VRSE is also another app that I’m familiar with from my iPad and the first thing that I watched was the first thing that I watched on iPad, which was called “Walking in New York”. It’s a documentary about a photograph for the New York Times that JR had made. It was cool to see it in Gear, although the resolution wasn’t as good as the iPad but at least I felt like I was really there.
I knew this interview had been shot with binaural sound but after the studio interview, the voice over came in and was not spatialized. I was thinking that they should have had the binaural audio through the whole thing and just mix the voice over on top. They didn’t do that so it was a bit distracting.
I am familiar with AltspaceVR from a desktop version. I attended a couple comedy shows in the desktop and really enjoyed the spatialization of the audio although when somebody next to you is laughing really loud it’s sometimes hard to hear the talent. I think we need a plug-in or some way of disabling spatialization when there’s a performance so that the performers audio feed is sent directly to each headset.
Another thing that is a sort of frustrating is that I don’t always have my headphones that have a microphone. When you are in a Hangout or Welcome Space and someone comes up to talk to you, you can’t tell him or her that you can’t speak. I wish there was a text function with generic phrases that I could send them.
One thing that was fun in the Welcome Space was a globe that showed where everyone was from that is in the room at that time. You can also access a menu that shows you everyone that is in Altspace and what room they are in. So if you meet someone one time, you can find him or her again.
I decided to check out the Tumblr Gallery. This is pretty cool because you can curate your own gallery presentation. The space itself has some interesting spatial audio treats. There is a fireplace with the sound of the fire and it’s localized in that it fades away when you walk away. There was another person in the room that asked me if I could hear the clock ticking when near a particular image. I did hear it, but we couldn’t figure out where the source was.
There are lots of other treats like this. In the “Let’s Hang Out” room, if you go over to one corner by the couch you hear the buzz of the lamp. In the jungle maze, there is a location recording of jungle sounds and crickets that was pretty cool.
In general Altspace is really fun and a great way to meet new people and they have special events all the time. Very fun app and the Gear makes it even more fun.
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.
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.
