For the commercially available HoloCap Studio VR enabled software I was asked to design a virtual studio space. Key design requirements were for it to be simplistic and functional with an exclusive and futuristic look, like being inside a “user interface”. The overall shape of the studio is that of a superellipsoid shell.
The floor graphics were partly inspired by a helicopter landing platform, as was the overall design of jet engine fins. In general I find aerospace design very futuristic. Another requirement was for the background to be uniform and the dark section seen in this panorama render was adjusted to create a more uniform, brighter and somewhat more abstract lighting scheme.
Comfort is the most important design factor in VR. The superellipsoid shape give direction which along with the offset recording position and the one meter grid makes it easy for the user to orient herself, which is important for comfort. The forward mannequin show the position of the user in VR while the one inside the circle illustrate the ideal capture position.
This view illustrates the view of the Kinect 2.0, the current type of depth camera used with the HoloCap Studio software to capture and play back the performance of a human in real-time in VR.
In a virtual studio changing the background to better suit the intended final scene for the volumetric capture is fairly trivial. A Unity shader allowing separate control over Hue, Saturation and Value will allow the user to change the background colors in real-time.
I used a frozen frame from a capture of myself in Unity to aid in the design process. The quality of the current captures and as seen in motion and real-time is much higher. Designing from within VR and using human avatars are key for VR centric design.
Using Virtuaview developed by Norwegian VR startup Dimension 10 design reviews were held in which yours truly and HoloCap met up virtually. We discussed which design to proceed with and what changes were necessary. This resulted in a very efficient and enlightened design and development process..