Let’s Swing!

During the first weeks of our VR-experience, we had the pleasure of working together online with Jiri Dockal, who had developed a great plugin for VR, which we could use in our first swing installation. Jiri is was very helpful so we decided to approach this workshop together. The aim is to help us towards a better understanding of the potential of VR for collaboration and for interactive installations.

Two intentions  

  • to help solve some of the many problems of our upcoming VR-enhanced diploma show;
  • to create for all HyperWerk students an entry into the field of VR-enhanced media installations. Our four days of a highly pragmatic production process will offer many levels of media creation, from painting to animation, from Arduino to LED, from mechanics to pneumatics.

The framework
In the last weeks, Virtual Valley has worked on the hardware of its bar swing installation. The idea is to use this as a learning and demonstration utility. Through this project-based workshop, we plan to learn some or all of the following topics about:

  • Collaborative systems (how to set them up in VR, how to use them) – so far we lack in experience with this, but it is getting rather obvious that such collaboration will be a main quality of the coming media technology.
  • Intuitively usable VR-interfaces without external controller units – in the long run, controllers will disappear, as our bodies will take over this function. So why not try this now?
  • VR-enhanced body-sensations based on childhood experience.
  • Interaction with a scanned and rigged body mesh from our camera cage (this should flop its arms and legs realistically as the swing hits the ground or its top position)
  • Using Arduino for VR (such as replacing one player on the bar swing with a pneumatic cylinder).
  • How to use LED-modules with VR-generated live video (for instance the content of the display in the metal beam of the swing could change dynamically with the position of the swing, kind of roll along). We think that learning now how to use these cheap and highly efficient modules will enhance the visibility and professionalism of our future media installations.