Introduction to Virtual Reality
Virtual reality is either the long run or totally dead, it just depends upon who you ask. The aromas wafting through the Tribeca Film Festival’s VR Arcade, nevertheless, don’t smell like a decomposing industry—they smell just like the grasslands of Africa, the Amazon rainforest, and California redwoods. Three movies incorporate smell into their virtual reality experience with surprising success: Kathryn Bigelow and Imraan Ismail’s The Protectors: Walk within the Ranger’s Shoes, Milica Zec and Winslow Porter’s Tree, and Marshmallow Laser Feast’s TREEHUGGER: WAWONA.
The Protectors: Walk within the Ranger’s Shoes
Bigelow and Ismail’s setup for The Protectors is essentially the most elaborate, and essentially the most passive. They appear to have transplanted a complete clearing from the Democratic Republic of the Congo’s Garamba National Park, where the film was shot, directly into the festival’s Spring Studios headquarters. The film is heartbreaking, particularly in moments that showcase evidence of what the poachers have done. In one scene, I walk right into a room that’s stacked with elephant tusks, each pair representing a death. Many are devastatingly small. Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who has asserted that elephant poaching is linked to terrorism, crashed The Protectors panel as a surprise guest.
Tree: A Film About Climate Change
I visit the New York premiere of Milica Zec and Winslow Porter’s Tree and pivot from animal rights to climate change. I slip into the VR headset, phones, and a haptic backpack, which rumbles each time I—because the seed of a tree within the Amazon rainforest—stretch and grow upwards. An attendant wafts a pressurized container of pure earthiness toward me as I wiggle through a hole within the soil and slowly creep toward the sky. Tree is Zec and Porter’s follow as much as award-winning VR film Giant, during which you’re a fly on the wall as a family hides from a bombing of their basement.
TREEHUGGER: WAWONA: The Most Advanced Use of Smell Technology
The most advanced use of smell technology comes from one other bid for environmental activism, Marshmallow Laser Feast’s TREEHUGGER: WAWONA. We’ve seen MLF evolve from animation to immersive installation, and now they’re specializing in banging out revolutionary and thoughtful VR experiences. I’m encouraged to walk around a large sculpture that appears like a matte black cross-section of a tree. Once I’m encased within the HTC Vive headset and accompanying glove-mounted sensors, it blossoms right into a river of sunshine and color stoning up from the bottom. A tool mounted on the headset pours a scent that jogs my memory of freshly fallen leaves and morning mist into my nose.
The Future of Virtual Reality
Smell got here up last 12 months after I spoke to Chris Milk, who has his hands in multiple projects on the Tribeca VR Arcade. He hyped me up with lines like, “VR will mean the democratization of human experience in the identical way that the web brought the democratization of knowledge.” When we got to the specifics, though, he was honest. “People can live that human experience, what it’s wish to be there, first hand… barring smell and taste and touch.” Groups like MLF and Tokyo University’s Cyber Interface Lab are working on it, nevertheless, though they admit that they’ve an extended strategy to go.
Conclusion
The use of smell in virtual reality is a game-changer. It adds a brand new level of immersion and realism to the experience. The three movies showcased on the Tribeca Film Festival’s VR Arcade are a terrific example of how smell may be used to boost the virtual reality experience. As technology continues to advance, we will expect to see much more revolutionary uses of smell in virtual reality. The way forward for virtual reality is exciting, and with the addition of smell, it’s an experience that can proceed to evolve and improve. With the assistance of smell, virtual reality will change into an excellent more powerful tool for storytelling, education, and entertainment.
