Steven Spielberg has revealed how head-mounted displays (HMD) were using in the filming of the highly anticipated film Ready Player One, along with virtual reality (VR) and mixed reality (MR) technology.
As most of the film takes place in the virtual world of Oasis – a vast collection of digital planets where players can do whatever they want. Oasis is entered by using a VR or MR HMD within the film world and it turns out that the same technology was used in the actual filming of sequences as well.
Talking at the recent press event for the film Spielberg explained: “You have to understand that we made the movie in an abstract set. The only way the cast had a chance to understand where they were – we all had virtual reality Oculus goggles. Inside the goggles was a complete build of the set that you [see in] the movie. When you took the goggles off, it was a bit white space. It was a 4,000 square foot empty space called a volume. When you put the goggles on, it was Aech’s basement, or Aech’s workshop, or the Distracted Globe [club]. So the actors had a chance to say, ‘OK, if I walk over there, there’s the door. There’s the DJ.’ It was really an out of body experience filming this movie. It’s very hard to really express what that was like.”
The combination of motion capture suits along with the HMD being used allowed for the actors to really feel immersed in the world of Oasis, helping to capture the emotion they needed to convey. Girish Balakrishnan, Lead Virtual Production Developer for Digital Domain added to the explanation from Spielberg by clarifying what equipment was actually used:
Just to clarify, we used @oculus Rift, @htcvive, and @HoloLens during the filming of #ReadyPlayerOne, not just one headset. Each one was used at a different stage of production.
When shooting mocap, Rift. When scouting virtual cameras, Vive. When on the practical set, Hololens https://t.co/62Ikvwd0d7
— Girish Balakrishnan (@_MasterG_) March 18, 2018
Later on in the conversation thread when asked why one headset was used over another, Balakrishnan explained:
Rift DK2 was used in mocap because we were able to get it with a 60 ft tether and have it tracked in-engine.
Vive was a useful portable setup to scout scenes in VR. We can quickly set-up a unit in a conference room or smaller volume for review.
Hololens is limited but freeing.— Girish Balakrishnan (@_MasterG_) March 18, 2018
The final bit of information that was confirmed by Balakrishnan was that all of the visual production for Ready Player One was shot using the Unity 3D Game Engine. This means that the pipeline for the development of the film was mostly handled in complete virtual space, with actors themselves being immersed into the worlds they needed to be acting in. As Ready Player One is all about virtual space and the freedom that can be found within, it is therefor rather fitting that Spielberg went as far as to use the same technology to film most of it.
In other Ready Player One news, the film had a big presents at South by South West (SXSW) recently where guests where able to jump into a number of different VR experiences.
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via Mint VR