I appear to be shrinking, like Alice in Wonderland, inside an enchanted wood and a goblin just asked me to pick him a peach.
Let's back up. Physically, I know I'm inside a Venice, California, compound partly designed by Frank Gehry and previously owned by Dennis Hopper—a forbidding and imposing corrugated edifice with no visible means of entry from the street. Its current tenant is Wevr, a VR Studio started in 2010 by Neville Spiteri, Anthony Batt, and Scott Yara. Wevr has raised over $25 million in funding to, among other things, launch a consumer network known as Wevr Transport, which is why I'm here: to experience The Future.
To be honest, I was a bit skeptical. I've seen a lot of VR but much of it has been lackluster, giving me the dizzy spells and nausea. But I braved it one more time at Wevr, strapped on an HTC Vive, and tumbled down the rabbit hole.
Gnomes and Goblins is the brainchild of Jon Favreau (director of The Jungle Book, Iron Man), in partnership with Wevr and Reality One, which signed a deal with Sony Pictures last year to create VR experiences based on Sony movie properties.
How to describe it? It's incredible. Talking about an experience inside VR is a bit like trying to explain the magic of the Middle East to someone who has never seen dawn rising over the desert as one flies into Dubai. But here goes.
Picture yourself inside an enchanted forest in Middle Earth; everything is lit with candles and lanterns. The excellent graphics give things a heightened perception of reality, from the movement of the leaves in the surrounding branches and crunching underfoot and sound that picks up every single aural cue in a stereoscopic landscape.
Still with me? Okay, let's explore. We have hand/motion controllers so let's light a candle to peer through the gloom and gently push open the wooden shutters on that tiny treehouse built into the thick trunk. Inside is a perfectly designed miniature room, and it looks like we scared someone away, as the remnants of a meal have been hurriedly abandoned.
What's that? There's a goblin staring at us. It's making strange sounds while attempting to pick a peach. No luck. Using the hand controller, we grab the peach and an acorn (it appears to want that, too), and offer them up. He freaks and darts away, peering out from behind a tree.
Walking over very slowly, we crouch down. He pauses, looking slightly more comfortable with our presence. Then he rushes out, grabs the peach and acorns and, in an instant, is gone.
Slightly sad now, because the brain mechanism for bonding and connection has been stymied, we concentrate on exploring the rest of the enchanted landscape. It's incredibly beautiful. If we were hooked up to an electroenephalogram (more on that later), our signals would be recording optimum levels.
Wait! The goblin is now standing at our feet, offering a hand bell as a gift. Gently, very gently, we kneel down and take the bell. What's it doing now? Miming that we should ring the bell. So we do. The entire world suddenly shifts in perception; the trees grow tall and stretch into the sky. We are the size of the goblin and he looks delighted.
I don't ever want to leave. How about you?
That's the point, agrees Neville Spiteri, co-founder and CEO of Wevr, when we take off the Vive (no nausea today) and sit down with him in the studio next door.
That was the first time I really felt I was inside a parallel dimension, not just exploring something cool but actually having an effect on what happens in that world. I didn't just believe the goblin was real. I was convinced the goblin thought I was real, too.
Thank you. You've really grasped what we've been trying to do at Wevr. These experiences are simulations—they're not movies or games, you become an integral part of the world. For example, in our first project theBlu: Season 1—directed by Jake Rowell [from] Call of Duty, Final Fantasy, Superman Returns—we quickly keyed into the potential of the medium where you can be transported entirely somewhere else. So let's give you the opportunity to have a close encounter with the largest creature on earth, an 80-foot whale.
I read somewhere that you've been dreaming about the 4th dimension every since you read Howard Rheingold's Virtual Reality Well in 1991.
I still have my original copy.
I had tea with Howard many years ago in his garden in Northern California. He sends the trippiest driving directions: 'To the left of the office is a gate to the garden, where I can be found. If you find yourself winding up the nearby mountain, you have gone too far.' But that's another story for another time.
Howard's book was partly responsible for inspiring me to study Computer Science and Cognitive Science at Brandeis. The intersection of brain science and computation and A.I. and machine learning with philosophy, perception, reality and Theory of Mind fascinated me, and still does.
But computer graphics, and definitely the web, were still in their infancy in the early 90s. However, as your career progressed, through stints working for James Cameron at Digital Domain (Apollo 13, Terminator 2/3D), Electronic Arts, and Square (Final Fantasy), the tech was ever-evolving.
It's only now that VR/AR are able to represent these worlds at such a high fidelity that it's truly believable. I'd always had this passion for creating worlds inside computer graphics but was also very interested in the impact that an experience could have and inspire. Now it's possible.
How did you meet Jon Favreau? And what was his initial response to Wevr's concept of VR?
Over a year ago, Jon got introduced to us by the animator Andy Jones (Jungle Book, Avatar). Andy and I go back to Digital Domain days and he is animation director on theBlu and Gnomes and Goblins. Jon came down here to Venice, put on a headset, experienced theBlu and immediately said 'Wow, this is the Future.' He was captivated and wanted to work on something with us instantly.
It was incredibly rewarding to have an instant connection to his sensibilities around story, character, connection and simulation—together with his deep research on Walt Disney and other animation heroes. Intentionally we created everything slowly as if cooking together in a kitchen, putting in spices and letting it simmer on the back burner for a while. We tried stuff, and let it grow. What Jon was most keyed into was 'How can I build a relationship with this new inhabitant of this new world?'
I was curiously buoyant and delighted hanging out with the goblin. It must have had a beneficial effect on my psycho-social physiognomy. Can you talk about the medical benefits of Wevr's work?
It's already been proven that more of your faculties are captured by VR, through 'presence,' than any other medium. Our collaboration with Deepak Chopra, Finding Your True Self, is a meditation experience inside VR, and that, along with theBlu, are often requested by medical facilities as VR projects where they're able to measure response—through EEG and so on—to denote stress reduction, as well as entrainment. As a medium it's increasingly measurable and quantifiable, so as more research is published, we can prove the benefits. It's a lot more powerful and compelling than viewing something on a flat screen and we know consumers are willing to pay for that, within a number of different industry verticals: health, self-help, travel, and so on.
An actual business model. That will help. So what's next? A.I. built into VR?
Yes. That's exactly what we're working on now. At the core of our work moving forward is A.I. The more responsive a system is, the more intelligence comes across. Every time you come back it'll be different, the system will get to know you. For example, in Gnomes & Goblins, based on how you interact with the goblin—i.e. if you start chucking stuff at him, he'll run away and won't interact with you—your relationship moving forward will morph and grow. So, going forward, a little bit further out, memory and response is being added; greater personalization.
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Brilliant. Okay final question, how come I didn't feel dizzy or nauseous playing any of Wevr's work?
There's no excuse for nausea. The hardware and software is completely able to deliver a nausea-free experience. We're fanatical about that. The content creators have a responsibility to not make people sick.
The rest of you take note. There's no excuse.
All the VR programs mentioned here are available on Wevr Transport. Subscription fees start at $8 for Samsung Gear versions (mobile experiences) to $20 for HTC Vive (room scale and mobile experiences). A variety of content is also available for free without a subscription.