtu.be...