Interesting discussion

I had an interesting discussion today with Fred Brooks after he saw our CAVE experience. He liked it, but he was surprised because he had always envisioned VR as the medium that lets you walk around freely in another world.

In contrast our experience is designed to be shared by a seated audience. You can indeed move your head around — and when you do, what you see is correct — yet you remain seated throughout.

I suggested that the thing to compare this to is not VR, as that is normally conceived, but rather the experience of going out with your friends to see a movie or live theater. An audience being told a story does not expect to be part of the story.

There is no question of right or wrong here, but rather of genre. We are indeed using the technology of virtual reality, but we are aiming it in a different direction.

Once he and I had talked it through, Fred saw that we are not creating “the future of VR” but rather one form of “the future of narrative”. In that context he liked it very much.

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