Above: Adobe’s Silka Miesnieks (center)
Image Credit: ©Adobe
Adobe has traditionally pioneered tools and workflows for professionals and creatives to build for a digital medium. The rise of virtual reality has led to Adobe building the platforms necessary for creators to transition into the world of 3D spatial computing. I’ve interviewed four innovators from Adobe Research and Adobe’s Design Lab who are building the company’s VR technologies, to get their insights on the future of VR and 3D immersive technologies.
3D experiences can be built on 2D devices
Experts in fields as diverse as architecture to game design often agree that building 3D experiences on 2D screens can be a challenge. However, is the problem that 2D screens are fundamentally insufficient to create 3D experiences? Or could it be that the user experience for these workflows has never been perfected?
Patrick Palmer is a Senior Product Manager for Premiere Pro CC at Adobe. He says that, “the focus has shifted from dimensionality to creating an immersive and interactive feeling that consumers can experience in everyday applications on any device.”
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Yet while VR environments succeed in placing audio effects around a user, they fail to respond to the viewer’s movements or head rotations, De Ridder says: “If audio and video are not synced together, you lose the perception of immersion. For example: If I speak while facing you in a virtual world, but you turn your head away to the right, you want to hear the sound of my voice coming from your left ear. Hence, pairing audio and video together will make an immersive experience complete.”
VR can be the future of film
VR can be the future of film, with companies opening VR-only movie theatres and blockbuster productions in the making. Yet a significant challenge in shooting 360 video content is that when scene objects come near the user’s viewpoint, they cannot move their head to peer around them — resulting in an uncomfortable experience. Even high-end VR cameras with 3DOF playback can feel flat and lack immersion.
This is a challenge that Adobe is tackling with Project Sidewinder. Stephen DiVerdi is a Senior Research Scientist at Adobe. He explains that Project Sidewinder is developing “a technology aimed at bridging the gap between the high-end consumer and the super high-end professional grades of VR filmmaking, by enabling a higher fidelity at a lower price point.”
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“This will require more intricate interactions, new content and design tools to come to fruition,” Miesnieks continues. “Fully immersive worlds will need more natural interaction with objects controlled by gestures and voice commands, unlike 2D screens that interact with keyboards or remotes. However, if successful, we will design sensory-laden experiences which are much more emotive than anything we’ve seen so far in the VR market.”
Source: Venturebeat