Month: June 2016

Vrideo

I definitely want to get Vrideo immediately to see if my video works. I select the store by placing the dot on the store words and tapping the side of the goggles. The menu comes up and you have to scroll to find the apps you want. Vrideo is nearly at the end. Maybe they are listed in order received? Found it, installed it and I’m at the main menu. I browse for my video. I finally find it in Everyday Real Estate/ Most Recent. It plays and looks great

About a thirty seconds later, I get a warning that my Gear needs to cool down. OK, but really? After a few minutes of cool down, I go back into Vrideo and find my video, this time I watch all the way through and choose the download option so I no longer need to stream it. Sweet!

How about for Cardboard? That’s a separate downloaded app for Vrideo. I do it and search for my video. It works

Opened up the package, I realized I had to wait for a full charge. I waited. That was hard. Finally, I powered it on. The Setup Wizard asked me what language I want. I chose English. S6 reminded me that I needed a Sim card, but in the lower right corner was the handy “Use Wi-Fi” option. It scans for Wi-Fi routers and I choose my local router on 5G, entered the password and pressed connect. Success!

Email setup? I’m on Gmail and it tells me that it will be set up later. It then wants to know if I want to transfer stuff from an old Android device. Nope. Now I get to put in my Google info. Success! Now I update the time zone to Pacific and skip all the Google services for now and register the phone with Samsung. I’m in!

First thing I do is open up Google Play and search for Gear VR. I install it and it asked to turn on Bluetooth, which I do. Then I put it in the Gear when it asks me to turn on the Gear because the Gear has no power button. The app asks me to take the phone out and to install the required apps. It’s easy to do but there are a shit ton of apps to install.

When done it asks me to setup an Oculus account. After that, I place the S6 back in the Gear and a tutorial starts that is well written and gives you basic operation training. After that I’m good to go.

It was August 26th, 2015 at a VR film festival in Seattle, WA. I figured, “Why not. I bet the audio is bad and I can make contacts”. Mind blown! I saw great potential in what VR could be and how I could contribute in the audio sense. The bigger picture was an epiphany from discovering a technology that would allow me to do with sound what I had always conceived but could never do.

Fast forward to current time and the day I get my first VR goggles. While I would want the Vive, the Gear VR is way more affordable if you have a Samsung phone. I didn’t have the phone, but you don’t have to use it as a phone to enjoy VR. So I bought a used S6 on eBay and waited for delivery.

The Sound Cue function within UE4 is a very logical way to create and manipulate sound. In this video I was using it to pitch the music for Astroderps.

Yet another cool screenshot of Astroderps

I tried all manner of digital pitch shifting to create the sound of the Astroderps but I wasn’t satisfied with any of them, so I had to resort to an old school tape speed up effect.

Another cool screenshot of Astroderps

Screenshot from Astroderps.

My 3rd VR title as Sound Designer came out a few days ago. It’s called Astroderps and it is developed specifically for the Vive.