Worlds On A Wire – Week 01 HW

For our first assignment, Todd asked us to get ourselves acquainted with VR and post our thoughts. I haven’t had much VR experience. I’ve tried Oculus Rift and google cardboard for a few minutes in the past and it was fun.

So now here we are in 2018. Some things have changed since last year, and there’s newer products coming on the horizon. Since I’m taking two VR related courses this year I decided to invest in a VR headset. I am glad I did. With my full time work schedule I needed one that was accessible for me when I had free time.

I ended up getting the Rift. The experience in the privacy of my home was much greater than in school. I had time to appreciate the content and I could hear things very clearly. I had time to forget I was home and engage with the worlds.

I would have to say Google Earth was my favorite experience we were asked to play. When it started I felt like I was in a planetarium. In fact this was better than the Hayden Planetarium because when I was a kid the projection didn’t look as good as this. The interface was clumsy, but being able to fly around and stalk your home in 3D was really awesome.

Dear Angelica was visually engaging and I appreciated the unique rendering style of it. They used scale and colors well and I felt inspired to inspect the scenes as they occurred. Henry was cute, but seemed a bit rough as far as the narrative. The world was nicely rendered, but it became too long and predictable as it progressed.

Honorable mention for the Oculus start up scene. It was a great way to get adjusted to the controls. I felt like I was really playing with the disks and rockets. The retro feel spoke to me as a kid of the 80’s.