March 24, 2018

Virtual reality roller coaster ‘The Great Lego Race’ opens in Florida

Virtual reality brings new life to an existing roller coaster with The Great Lego Race, a Mario Kart-style animated blast through a detailed Lego landscape. The new VR attraction just opened in Legoland, Florida.

The post Virtual reality roller coaster ‘The Great Lego Race’ opens in Florida appeared first on Digital Trends.

Source: Digital Trends VR

March 24, 2018

How to Pull Off the Rolling Transition From the ‘Atlanta’ Season 2 Teaser

The “Rolling Preview” for Season 2 of “Atlanta” was awesome. Here’s how to create that sweet camera rotation effect.

Last month, FX premiered a short, 30-second teaser trailer for the 2nd season of Atlanta, the TV dramedy created by and starring Donald Glover. Why am I bringing up a preview that was released back in February for a season that has already aired its 4th episode? Well, because that preview had a friggin’ awesome “rolling” transition effect that had filmmakers/cinephiles lighting up the video’s YouTube comments section like a very nerdy and kinda small Christmas tree. (7 out of 23 comments ain’t bad, y’all.)

The team over at Cinecom have come up with a way to mimic the effect using a green screen and some masking and keying in post. It’s not a perfect recreation, but it might work for your project.

But before we get to the tutorial, check out the original Atlanta teaser below:

And here’s the Cinecom tutorial:

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Source: NoFilmSchool

March 23, 2018

10 Tips For Using VFX Without Blowing Your Budget

With a little creativity, not only can VFX effects be affordable, but it can even save you money.

Shawn Walsh of Zero Engine was thrown a major curve on Kathryn Bigelow’s Zero Dark Thirty when production hit a stumbling block in the third act. “Navy Seals go in with helicopters, but they are these top secret stealth helicopters,” he explained in the SXSW session on leveraging VFX for indie films. There was no way of knowing exactly what the cutting edge government choppers looked like, nor any way to get these secret choppers on set.

“We had to come up with the design of fictional yet real helicopters,” Walsh explained, “Are we going to build a custom copter? No, we don’t know avionics. Will we have to CG these stealth hawks from scratch? It would have exploded the budget. We’re going to have to CG helicopters to make the story work. The third act falls apart without it! So what we did, is we filmed real helicopters, Black Hawks, and we motion-tracked them and CG-replaced them with the fictional copter. The dust was real, the flying was real; the VFX team got something to work with, and they made it work.”

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Source: NoFilmSchool

March 23, 2018

Sotheby’s is making homebuying immersive with AR app Curate

Sotheby’s International Realty and its new virtual staging augmented reality app, powered by Rooomy, is called Curate. The app promises to revolutionize both the buying and selling experience for real estate agents and new homeowners alike.

The post Sotheby’s is making homebuying immersive with AR app Curate appeared first on Digital Trends.

Source: Digital Trends VR

March 23, 2018

Meet R1, the First Self-Flying 4K Drone

This autonomous drone from Skydio can be flown without expertise.

10 years ago, MIT classmates Adam Bry, Abraham Bacharach, and Matt Donahoe had a great idea. As the drone market was expanding, they wondered: What if we created an autonomous, video-capturing drone? A decade later, their product has come to market.

The R1, developed by the MIT grads’ start-up, Skydio, is the first professional-grade drone that can be flown without expertise. Geared toward “rock climbers, hikers, runners, dancers, or anyone who likes recording themselves while in motion,” according to MIT News, the R1 is equipped with 13 onboard cameras that capture omnidirectional video. The artificial intelligence-powered quadcopter shoots 4K video while mapping its environment in real-time, planning paths and avoiding obstacles in order to capture moving targets.

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Source: NoFilmSchool

March 22, 2018

Oculus Go and Santa Cruz will have a 72Hz mode for smoother mobile VR

The upcoming Oculus Go and Santa Cruz mobile VR headsets will have 72Hz refresh rate modes for a more fluid experience. Current mobile VR solutions max out at 60Hz, such as the Gear VR headset for Samsung’s smartphones.

The post Oculus Go and Santa Cruz will have a 72Hz mode for smoother mobile VR appeared first on Digital Trends.

Source: Digital Trends VR

March 22, 2018

Oculus could be aiming to make VR a bit more real with these haptic gloves

Grabbing things in virtual reality is a constant reminder that you are not actually interacting with anything. Oculus might be gearing up to change that with a set of gloves described in a pair of patent filings made public. 

The post Oculus could be aiming to make VR a bit more real with these haptic gloves appeared first on Digital Trends.

Source: Digital Trends VR

March 22, 2018

Google may be looking to snap up VR camera company Lytro

Anonymous reports suggest Lytro is looking for a buyer — and that Google may be interested to the tune of $40 million. The reports have not yet been confirmed and some suggest different buyers.

The post Google may be looking to snap up VR camera company Lytro appeared first on Digital Trends.

Source: Digital Trends VR