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VR film and television

Rethinking Technology for Real and Vitual

Virtual Reality (VR) is the virtualisation of the real environment to create a non-real world that exists only within the computer. VR generates extremely realistic and vivid virtual things through computer technology and allows viewers to interact with various things in the virtual world in a natural way through special input and output devices to achieve a perceptual experience and a deep sense of immersion. The visual environment generated by VR technology is three-dimensional, and the sound effects are also three-dimensional, ensuring a realistic sense of human-computer interaction and a high level of immersion and interactivity.

Virtual reality is making its way into almost every industry. From medicine to education to gaming and fashion. Movie studios are also increasingly experimenting with this unique technology to enhance the experience of users within digital environments.

With global lockdown measures keeping billions of people at home, sales of VR headsets have skyrocketed in 2020. Last year, the number of shipments for AR / VR devices reached a stunning 5.5 million, and that figure double by the end of 2021.

Needless to say, entertainment companies have been looking at VR as a possible way to bring real-life emotions to digital environments. PlayStation is a perfect example of how companies keep betting big on this technology. The PSVR currently retails at $299, down from a 2016 launch price tag of $399. The company has expanded its library of VR games from the good old Star Wars Battlefront to the most recent VR-exclusive titles like Beat Saber, and Blood & Truth.

As most theaters remain shut, movie studios are looking for alternatives to provide viewers a cinematic experience from the comfort and safety of their homes. Apps like Bigscreen — a VR software solution that recreates cinema’s “big screens” — or Netflix VR are already trying to capture growing demand in this still nascent niche.

VR technology will not only affect the traditional way of watching films and TV shows, but will also drive changes in the way people consume entertainment. VR technology offers people the possibility to interact and dialogue with the world and to perceive it in its full dimension. As a new technology, VR technology has brought many questions and thoughts to the academic community: Does VR technology bring a new approach to film and television aesthetics? Is the traditional critical theory of film and television applicable to the critique of VR film and television, and is the audiovisual language of VR independent of traditional forms of film and television expression?

Based on VR technology, I will explore the issue of the audiovisual language of VR film and television technology from the perspectives of technical aesthetics, documentary aesthetics and immersive experience, and re-examine the issue of authenticity and virtuality of film and television media expression.

1 What you are researching? How you are researching it? & Why it is important to research this subject?

My research direction is VR film direction, in 2015, when Virtual Reality (VR) technology and film and media met, various VR products have appeared in the new technology showcase. I consulted various materials online to study the analysis and development trend of VR film production methods, technical features, and expressive art techniques.

In today’s society, new media companies such as Netflix, Hulu and YouTube have joined the ranks of VR film and television content production, and Hollywood has long been producing VR films. For the average viewer, the immersive experience of VR film and television makes the viewing experience more realistic, and it is impossible to estimate how much of an impact and influence VR technology will have on the traditional film and television industry. It is undeniable that VR technology will not only affect the traditional way of watching films and TV dramas, but will also drive changes in the way people consume entertainment, offering people the possibility to interact and dialogue with the world and perceive it in its full dimension. As a new technology, VR technology has brought many questions and thoughts to the academic community, and of course the pursuit of interactive features in VR technology is the future trend.

It is a mind blowing experience to see VR films with VR machine. People who would never have a chance to sit in a refugee camp in Jordan and see how life is there, they can visualize things through this film. Their decision will affect millions of life and while watching the movie, they will find themselves right into the spot with the film characters. This out of the world experience will encourage more film makers to create VR films and this can bring changes to the people other side of the film. This is the true power of VR.So I chose to study the subject of VR as a direction

2 Provide at least 5 keywords

Technical Aesthetics Immersive experience VR film technology

Audiovisual language Documentary Aesthetics

Technical Aesthetics ： Technical aesthetics, a combination of technology and aesthetics. Technology, the disciplinary technique of putting the results of scientific research into productive practice, and Aesthetics, Aesthetic, a human activity of experiencing life in the world of imagery, a spiritual and cultural activity of mankind. Technical aesthetics, on the other hand, is a way of translating the results of scientific research into artistic production practice, a fusion of technology and aesthetics and the values produced

Immersive experience ：People enter a state of immersion when they are fully engaged in the situation, paying attention and filtering out all irrelevant perceptions during the activity.

VR film technology： Virtual reality films. Virtual reality generates a three-dimensional environment with the help of computer systems and sensor technology, creating a new way of human-computer interaction, simulating the functions of human sensory organs such as vision, hearing and touch, enabling people to immerse themselves in a virtual realm where the audience can walk into a film scene and view their surroundings in 360 degrees

Audiovisual language ：Audio-visual language is a kind of perceptual language that uses the rational arrangement of audiovisual stimuli to communicate a certain message to the audience, including the content of images, sound and editing. Language, which is a perceptual language that uses various methods of camera scheduling and various techniques of music use, is a perceptual language that communicates a certain message to the audience

Documentary Aesthetics：The pursuit of documentary aesthetics is the mainstream of the aesthetic of film art and has grown and developed with the birth of film art

3 Provide at least four sources, debates or text in the subject area. And also a short explanation of relevance to your project proposal

https://direct.mit.edu/pvar/article/27/4/410/106023/The-Effects-of-Cinematic-Virtual-Reality-on

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/281061611_How_does_VR_effect_the_future_of_Cinema

https://www.mordorintelligence.com/industry-reports/virtual-reality-market

https://filmora.wondershare.com/virtual-reality/how-vr-movie-change-the-world.html

https://amt-lab.org/blog/2021/7/how-ar-and-vr-are-changing-film-a-look-at-the-revolutionary-stagecraft-the-volume

How the movie industry uses virtual reality

I went through some scientific articles on VR technology and VR film production methods, as well as the relevance of VR technology and aesthetics, to validate and support my views on VR film analysis. Film and media is a product of modern technological development, and VR film and television, the best embodiment of the latest VR technology used in film and media, is also the perfect combination of technology and film and television, and goes one level deeper in the viewing experience. VR technology will not only affect the traditional way of watching film and television dramas, but will also drive changes in the way people consume entertainment.

In Avengers 3, the scene where the Exterminators lead an army to invade Earth and the Avengers and superheroes fight to resist was particularly impressive, so I decided to do CG animation of my story about a spaceship that swoops down from the sky and flies off into space after weaving through a city and blowing up a building.

https://youtu.be/rd7A14ZsdOg

Storyboard

1 The first shot is of the spaceship swooping down, this shot requires a panoramic view of the spaceship
2 The second shot shows the spaceship flying through the city, This shot is a track-up shot
3 The third shot shows a missile being launched from a spaceship, need a close up of the missile
4 The fourth shot is of the building breaking up, A part of the building was destroyed by missile, I will try to use Houdini to create the explosion effects 。
5 The fifth shot shows the ship flying away and disappearing into the sky

I referenced the trajectory and movement of some aircraft flying through the city to use as a reference when I adjusted the aircraft animation.

These are the reference images I found for the spaceship, which I will then follow to create a model of the spaceship

Next I will plan my weekly tasks and schedule in detail.

To enrich the picture, I made a Chinese style carriage. First I looked for some reference drawings and once I had decided on the style, the carriage is mainly wooden in style, made entirely of wood panels put together, I started to make a model of the carriage.
First I had to make two wheels, using a polygon model and a cylinder to make the wheels, the bearings for the carriage were made by extruding the cylinder.

The body is still mainly a matter of piecing and building wooden panels. I did this by making a model of one side and then copying it symmetrically so that I could make the complete body.

The top of the car I made by using Duplicate Special Options, first creating a board, then separating them and creating a succession of identical copies of the board, then I used a non-linear deformer and bent the board into a curved shape. Finally, I assembled the whole model.

Then after the next adjustment to the UV of the model, although I unfolded the UV very smoothly, but after I gave the model the material, I found that the texture of some wood slabs was messy, also had horizontal texture, and the opposite of what I wanted the material to be, after I checked, I found that there was a problem with the UV of some models, after I patiently adjusted, I finally adjusted the texture of the wood slabs, making the model After some patients, I finally adjusted the textures of the planks and made the model look more realistic.

I needed to make a wine jar and a wine barrel to enrich the scene of our work.
I came up with the idea of an ancient Chinese wine jar, a ceramic jar sealed by a red fabric, a more traditional Chinese wine jar, this would match our project better.
The model was created in a very simple way, using curves to create polygons, first I drew the general outline of the desired object by using the CV curve tool in the front view, then rotated from the curve to create the polygon

For the material part I painted through photoshop, for roughness and diffuse reflection I adjusted the parameters of the material sphere to control the texture of the bottle. For the red cloth I went straight to the red fabric material.

Then make a few wooden barrels, which are made of a relatively uniform material, made of different planks of wood put together, very easy to make

I needed to make a Chinese war drum in the ancient style, and after some reference I decided to make a vertical war drum, which consists of two parts, a drum and a vertical drum stand. The drum frame is made from several sets of wooden panels. The material is also uniformly given as wood.

I have divided the UVs of the drum stands into groups because they are made of the same material.
The UVs of the drums are in the same group, they are made of the same material
The drum bodies are in one group because they are made of the same material

I then painted the mapping inside Photoshop. And gave to the drum body and drum surface, which rendered out very brightly, so I made the model darker by reducing the brightness of the material.

This week I made a set of ceramic pots and used a small scene circled by a wooden fence to enrich the scene of our project work.

So I made a couple of ceramic pots by rotating them into polygons using the curve tool, then made a fence using square polygons and cylindrical polygons, and made material balls of wood to add to the fence.

Next I want to create a maple tree.
First I use the polygon tool to create the branches and the large tree.

After making the leaves, in addition to the leaf mapping I needed, I also needed to make a transparent layer in PhotoShop and, using a black fill. In the layer of leaves, select the leaves, fill the leaves with a white brush and the transparent background leaves are made.

In maya software, we assign the material to the leaf, open Geometry, the collection properties. Check Thin Walled and add the opacity property to the transparent texture you have just created. This turns the original white background black. If you want to achieve a transparent display in the perspective view, click in the renderer to change the transparency algorithm under Performance to Alpha Cut, and the background colour in the perspective view is hidden.

For this week’s project I needed to make a couple of rockeries to enrich our project picture.
I did this by using polygonal shapes and manipulating them with the various tools we have learnt before, then adjusting the vertices to create the shapes, then copying the models to adjust them and finally combining them to create a whole rockery. I came up with the nick method of using the Quad Draw Tool to draw on the hard surface of the model. Or use Sculpting to do the drawing.

I then split the UVs. For some of the models I used Substance Painter to create the mapping, and for two of the models I downloaded the material mapping to give a variety of hills.

Did my scene lighting this week, with the lights set in the scene.

In the scene, I set up four area lights in the scene. Three are for machines, as shown in the picture, where the light can reflect and pass through so that these objects look realistic in a scene with shadows. In class, I showed the lighting rendering to nick, who indicated that I had made some mistakes with the lighting. Nick told me that there should be one light from the left corner and another light from the right corner, hidden behind the wall. The light on the left should be facing downwards. We should look at the shadows of the stones on the floor as a lighting reference. So I adjusted the angle of the light to match the light from the ambient mapping better. To accommodate the ambient lighting, adapt the left and right sides to have two different colours of light, one a warm yellowish tone and the other a cooler greenish tone, so I set the value for temperature to 5000 and the value for exposure to 2.5. On the other side, I set it to 6000 to make the ambient look cooler.

The final rendering is as follows

Then my next step was to export the sequence to Nuke. I set up the Render, added the AOV Browser and adjusted the parameters for rendering.

This week I continued with my group project and my task was to make a bow and arrow and combine it with a weapon to enrich the picture of the project.
First I used the polygon module to make the bow part of the bow, considering it is a symmetrical model I only made half of the bow, the other part of the model I copied and combined using the symmetry tool, then I made two arrows for the bow by making two small metal arrows with wooden shafts and metal arrows
I used Photo shop to paint the base colour of the mapping and then found some wood textures to control the roughness and bumpiness of the arrows and the diffuse reflections to give them a more textured look.

After making the bow and arrow, I imported the weapon rack and integrated it, repositioned the weapon and rendered it as follows