The future of Mixed Reality
Is it Ready for Mass Adoption?
In 2015, I attended San Diego Comic Con for the first time as a brand ambassador for Legendary Entertainment. Our job was to hand out thousands of Google cardboard VR viewers and show 3 VR experiences based on Legendary’s properties Pacific Rim, Warcraft, and Crimson Peak. Since then, the technology and demand for AR and VR have advanced yet there is a way to go before MR is a mature industry.
The convergence of the real world and simulated content has made it possible for the emergence of Mixed Reality (MR) environments. As technology becomes more accessible to both creators and consumers, there are some important trends that should continue to make an impact on the development of MR.
The future is sure to be impacted by hybrid realities yet the present state of the art is still in its nascent stage. These trends will continue to transform how MR content is produced and consumed.
5 Trends to Watch in Mixed Reality
1. Affordable and Cordless Headsets
The consumer-friendly Occulus Go arrived in 2018 and it was an instant game changer. At a price point of $199, it is positioned to be an affordable option for gamers and curious tech enthusiasts.
They’ve added a cordless feature to their premium Quest model as well, priced at $399, which includes hand controllers for a more immersive experience. While they’re surely early movers in the space, Oculus is not alone in offering untethered headsets priced to reach a broader consumer demographic.
VIVE has created a $299 wireless adaptor for it HTC and Pro headsets. This is a modular addition that a user can connect to a PC. They’ve also released the wireless, consumer-targeted Cosmos with an as of yet undisclosed price tag. Additionally, Google’s Daydream and Samsung’s Gear VR are both cordless options that utilize a compatible mobile phone in order to view VR experiences.
They range from around $100-$130 and are more durable plastic versions of the cardboard viewers I gave away that summer. They split a smartphone’s display into two screens so the viewer can experience VR in 3D and some come with a hand-held controller as well.
Depending on a given user’s preference, there are now more options at a wide range of price points that make access to VR hardware more realistic for many. Whether they are mobile compatible headsets or standalone, untethered viewers, consumers can start to experiment with VR without the large investment previously required. Even for those willing to spend more, there are wireless headsets that offer viewers a greater range of motion when experiencing VR.
2. User-Friendly Creator Toolkits
One of the early drawbacks of Augmented Reality (AR) was a lack of content. The same was true for VR. As AR and VR gained traction with early adopters, platforms like Apple and Facebook took notice and responded by offering toolkits for creators to produce experiences with a more seamless workflow.
Apple’s ARKit allows one to place a character in an environment regardless of where the camera is positioned. Another advantage is that ARKit needs no tracker- once it scans your space, you’re good. In addition to these tracker and detection features, the toolkit offers the advantage of being native to creating iOS AR apps. This means that using the Apple ARKit software tools helps developers conform to Apple’s strict requirements for publishing to the Apple App Store… like this one.
Facebook, the owner of Oculus, has also made a hard push into Mixed Reality. Their AR Studio toolkit can be used for creating AR filters for Messenger and more. The drag and drop UX requires little technical knowledge and greatly decreases the learning curve for would-be developers. They’ve partnered with SketchLab to offer pre-fabricated 3D models to make it even easier for creators. In essence, their AR tools are doing for Augmented Reality what web-builder sites like Wix and Squarespace did for web design several years back.
3. Location-Based Experiences
The limitations of Virtual Reality (VR) are often related to obstacles in the physical environment. Safety concerns may require users to rearrange the furniture in order to clear a space to move about freely. This is especially true as untethered headsets become more common in the marketplace. Wireless hardware means a user can cover more ground and that requires open space.
A solution to this emerging challenge is location-based VR experiences which are essentially physical centers one can attend specifically to experience VR in a specialized environment. Location-based experiences are being leveraged by museums, entertainment companies, amusement parks, healthcare institutions, and retail brands just to name a few.
In respect to entertainment, successful Mixed Reality content requires an emotional connection between the viewer and what they experience. It is not merely a spectacle and the more invested a person is in what they are viewing, the stronger the impact of the experience. By making experiences location-based, they can be fine-tuned to evoke emotion by choreographing the action and setting the mood in a way that is hard to replicate in the familiarity of someone’s living room.
Dreamscape Immersive is one such company. They’ve leveraged investments from creatives like Steven Spielberg and Hans Zimmer with leadership from Disney Imagineer Bruce Vaughn to bring world-class location-based entertainment to the buying public for about $20 for approximately 15 minutes of VR.
It turns out that there is more to it than just setting up shop and expecting people to go out of their way to come and experience Virtual Reality. IMAX learned this lesson the hard way. They decided to shutter their location-based attractions and write off most of their VR investments in 2018. Unfortunately, it’s not an “if-you-build-it, they-will-come,” scenario.
The context of the location-based experience matters as much, if not more than the content. Plus, the location of such a center matters too. Foot traffic is a must so real estate plays a major factor, one which may have led to the downfall of IMAX’s attempts at location-based immersive experiences.
Another area to watch for location-based experiences to grow is on the industrial side. Microsoft is investing heavily in MR that will transform the workplace, especially places like manufacturing facilities and production studios. Engineers and other professionals can use products like Dynamics 365 to glean greater amounts of 3D data from simulations using MR. Coworkers can get expert instruction remotely using an MR experience that allows them to annotate the virtual space around them in the same way people mark up Google Docs.
4. Green Screen Alternative MixCast
The cost of motion capture and green screen once presented a significant barrier to entry for creators. MixCast is able to remove backgrounds and adjust spatial alignment without a green screen. It is compatible with standard green screen setups but the game-changer is that the program is able to remove backgrounds without a green screen, using a process called Static Subtraction.
Adding MixCast to a VR production workflow makes it easier for creatives to place and track virtual objects without having a full Chromakeying setup. This means that the barrier to entry is significantly less of an obstacle for developers that invest in adding a product like MixCast to their VR production pipeline.
5. Shared Experiences
What makes anything fun, more fun? Sharing that experience with other people. Another limitation Mixed Reality faces is the highly individual nature of most experiences. It makes sense that a fully immersive experience be sort of a table for one.
However, it seems likely that for mass adoption of MR to happen there needs to be a collective experience available that makes the immersion a shared opportunity to connect with friends or meet new people. Oculus Venues is one such option. With Venues, you can go to a concert, watch TV or enjoy courtside seats at a sporting event with others, all via an Oculus VR headset.
The catch is that people behave badly in the real world, so what’s to stop them from becoming virtual trolls? One answer is that community guidelines and user accountability become an integral part of any shared experience and enforcement of those guidelines must carry consequences for offenders. In other words, be a decent human being or go away.
Looking Forward
Yes, Mixed Reality is going to be ready for mass adoption. The real question is not if, but when?
These are the wild west days of MR, like the early days of personal computers and mobile phones. At one point no one saw the utility in having a computer in the home or office or taking a call on a cell phone instead of a landline. See how silly that seems now?
The big difference here is that as technologies merge (e.g. PC + mobile device = smartphone), the rate of innovation speeds up exponentially.
There are many possible outcomes. Mixed Reality may emerge as a complex world of virtual real estate for marketers and advertisers.
It may become the new office cubicle, school classroom, or virtual meeting space.
It may take watching a movie at a theater or streaming a TV show from home to the next level.
Observing these trends over the short term will help tell when people can expect Mixed Reality experiences to be as common as checking emails.
