The Immersive Wire - 15 August 2021 (Sunday edition)

SUNDAY READ EDITIONCurated VR/AR analysis every Wednesday and Sunday

// 15 August 2021

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Let's talk about the return of location-based VR (LBVR) installations. Lying dormant as the pandemic razed the world, LBVR is starting to rise from the ashes as investors capitalise on the potential of more footfall in the future. Some example evidence:

• Zero Latency VR announced that Advent Partners, a private equity firms, has become a partner and majority shareholder in the company. A vote of trust from a company increasing their portfolio indicates a base level of trust that it will grow further, as Zero Latency VR is already operating well in the country;

• Atmos VR plans to open eight new sites in the UK, fuelled by their expansion goals and investment money;

• Developers are creating more and more games that work well in an arcade, such as RevolVR 3, to tap into a healthy market. Ubisoft is another example, having developed Far Cry VR.

 Will it succeed? Perhaps, but not soon. The British Retail Consortium reported that footfall in July was still

lower than this time last year

, despite a large opening of restrictions in the country. A myriad of factors are at play here, but the bottom line is that location-based venues are less likely to attend if there are less people on the street interested in having a go. When normality arrives, people are more likely to attend the high street if locations offer an 'experience' during attendance. To keep their competitive edge, locations are embracing immersive technologies to maintain a competitive advantage. Think of the EE stores, for example, who included VR headsets so that people can watch sports and try out VR on-site. The same goes for entertainment as well, such as arcades; the more social elements there are, the more likely that groups of friends will come and have a go. I do think the industry will reach a healthy position soon. The pandemic will pass, and people hunger to intermingle with their friends in social locations, having fun and trying new things out from the ease of the city centre. But much like retail, the growth of LBVR will be reliant on the pandemic situation and its continual improvement.

Far Cry VR is another project announced by Ubisoft, as a game designed for arcades. Photo credit: Zero Latency VR / Ubisoft.

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Michael Kam Barngrover, founder of Raptor Dance Studios

What is your background?

I’ve been exclusive to VR since January 2017, after a nomadic career and life that brought me from the US to a refugee camp in the West Bank and then to Turkey. I studied game design and programming out of high school, but then went on to pursue my interest in game AI in a bachelor’s degree in psychology focusing on learning and sensory processing. Upon graduation I began several years of work with refugee communities in the Palestinian West Bank and Turkey. I got my masters here in management focusing on data mining and business intelligence, which actually got me back into programming for the first time in years. That coincided with the first VR lab opening in Turkey in 2016, and I ultimately decided that I wanted to get back into creation and development, particularly for cultural heritage and social VR projects.

What are you working on, and what’s a key learning that you’ve had from it?

I work all over the map in terms of content creation, advising, and research. I work for academics most often, creating various kinds of projects in psychiatry or design or archaeology using Unity or Hubs. I have worked with corporates and will do so again in the future, usually in the area of branded experiences. I am seldom very excited by that area, but sometimes you get a fun project with creative freedom to explore it.

My focus is split between my personal interest in heritage and my research interest in VR collaboration. So I’ve learned a lot about photogrammetric and laser scanning tools and methods. I use Meshroom but more recently have started to experiment with a set of specialized software rather than the all-one-solution of Meshroom. In my research, I’ve now been able to experience more than 30 social or collaborative VR platforms and led events and workshops in many of them. Eventually I need to sit down and create my own, but for now I’m interested in just studying what makes each one so different and what the practical consequences of their design choices are.

If you had to give one piece of advice, what would you give?

I think the most important thing I’ve come to accept over the years is that people bring strong opinions about VR to their first experiences. That may be because of depictions of VR in science fiction, a distrust of new things, or simply a rejection of the irrational hype that often surrounds VR and AR. I advise people to listen and try to understand who they are talking to about VR, and if there are concerns or doubts there to respect them and do not push a person into VR. I am not an evangelist for anything, not even VR, and I don’t encourage others to be either. VR has a lot to offer but any experience of VR is very subjective, so all that I think one should do when trying to promote or sell VR experience is to offer it rather than push it. Many people want to push VR immediately, and I can understand their excitement, but hard sales seldom help accomplish anything sustainable.

If you want to know more about Michael Barngrover, check out his company, Raptor Dance Studios.

Jobs boardVR SOFTWARE DEVELOPER (Unity3D, C#), London. Valkyrie Industries, an early stage haptics start-up, is looking for a talented and experienced Unity3D developer with a passion for VR to join the R&D team. You'll be involved throughout the development cycle and must be able to evaluate new technologies, develop new experiences from scratch and optimise existing projects. Click here for more. BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT MANAGER, UK. Blend Media is seeking a talented, committed and determined sales executive to generate new leads and repeat business for Augmented Reality, Virtual Reality and 3D products, expanding on the company’s already impressive blue-chip client base. Click here for more. FULL STACK DEVELOPER, remote position. Looking for a competent Software Engineer with 4+ years of industry experience to join our dedicated Web development team. This talented individual must have a vision and drive and must not be afraid to back big ideas. 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We are looking to appoint a dynamic and adaptable course director for our BA (Hons) in Digital Media to lead and deliver teaching, learning and assessment on the BA Digital Media and steer its next phase of growth. As well as a track record of academic leadership you will have extensive practical experience in digital media such as immersive storytelling (AR/VR/XR), modelling and animation, creative media design / production, or web / mobile app design and development. Click here for more.SENIOR IMMERSIVE LEARNING DESIGNER, UK. Make Real is looking to expand our digital learning team with a Senior Immersive Learning Designer. Your role will be to consult with clients in order to create exciting and imaginative design solutions. Your designs will affect behaviour change in order to deliver on specific learning outcomes, while being achievable within a set budget and timeline. Click here for more. SENIOR UNITY DEVELOPER, UK. As a growing and exciting business, we are looking for full-time talented multi-disciplinary Unity developers to join our expert team in central Brighton. Our ideal candidates will have a broad range of technical experience with a proven track record of delivering interactive Virtual & Augmented Reality projects across a range of HMD & mobile hardware. Working as part of our existing team of designers and artists, the roles will primarily involve the delivery of VR/AR projects for our global clients. Click here for more. EU ACCOUNT EXECUTIVE. Avatour is the remote collaboration platform for site meetings. Our cloud service enables full-motion 360° real-time communication, experienced via a web browser or optional VR headset. We are looking for an Account Executive to expand the Avatour business in the European Union. You’ll be initially our only salesperson in the EU, and directly responsible for the expansion and preservation of our customer base in the region. The ideal candidate will have a track record of success selling an Enterprise SaaS product, and experience in customer success as well. Click here for more.BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT MANAGERS, UK. VRTUOSO, a rapidly growing and multi-award winning company, is looking for three full-time B2B Sales Managers who are excited about technology advancements, and able to sell to CxO/Director level within enterprise accounts. Click here for more. HEAD OF MARKETING, UK. VRTUOSO, a rapidly growing and multi-award winning company, is looking for a Head of Marketing capable of taking VRtuoso to the next level. We’re looking to make the leap to working with enterprise level companies at scale and we hope you’re the one to help us accomplish this. Click here for more. CHANNEL SALES MANAGER, UK. VRTUOSO, a rapidly growing and multi-award winning company, is looking for a Channel Sales Manager to lead the channel and reseller programmes. The role is primarily responsible for onboarding new partners, serving as the primary liaison for new partners, growing the sales of existing partners, and assisting with sales/marketing initiatives for our reseller channel as a whole. Click here for more. DIRECTOR OF ENGINEERING, UK. VRTUOSO, a rapidly growing and multi-award winning company, is looking for a Director of Engineering to lead our engineering department and help us build, deliver, and maintain the leading VRtuoso Virtual Reality products for the enterprise market. Click here for more. Display your vacancy in front of thousands of talented VR/AR professionals in just a few clicks. Click here for more info.

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