Not literally of course, that'd be silly. But as someone who didn't make it to Disneyland for the first time until the year 2000, I sadly never had the chance to ride ATIS in person and it has always bummed me out that I'd never truly know what it was like.
For years, I've had a copy of the virtual ride thru (), but as you know, watching something on your screen isn't at all like being there. Well that changed tonight...
Enter the OCULUS RIFT. You may have heard of this thing... it's a virtual reality headset currently being tested with developers. You can buy one if you want to, they are not limited to developers (which I am not). It's $350 and if you have a decent PC and aren't a total novice, you can easily figure out how to work it.
I can get into all the ins and outs of why this thing is so amazing, but that's not the point of this post. The point is that one of the great things you can do with the OR is simulate all kinds of video screens... one of which being a ginormous 180-degree dome type screen. I decided to see what would happen if I projected the ATIS virtual ride thru on one of these and.... HOLY MOLY. While the ride thru is created with 3D assets, the output rendering is not actually in 3D (to your eyes), but it really felt like it for some reason. I very much felt like I was sitting in one of those blue omnimovers riding this thing and it was a crazy sensation to be sure. I legitimately felt like I experienced that ride tonight.
What's amazing about this is that this was just a 4:3, non-HD video, hardly even taking advantage of what the tech is actually capable. Imagine if this ride thru was created today specifically for the platform with complete 360 movement enabled with layers upon layers of assets. The possibilities are endless!
And just in case you're wondering... I have tried this with Soarin' as well and the results were just as amazing!
For years, I've had a copy of the virtual ride thru (), but as you know, watching something on your screen isn't at all like being there. Well that changed tonight...
Enter the OCULUS RIFT. You may have heard of this thing... it's a virtual reality headset currently being tested with developers. You can buy one if you want to, they are not limited to developers (which I am not). It's $350 and if you have a decent PC and aren't a total novice, you can easily figure out how to work it.
I can get into all the ins and outs of why this thing is so amazing, but that's not the point of this post. The point is that one of the great things you can do with the OR is simulate all kinds of video screens... one of which being a ginormous 180-degree dome type screen. I decided to see what would happen if I projected the ATIS virtual ride thru on one of these and.... HOLY MOLY. While the ride thru is created with 3D assets, the output rendering is not actually in 3D (to your eyes), but it really felt like it for some reason. I very much felt like I was sitting in one of those blue omnimovers riding this thing and it was a crazy sensation to be sure. I legitimately felt like I experienced that ride tonight.
What's amazing about this is that this was just a 4:3, non-HD video, hardly even taking advantage of what the tech is actually capable. Imagine if this ride thru was created today specifically for the platform with complete 360 movement enabled with layers upon layers of assets. The possibilities are endless!
And just in case you're wondering... I have tried this with Soarin' as well and the results were just as amazing!