philip lelyveld The world of entertainment technology

A Dark Ride That Scares You Out Of The Oculus Rift’s Uncanny Valley

[Philip Lelyveld comment: Showing a series of black-and-white video images with audio in a dark environment has little to do with crossing the uncanny valley in VR, but it is a very interesting video.]

Even the Oculus Rift has an uncanny valley. Though Facebook's virtual reality headset can transport you into ultra-realistic digital worlds, there's still something subtly off about them you can't quite put your finger on. As part of a project for the University of Art and Design in Lausanne (more commonly known as ECAL), interactive designerSimon de Diesbach has tried to take a running leap over VR's uncanny valley. Meet the OccultUs, a project that augments virtual reality with real-world sounds provided in real time by a robotic sound effects booth.

Its goal? To scare the crap out of you.

When you put on an Oculus Rift, you enclose yourself in another world, but you also become blind and deaf in this one. You're vulnerable. The OccultUs leverages the vulnerability of a participant to create a heightened experience: a participant who puts on the OccultUs must first sit in a circle surrounded by weird machines of unknown function, then put on a headset, still not entirely sure what they do.

"The sound is just pure," de Diesbach says. "Even when you're putting on an Oculus, you don't expect the sounds to be that clear and loud." And because the sounds are so real, loud, and startling, you are less likely to notice the slight visual imperfections in the Oculus Rift's virtual world. A tiny dose of reality smooths out the uncanny valley's edges.

See the full story here: http://www.fastcodesign.com/3036638/a-dark-ride-that-scares-you-out-of-the-oculus-rifts-uncanny-valley?curator