There’s a key scene early in Jurassic Park when the visiting scientists see their first dinosaur in person. Paleontologist Alan Grant (Sam Neill) and paleobotanist Ellie Sattler (Laura Dern) clamber out of their Jeep as they stare at the majestic brachiosaur looming above them. “It’s a dinosaur,” Grant stammers in disbelief. His reaction matches the audience’s: After a lifetime of looking at fossils and picture books, here, in the flesh, is a real, live dinosaur. We’ll never experience this ourselves, but virtual reality can convincingly take us face to face with these extinct creatures.
That’s no coincidence. When done right, VR’s ability to convey presence — the feeling of actually being somewhere — is unrivaled by any other medium. Nowhere is that more apparent than when you’re craning your neck to take in the size of the zebra-striped brachiosaur lumbering through a tar pit in Crytek’s Robinson: The Journey. Same goes for ducking under a bellowing tyrannosaur stomping through a museum hall in an Oculus tech demo. Some 65 million years later, developers love to resurrect nature’s most fearsome creatures in VR. But why?
“Dinosaurs have an epic sense of scale that immediately makes you appreciate the potential of VR,” Derrick Hammond, an environmental artist at Oculus, tells Engadget. For example, one of the experiences in Oculus’ Dreamdeck sampler is set in a museum late at night.
The marble hallway is lined with fossils, and a poster proudly proclaiming “Rex Lives” hangs above a relatively small T. rex skull. Then a menacing growl and thunderous footsteps echo in the distance. You’re frozen in place while a hulking version of the real thing stomps toward you, teeth bared, letting out a room-shaking roar that echoes off the museum’s stone and glass. It comes closer, towering over you, allowing an intimate look at its murderous maw before walking over you and offering a view of its pebbled underbelly.
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Source: Engadget