Some thoughts about XR at Disneyland Shanghai
Hello everyone. As you know, I’m currently in China, doing a trip to discover VR here. I’ve said goodbye to the beautiful Qingdao and now I’m in the modern Shanghai. Shanghai is like the Chinese New York, so I thought to find more VR and better VR.
Well, after having visited it, I can confirm you that there are no headsets, there: no AR, no VR devices. There is AR and there is VR, but of different kinds.
AR is projective AR, where some virtual elements are projected on a wall, an object, or whatever. For instance, I’ve clearly spotted that some real characters of the various attractions had the eyes that were not real, but were projected with a projector, and that gave a more realistic touch to their faces (because for instance, these projected eyes could move). The final show of the park is also all made by projecting stuff on the castle, with a lot of light effects and fireworks.
VR is “big screen VR”. You and all other people are in front of some enormous big screen that covers all your field of view and that shows some content. For instance, we traveled the world this way: we were on a big platform floating in the air and a big curved screen close to us showed a lot of cool places of the various parts of the world and we really felt as being there. The movements of the platform, together with the movie showing a flying experience and some wind effects, really made us feel as flying all over amazing places… even without a headset.
I think that they’ll wait until they’ll find a way to offer a high-quality VR experience in a way that is feasible for the park and then they’ll introduce it. This is how things should always be done. So I appreciate their choice.
And it also reminded me once more that for every occasion, we should choose the most suitable technology, not the one we like the most. That’s why I wanted to report you these thoughts of mine, to remember this to you and to also discuss about it with you (contact me!).
See the full story here: https://skarredghost.com/2018/07/20/some-thoughts-about-xr-at-disneyland-shanghai/