#i think having a display of the costumes that you could do a 360 walk around of would be absolutely baller

[batslime]

i know in general leviathan forge is not a good person and the way he got the costume pieces was insane and crappy. but he really does post really good reference of the vestments unfortunately. I did not know until stumbling across one of his tiktoks tonight that the stole worn with copias chasuble is actually trimmed with gold CHAIN and not just a fringe. like these are the details we just would never know from what we’re shown in official ghost stuff

[hexandbalances]

Visiting Salem

A few years ago I traveled to Salem for Halloween week. It was a fun trip but not at all the quaint town I had expected. And it was busy. Salem eagerly leans into its witch history and new age spiritualism, sporting many psychic readings and occult shops. To be honest, a large part of my stay was spent walking, shopping, and eating so I didn’t get to visit as quite as many museums as I would have liked. I’ve included a brief review of some of the places I stopped in at while I was there:

Jolie Tea - this was tucked away from the Essex Street pedestrian mall, which made it the perfect place to escape the crowds and blustery wind. They had a selection of seasonal tea blends made in shop. I stopped in several times and took several pounds of tea back as a visiting gift for my aunt. I know it’s an odd compliment but I’m in love with their upholstery and the wallpaper in their restroom. Very limited seating (only 3 tables, one of which only seats two people), but quiet enough at the times I went as to not be a problem.

Count Orlok’s Nightmare Gallery - located on Essex street (the main thoroughfare, foot traffic only) this gallery houses memorabilia and trivia from classic and modern horror cinema. I recommend it if you fancy yourself a horror movie buff. Tickets were $9 for adults and did not need to be purchased in advance. The tour is self guided, walk in any time.

O'Neill’s Pub & Restaurant - honestly I popped in here just intending to use the facilities and get off my feet for a bit but they sell the best pumpkin ale I’ve had to date. The rim is dusted with cinnamon sugar and the head is dusted with a crescent moon of spice. I enthusiastically returned twice a day for the duration of the trip (I was on holiday after all). Their shepherd’s pie was quite good and the waitresses were happy to share insider advice on the best places to park, how to avoid traffic, etc.

Howard Street Cemetery - I visited this cemetery under the impression that the headstone for Giles Corey was there. It wasn’t. There was a memorial at one time but it was toppled by a vandal in 2015. Nevertheless it was a nice, quiet place to stop and take a breather from the crowds.

The Witch House - this is a bit of a misnomer as the house belonged to Jonathan Corwin, one of the judges of the trials. The house is the only structure left in the city that has direct ties to the trials and gives a much more authentic impression of daily life. The tour is self guided but there are volunteers stationed throughout ready to talk about particular items or history of the individuals that resided there. They have a limited capacity they’re required to stick to because of the house’s age so you may be in for a bit of a wait if you catch it during a busy hour. Tickets are about $10 for adults, sold in the gift shop.

Salem Witch Museum - They start the tour by seating visitors in a dark theatre. A recording plays, lighting up vignettes at scheduled points. These vignettes are maybe roughly 9 feet up from where you will be seated, not in sequential order, and cover a full 360° so swiveling your head up and around to find it is necessary. The recording and displays are rather dated; my guess is that they haven’t been changed since the museum’s founding in 1972 (to be honest I was rather expecting Vincent Prince to narrate). After this the group is lead into a small gallery with various placards and pop culture and news printouts. A guide will deliver a brief monologue and then you are free to view the gallery or filter into the gift shop. 

I was rather perturbed that the museum spent effort linking hysteria of the Salem witch trials to McCarthyism (and any other time the American media described a thing as a “witch hunt”) but did not give but the briefest lip service to the misogyny that drove the witch trials and the selection of its victims. Anxiety about attacks from indigenous people were mentioned, but nothing of the political tension of territory and property lines, the disputes between Salem and its many pastors, or the institution of witchcraft as a prosecutable offense in a court of common law by King James. For a museum on the trials it was very light on the details. I found more information available in the gift shop’s surprisingly thorough selection of books. You do have to buy tickets ($21 adults) somewhat in advance for tours that rotate on (I think) 45 minute intervals. 

Peabody Essex Museum - The Peabody Essex Museum is huge and hosts art and history exhibits. When I visited they had an exhibit on Qing Dynasty empresses and had just finished reconstructing brick by brick, tile by tile, a real Qing Dynasty ancestral home imported from Huizhou, China, Salem’s sister city. General admission is $20 for adults.

The Hocus Pocus House - The house used for the exterior of Max and Dani’s in the 1993 movie is a popular stop but it is quite a long walk away from the main tourist hub. I’m sure there are bus tours that would take you there, but like the spendthrift I am, I hoofed it. You can’t enter the house as it is a private residence so taking photos from across the street is the best you can get. The benefit of walking are the scenic views (at last! The quaint town I had imagined!) and meeting a neighbor a few doors down. She had fashioned a hedge from seashells and had delightful watchdog whose name escapes me, save that it was compound and started with “Sir.” I caught her outside gardening - or rather she caught me - and had a chat about the house, tourists, and living in Salem.

Witch City Mall - free multi-story parking! Get there early.

The Coven’s Cottage - Tools, ingredients, books, and more with an exclusive focus on Asatru.

HausWitch Home + Healing - prime example of the self-care industry meets new age spiritualism.

Artemisia Botanicals - Every powdered or raw ingredient you could likely hope for. I saw advertisements for their tea reading service but none was offered when I visited.

Hex Old World Witchery - a sister store to the one in New Orleans. It sells tools, spell ingredients, enchanted candles, jewelry, and some very jaunty pointed hats for ladies and gents.

Life Alive Organic Cafe - Organic vegan cafe. It has the Sanderson Sisters painted as vegetables on their window.

Opus - A fusion restaurant. The food was amazing and the service was great. They have live shows in their basement level. A perfect place for cocktails.

Adriatic Restaurant - Mediterranean and Italian fare. Decent, but pricey.

Caramel Pasteries & Macarons - Easily the best macarons in town. They also sell ice cream and a limited selection of coffee and tea.

The Satanic Temple Headquarters - Baphomet had just returned from his extended stay in Arkansas. The connected Salem Art Gallery and library was also open, and there were some rather striking vine and wicker sculpture work to greet you. And as expected, the people were quite friendly and helpful with recommendations for what else to do and see in Salem. The only downside is that it is a bit of a hike from downtown, but a much shorter one than the Hocus Pocus house. Self-guided tour is $15 for adults.

Street vendors - there are many of these out and about close to Halloween. You can buy whole bags (and whole bags only) of apple cider donuts and other goodies. Not something I normally go for but it was enjoyable. Bring cash.

Additional notes

There are loads of people in costume days before Halloween. If you are shyly deliberating on whether or not to pack a costume, you needn’t think on it further. Do it and have fun, my darling. 

However, I should warn you that if you are one of those that plans to wave a movie replica wand at traffic while shouting bad Latin, I can assure you that you aren’t the first to attempt this and the drivers will not be patient with you. Better to hustle along.

Salem has a noise ordinance that goes into affect at 10 PM on Halloween night. According to the local waitresses most folks don't begin to trickle into town until 10 AM or so that day. 

Essex street is cobbled, please wear comfortable shoes. 

Shop around! There are many shops selling largely the same merchandise. By and large you'll see the same prices but if you've got a sharp enough eye you can save yourself a bit of cash. 

Reserve your stay, wherever it is, AS SOON AS POSSIBLE. I reserved in January and still had to book a room 20 minutes away, which required a car rental. 

Speaking of which, if you're driving in from outside Salem, the lanes merge and disappear frequently and it can be a little stressful. Most of the drive into Salem is single lane through neighborhoods - school bus traffic included.

The temperature in late October is mild but the wind chill coming off the sea makes it feel at least 10°F cooler. And it’s quite windy - wear your hair up. Preferably add a hat lest you show up on someone’s doorstep looking like Sadako, as I did.

[hellobengski]

THAILAND: POST COLLEGE ADVENTURE 2017

The last time I felt clouds in my presence was in the year 2012, month of December, in which the airplane landed to Hong Kong. The dilemma of life and death in an open space was merely forgotten, where everything you could see was tranquility. I never wanted to stop looking at cottony clouds. They made me feel safe. It was 5 years later when I felt it again.  I remember how it feels to fly without wings, appreciating the beauty of nature beyond what I imagine.

           Thailand was the next stop on my travel bucket list all over Southeast Asia. It was a place that had similar atmosphere with my very own country. EDSA was the first thing that came into my mind when I walked outside the airport. I heard various honking of buses and cars, but in a more disciplined way, I guess. But more than that, I had a view of a new horizon of tradition and culture.

My mom, sister, and aunt had to travel 2 hours away from the airport so we could check in to the hotel where my sister booked through the online. I was assuming somehow it could be near a quiet place, or maybe a road of consecutive coffee shops, but I failed. It was entirely different than what I anticipated. Khao San Road was a place where small bars and party houses were all located. Abstract shirts, different items with elephant designs were displayed along the narrow road of which tourists could experience a good bargain with merchants. I have seen discrete races all over the world who stayed for quite some time in their respective hotels. I could turn my head 360 and whichever direction I bumped into, I could always see unfamiliar but lovely faces.

We met Ms. Nancy, our tour guide for the 1st day. She had a medium short hair, showed a very long glittery eyelashes in her face, and a pale pink lipstick on her mouth. She had a pleasing personality, I could say, or maybe she needed to be because it was part of her job. She was shorter than me, maybe an inch, and was in her typical shirt and pants with Chuck Taylor shoes to stay comfy.

I only had 2 hours to prepare and fix my baggage before I travel with Ms. Nancy. I swiped the card through the doorknob, allowing me to embrace a very relaxing and convenient 1 single room with 2 large soft beds and pillows. I put my sister’s make-up kit in front of the mirror with a hairdryer beside it. My personal hygiene necessities were located just outside our bedroom, in the midpoint of two comfort rooms, so it would be easier to grab just in case we’re in a hurry to take a bath. My aunt placed some leftover biscuits all the way from Philippines next to the huge flat screen TV. My mom being my mom, tried to clean some of her stuff, but there was no enough time left. Angela, my sister, did some of her retouch on her face to make her feel fresh even when she already felt exhausted. We left the room and ate one of the most popular Thai food called, “Pad-Thai” along the road.

The value of respect of Thai people for their King was the very first thing I ever noticed. As I was riding in an outsized van, I spotted some black and white colored curtains hanged outside the gigantic temples of the individual kings who passed away, and for the royals who are still living. Ms. Nancy shared some of her ideas about Thai’s history, telling us that these long curtains represent grief and condolences for the King who died due to his old age. And this will last for a year, until they go back to the feeling of relief.

I went inside historical temples of different images of Buddha, taking pictures for a remembrance to my relatives when I get back home. I tried eating coconut ice cream for P50 baht, which savored my starving throat into something refreshing. Tuk Tuk, a classic Thai vehicle, impressed me with its three wheels, although Ms. Nancy recommended us not to ride on it. Even if I wanted to stay longer in a certain place, we only had limited time to grasp some of the stories that were in there.

Alarm clocks in our own phone woke up us too early. I didn’t have enough sleep. Maybe because of too much excitement, or maybe because of the extreme coldness inside our room. I woke up at 4 in the morning holding my phone, checking some news and updates in the Philippines. It was a never-ending extra judicial killings on my newsfeed, letting me feel the frustration and agitation for my government’s administration. And few days from now, ironically, I would be home in a place where I wouldn’t feel safe. I didn’t want to think about overthinking, so I tried to wake up my mom. I went directly to the bathroom, thinking about the plans and places Ms. Nancy listed for us the day before she left us in the hotel. Everyone else seemed to be freaking out when I finished taking a bath, considering the only time we had to eat for a buffet breakfast. I chose to wear an orange shirt and shorts with floral design, supposing it would match the places we would be visiting.

Just by the time the restaurant open its door, I hurriedly walked into the different kinds of food. I was truly overwhelmed seeing complete set of breakfast that made my stomach perfectly full.  Sausages on my left, croissants and toasted bread on my right, a problem of choosing between fried rice or pasta, and slices of watermelons and pineapples were put into my plate. I wasn’t even contented at all, I made my own coffee to match my croissants, even bother to get cucumber juice just in case coffee wouldn’t give me satisfaction. The question of time never crossed my mind when all these food were prepared in front of me. Although it was a must to rush, a Thai man, who works with Ms. Nancy in the same travel agency, fetched us. It was a group tour, consisted of two couples, one from America, and the other from Malaysia.

The tour started by introducing Mr. Thai’s name. I forgot, though. He considered making jokes out of telling stories, associated with historical Thai’s exotic food too. He is a 55-year old man, who has 3 kids. All I could remember was every time he gets to see me smiling, the memory of his daughter blissfully retains in his mind. He shared about how he got involved into a travel agency, which I think a lot of Thai people are working at. He was not as chatty as Ms. Nancy, nevertheless, he was entertaining. He showed us the famous Floating Market in Thailand, where tourists needed to ride on a boat to purchase some stuff. I have seen amazing paintings in all sizes, carved vases, coconut ice cream with nuts for its toppings, “lansones” which was sold by an 85-year old woman, weaved hats, and a lot more. The biggest Eureka moment was, all I thought Thailand has only one floating market. By the time we had to leave the place, Mr. I forgot-the-name actually revealed that in every town, has its own one. Well, not a thing was bought during the boating experience, all I know was my heart was fulfilled seeing people enjoying moments that could only last once in a life time.

The magical performance in theater happened at night after the tour in Floating Market. We entered a huge closed room with people wanting to witness such beauty in arts and entertainment.    Siam Niramit, is a state-of-the art theater yielding one of the largest stage productions in the world. It’s a captivating adventure through Thailand’s history and culture in high-flying fashion, with live elephants, acrobatics, pyrotechnics and stunts – all performed by a troupe made up of thousands  of performers adorned in great costumes. I would never forget my mom’s unexplainable reaction and experience throughout the entire show. She wanted to cry out of joy most of the time. It’s as if she didn’t want to go home in the hotel. I never saw rejection from her face, telling me that next time she comes back, it would be with my dad. We captured moments with several actors and actresses after, leaving us a souvenir with elephants, making this as her favorite art of the travel.

Off my bucket list was also riding an elephant. One of the many animals I have always wanted to experience, carabao was supposed to be the first. I think elephants were made to listen closely to everything, to everyone. They were made to be friends with people most especially when you treat them with care and respect. They love watermelons and coconuts. They like being splashed with water after taking us into a routine. They were also trained to take pictures with various poses of their trunks, and that’s how they get to be attractive for locals and foreigners.

The famous Thai massage will never be forgotten. So my brother’s friend who happens to work in Bangkok accompanied us after a very long day in market. This has got to be the most effective massage in my whole life. At first I thought it was brutal, since it was my first time the legit Thai massage. I was taking it easy for the first few minutes but later on, it kinda felt horrible. In a matter of seconds, the compress became weapon and I was literally cringing under the pressure. I actually found myself concentrating on regulating my breathing. The way they provide Thai massages are with entire body. They leverage their own body weight with certain movements in order to provide enough pressure to the body. I did fall asleep several times but still ended with a very soothing cup of tea.

Of course, our vacation wouldn’t be complete without the “party.” Prior to shopping in Chatuchak Market, my sister and I had been planning to socialize with people. We were really after drinks and fries, although it wasn’t our first time doing this, we wanted to make sure to at least meet good-looking guys from Europe. Our mom was subtle with her words but still she allowed us to explore. By the time we went down from our room, that’s when the party started. I thought we were courageous enough to do things beyond our control, but surprisingly, we were like high school students who just stayed in a corner of the street to observe how a street party works. There were people who literally danced as if it was their last day on earth, girls and guys French kissing each other while tossing their drinks, Asians and Americans twerking as if they’re showing off to every person they’d bump into. There was also robbery that happened in 7 Eleven Convenience store, unknowingly grabbing sodas and fresh milk from the fridge, to ease their drunkenness. After all, I saw emptiness. I felt emptiness. The superficiality of society where people wants to fit in to get accepted because after all, no one wants rejection. The façade of being proud “in” but in reality, they’re slowly dying. And for me, street party seemed to be an outlet of frustration, sadness, anxiety, and depression. People always long for something in the end.  But life should be more than a night of drinks and smoke. It should be more than meeting temporary people.

Four days and three nights was a short term goal achieved in knowing and living the life in Thailand. More insights were added to my unending learnings in life. It was more than the feeling of being grateful of what the life has more to offer for people like us who seek for journey mentally, spiritually, and emotionally. Life is really full of surprises and adventures and I couldn’t wait for my next destination. Until next time, Thailand!

[ballerinascribbles]

“The Tate Modern? Ah, you can skip it.”

This is what a native British gentleman and engineer says to me, a starving artist visiting from the States. Having never met ballet’s ideal standards for beauty, age, weight, or race, I am defensively inclined to give the Tate Modern a chance. Plus, it sounds like a dare, so I go twice in two days.

The Tate is an institution boasting the United Kingdom’s collection of British art, international contemporary, and modern art. Its mission is to amplify the public’s accessibility to, enjoyment and understanding of art through its four magnificent galleries: The original Tate Britain, Tate Liverpool, Tate St Ives, and Tate Modern. Together, these sites house nearly 70,000 artworks of unimaginable variety.

The Tate Modern is my favorite. To get to the Tate Modern, I recommend taking the Tube and hopping off the Central Line at St Paul’s. You could, of course, get closer, faster, but hopping off here gives you a gorgeous fifteen minute walk past St Paul’s Cathedral, over the River Thames stretching under the Millennium Bridge, just brushing shoulders with Shakespeare’s Old Globe theater before embracing the monolith we know as the Tate Modern. This is the world’s favorite modern art museum, the fifth most visited museum, the youngest and most popular branch of the Tate group. Upon its opening in 2000, the Tate Modern attracted 5.25 million visitors - more than twice the amount of visitors from the other three Tate sites combined! When it became abundantly clear that this museum would remain among the world’s heavy-hitters in way of record high attendance, plans for expanding the Tate Modern were promptly announced. As it stands, the building is a dazzling, dizzying, thought-provoking piece in itself.

Now, let’s pretend you took my advice. You do stroll from beholding the classical beauty of St Paul’s Cathedral to confront the perhaps imposing but nonetheless iconic combination of steel, brick, and glass pictured above. If this is mildly shocking and slightly, secretly disappointing, don’t worry. This doesn’t make you a bad person.

Let’s take that stroll together from Old World beauty to contemporary reflection. Let’s slow over Millennium Bridge to look back, St Paul’s Cathedral framed in blue glass and sky.

Let’s pause outside the intimidating brick facade and wonder together if we’re shallow or simple-minded for not instantly appreciating the significance of the Tate Modern. Let’s allow for the possibility that our first impressions may be disproven, and let’s stride right inside.

We’ve stepped over the threshold to the First Floor River Entrance. We glance over the life-sized map on the wall to our right or we take to wandering, which I prefer. The Tate Modern may be thought of in terms of three separate pillars under one roof: The main Turbine Hall in the center, the Boiler House to the north, and the Blavatnik Building to the south. Let’s push past light, quiet crowds to peer over the first floor balcony or bridge stretching over the striped ground floor. We’ll see an immense pendulum swinging side to side along the seam of the Turbine Hall. We’ll watch children and adults alike chase the moving metal sphere, sprinting and craning up to see a glimpse of themselves in the orb above. We wonder together whether this was meant to illustrate the push and pull between childlike playfulness and existential profundity, or if our wild imaginations are working overtime. We keep walking.

Were we to scuttle downstairs to Level 0, we would stumble across three enormous underground oil tanks known un-mysteriously as The Tanks: One serves simply as a utility space while the other two showcase performance art and installations, earning the description as “the world’s first museum galleries permanently dedicated to live art.” Level 1 contains the Terrace Bookshop and gift shop. Levels 2, 3, and 4 provide the breathtaking public space packed with free displays because like all UK national galleries (and unlike many museums in the United States), the Tate Modern grants general admission free of charge. Only special exhibits require an additional fee, but we ought to feel very free exploring the ever-changing collections of Levels 2, 3, and 4. Each floor is separated into east and west wings, breaking tradition for organising the artworks not chronologically, but thematically: Artist and Society, In the Studio, Between Object and Architecture, Performer and Participant, Materials and Objects, Media Networks, and Living Cities. Let’s start at the Start Display, an introduction to basic ideas of modern art.

Level 5 buzzes with open-ended questions for being home to the Tate Exchange, a place devoted to engaging, communal conversation, collaboration, and discovery of new ideas and perspectives on life through art; the Tate Exchange is free and open to all. The Blavatnik Building runs a tall ten stories, each floor after Level 5 featuring places of varying exclusivity indelibly designed for contemplation. If we’re not buying Tate membership today, I recommend the top floor open viewing terrace, which is free and accessible to all (just be sure to use the dedicated elevator from Level 0). We can eat and drink at any one of the cafes and restaurants located on Levels 1, 3, 6, 9 or 10, but let’s be sure to end up on Level 10 to steal a spectacular 360-degree view of the London skyline.

That’s the long and short of the Tate Modern’s floor plan. Now let’s talk about its contents.

Maybe you’re enlightened enough to immediately understand every piece in the Tate Modern, all contemporary and modern art. But maybe you’re like me, and this doesn’t come naturally. The Tate Modern’s collection will be challenging. Bear in mind and rest assured: Reckoning with modern art is meant to be difficult.

I am a classical ballet dancer, through and through. Classical ballet is, like the architecture of St Paul’s Cathedral, classical for being built in a restrained Baroque style. This style of architecture and art was born of the Renaissance, the rejuvenation of classical antiquity and Greek thought within the then modern world, a style characterised by grandeur, exuberance, richness, and drama. My British gentleman from the beginning of this tale thought I might as well skip the Tate Modern because I more instinctively belong to the Baroque, to environments like the National Gallery with its sumptuous color schemes and ornate ceilings. I, of all people, am trained, programmed, and paid to adore and support classicism, idyllic lines and art and architecture. I am spoiled for clarity and a tad demanding for easy understanding. I encourage you to walk with me, past St Paul’s renowned and widely accepted beauty, over the hallmark of the Millennium Bridge to the edge of our comfort zone, onto the brink of the Southbank and into something new - the Tate Modern mindset.

Architects Herzog and de Meuron made light work of converting the old Bankside power station, rendering a truly contemporary public space which is deftly integrated with the existing historical structure. The lines are blurred between what is new and what is old within the Tate Modern, the minimalist, urban character of the building only enhanced by the non-obnoxious, thoughtful way. The effect is focused, undistracted, but still welcoming. Its halls feel unperformative, expansive and symbolic, but matter of fact. This is refreshing, when you open your mind and allow it to be.

There is a certain gilded fanfare to which I am accustomed. You’ll know what I mean if you’ve ever seen a theatre with red velvet curtains, plush seats, gold leafing, and satin pointe shoes. A theatre is akin to the National Gallery in the sense that both are stages for classical art delivered in a traditional way. The ballet audience receives and applauds only the beautiful finished product onstage. The audience is, however, never privy to the work poured into our pristine and polished presentation of ballet because we would never allow them to see the sweat put into our practice. That would break the illusion of grace and ease! It is the ballerina’s responsibility is to master her breath, mind, and body. There’s no room for quivering, faltering, or falling onstage. That is what rehearsal is for.

The Tate Modern is important to me because it wakes me up and makes me think. To me it feels like a ballet studio, a productive, experimental, progressive, rehearsal space with plain walls devoid of pretension, costumes, and dramatic lighting. It’s about the work. Our experience at the Tate Modern differs from our experience at places like the National Gallery because there’s more work to be done. The art here doesn’t play easy on you! You have to ponder, weigh out and decide what pieces mean to you, and in turn wonder what those conclusions mean about you. We become scientists and philosophers immersed in the museum rather than mere spectators separated from art, tasked with revealing meaning unique to our individual experiences as we wander along walls with Dali, Warhol, Picasso, Rothko, and more. The wooden floors of the Tate Modern are left unsealed so as to show the natural wear of life, the grit and lack of glamor left under our crisscrossing footsteps. You begin to feel at home. You begin to find the work rewarding. You begin to appreciate that you are never entitled to understand the world and the people wandering these halls with you, and you begin to work harder to earn the privilege of elevated understanding and tolerance.

And you begin to remember what you’ve always known: Our humanity is not just what we package up prettily, perfectly, and put onstage for the world to see. Our humanity requires work, activity, trying, failing, honesty, respect, and courage to listen to and uplift one another.

Let’s not skip the Tate Modern. Let’s go twice.

[lorrainecparker]

VR, AR and More at SIGGRAPH 2017

The beginning of August saw the 44 year old ​SIGGRAPH ​conference​ (​S​pecial ​I​nterest ​G​roup on Computer ​GRAPH​ics and Interactive Techniques) return to Los Angeles for the 11th time, and this year the topic was almost exclusively VR. As this is ProVideo Coalition and not VirtualReality Coalition, I’ll be taking a more filmmaker-centric approach to this recap. That being said, the word of the week was “immersion”, and at this point I’m confident we’re on our way to ​The Matrix ​within the next 5 years.

The Exhibition Hall

The TL;DR of SIGGRAPH this year was that Virtual Reality and Augmented Reality are here, and there are plenty of companies developing tools for it, mostly surrounding the ​interactivity of the technology​. That includes tracking in various forms, eye strain and fidelity solutions, and feedback simulation. The feedback tools can utilize simple things from ​inflatable bags worn about your person​, all the way up to more complex things such as a large drum you would, I suppose, hang in your garage to ​simulates heat, wind, and frosty wind​. Or an HMD that reads your mind.

VR is in an interesting spot, as there is plenty of potential but not a lot for the consumer to do with it right now. There’s a handful of games and even less in the way of passive entertainment, but that brings up an interesting dilemma. People keep hand-waving VR gaming as the obvious but not the end-game (pun not intended), and that there’s a ton more on the horizon. What makes one’s head tilt is the fact that there doesn’t seem to be much else to do with it (HP, in their press event, said 76% of VR content is gaming) but the companies recently diving in seem to believe there’s a whole heap of new experiences on the horizon that aren’t “silly games”, mostly in the commercial sector. Consumers care about experiences, commercial folks care about transforming workflows: lower cost, optimized investments in training and simulations, and shorter dev cycles. To that end, it’s up to individual companies to decide what (likely proprietary) programs best fit their needs.

The problem with the aforementioned poo-pooing of VR “games” comes down to the definition: what is an interactive experience if not a game? Games are becoming more and more cinematic, with franchises like ​Metal Gear Solid ​really pushing the boundaries of acceptable cut-scene length at an hour a pop in G​uns of the Patriots,​ and turning ​MGS:V​ into a sort-of hybrid television show/open world game. More recently, ​Fallout 4​ eschewed much its personal choice-driven roots in favor of a more linear, film-like experience. A perhaps-woefully small push towards interactive cinema, as seen by the ​Summer Camp ​demo​ in the VR Village, exemplified this strange blurry line.

User Playing Summer Camp

In ​Summer Camp, ​you’re a kid in a barn with another kid, getting into some mischief, and your buddy discovers a mystical ball with magic powers and some semblance of intelligence. I won’t ruin the demo since it’s pretty short, but some fun things happen and you’re instructed to complete various simple tasks to advance the story. It’s things like “hide behind those hay bales” or “turn on the faucet”, for example. In gaming, we call this being “on rails”, as opposed to an “open world” experience. Just like in most current games that utilize this mechanic, the main portion of ​Rick and Morty: Virtual Rick-Ality , if you ignore the requests made of you, the characters will implore you using different voice lines and tactics. The difference here is that the entire experience is on rails. It’s billed as a VR film that ​you​ experience, but does that make it an “interactive movie” or a game? What’s the difference?

The big thing the conference showed us is that the future of this new medium is limited only by the human imagination, and perhaps a few more years of display tech advancements. That said, it feels as if everyone’s waiting for the next shoe to drop in terms of someone coming out with “the next big thing” in VR. We see this in more filmmaker-centric conferences in the form of “our camera enables creatives to be creative by giving them the power of 20K sensors and smaller form-factors”. Filmmaking is at a point now where the only thing stopping anyone from putting together a compelling movie is a compelling script. In my estimation, we’re already there in the VR space as so many of the computer-based technologies that empower traditional filmmakers are shared by VR creators. So let’s dive in to the nuts and bolts of what got us there.

First off, the PC. It’s got to be powerful and usually that means building your own, often in a big case, or spending a lot of money on a pre-build. Then there’s the giant cable-tail you’ve got following you around, jumping under your feet when you least expect it which at best ruins immersion, and at worst rips the HMD straight off your head and snaps your neck in the process.

HP has developed a backpack-mounted high performance PC specifically designed for VR use and development, called the ​HP Z VR Backpack​. At $3295, the 10lb computer is kitted with a nVidia P5200​ graphics card with 16GB of memory, an ​Intel i7 vPro​ processor, and is HMD-agnostic. In other words, it’s “just” a fast PC you wear on your back. It’s also got two slots for 75mAh battery packs that are mounted by your hips to complement the internal 50mAh battery that are hot-swappable and together will last about an hour. With consistent swapping and charging, 4 batteries will last you about 8 hours. You can also detach the computer and dock it, allowing you to use it as a standard PC. Wearing it is a pleasure, feeling more like a full Camelback than a PC riding around on you. In regards to the “portability” of VR, this is definitely the next step. Beyond that? Full body tracking.

HP Z VR Backpack Harness

HP Z VR Backpack Dock and 2 charging batteries

Companies like ​Motion Reality​, ​Realis​, O​ptitrack​ and ​Vicon​ had full body tracking demos on display, and all but two, Vicon and Realis, were rifle-based. Vicon, coupled with ​Manus VR​’s hand tracking technology, was able to demo an incredibly immersive neon-samurai game in which you can move every joint in your body and see a 1-to-1 translation of those moves in-game. Looking down and seeing your legs, holding out your hands and articulating your fingers, is honestly incredible. It’s the difference between playing a game and being transported into another world. It’s almost impossible to describe the feeling when the tracking is perfect beyond “putting on a costume”. You genuinely feel like you were wearing the samurai armor, aided by the elastic bands holding the tracking points on your arms and legs putting pressure on your limbs, mimicking the armor in a physical sense. An unintentional but welcome side-effect.

Vicon wireframe display, user getting suited up.

Motion Reality, powered by HP’s aforementioned Z VR Backpack, were running a great demo featuring the ​Dauntless combat simulator​ in which you and a partner could either shoot at each other as big avatars in a city (think Godzilla) or together walking through a “kill house” type simulation shooting at wooden targets that pop up. Once hand tracking, which needs its own system, reaches a consumer-level price point and power draw we’ll be in a whole new world. It’s incredible how little things like finger articulation without a controller can drive that immersion home. Once you can move every inch of your body and see those motions translated in the digital world in your HMD you really do feel differently about the experience. That’s going to be the ​next ​next big thing.

HP Reps talking, Dauntless players behind standing by.

Then there’s ​Neurable​, the company that decided attaching a Brain-Computer Interface (BCI) to an HTC Vive wasn’t terrifying. It uses EEG technology combined with “proprietary algorithms” to detect what the user is thinking, such as making specific choices when prompted, and uses that information to make selections in the program/game/etc. This demo had a line out the proverbial door, so I was unable to try it myself, but people seemed to think it was impressive. It ultimately might have more applications in the healthcare sector than entertainment, but it’s still pretty new.

Neurable headset

On the software side, there were companies like Boris FX and Blackmagic touting the 360 Video or VR-centric updates to ​Mocha​ and F​usion 9​, respectively. It seems that at this point, most brands have a VR editing mode bundled in their packages. Boris also has a new plug-in version for Premiere, AE, Avid, Nuke, and OFX which is a welcome change from having to throw things into the standalone program for planar tracking (think using large texture selections as tracking points instead of high-contrast dots) and the like. The object removal module is really, really impressive. About as simple as “circle the thing you don’t want, that’s gone now”. As a filmmaker, that alone made me pause and consider dropping the $700 Boris wants for their current iteration of the Mocha plugin.

Fusion 9 station

From MAXON we saw a rather substantial update to ​Cinema4D​ in the form of the ​R19 release​, both “under the hood” and in regards to simple usability. The new viewport is leaps ahead of the old one, they’ve got a new media core, native MP4 support, a new sound effector, new easy-to-use fracturing features and more. There is also, of course, a spherical camera feature and near-realtime rendering of lights and PBR materials so you can see what your final look will be as you go as well as a new motion tracking features for filmmakers to quickly and easily place 3D assets in pre-recorded plates. As Paul Babb, CEO, said “it’s the age of rendering” now, so your product has to be fast. It seems as though C4D is holding a full house in that regard.

C4D Booth

Overall the week gave the impression that we’ve hit the critical point between “it’s just not there yet” and “what do we do with this?” You might also say it was the year of optimization. Tracking is better, interfaces are better, forecasting is possible, and the consumer is much more aware of what’s available. At the same time, it seems like we’re still in the deep end paddling for some edge we can’t see.

Sure, there’s plenty of interesting tools and applications, but creativity is novelty plus utility. Pixel perfect tracking? Useful, but obviously needed. High performance computing power in small, wearable form factors? Same. A wakeboard or stair simulator? ​Definitely novel…

Even for the medical applications, it’s not the VR tech that makes it useful but peripheral technologies in scanning and design that makes something like high resolution scalable models of real patients possible. The VR space just allows for easy interaction and manipulation of that scan. This is where I think AR will leapfrog VR in terms of usefulness, and VR will remain more an entertainment outlet. But who knows?

At the beginning of the conference, animation legend ​Floyd Norman​ was interviewed and hammered home the importance of story over flash. Mr. Norman was the first African-American animator to work for Disney, working directly under Walt for the first time on ​The Jungle Book​. Throughout his talk he reinforced the concepts given to him by Walt, which he summarized as, “don’t watch the movie, watch the audience”. Walt meant that if the audience doesn’t buy it, your film doesn’t work. You can have all the tech in the world, but if they don’t serve the story they have no real purpose. Immersion comes from getting entrapped in the story, not necessarily in the realism of your environment.

What we have here, today, is a new tool. Like digital cameras, smaller lights, faster film stocks, and VFX before it. This conference showed us that we’ve recently surpassed the novelty portion of VR which means it’s going to falls on us, the creators, to bring the necessary utility and emotional experience to draw people in, create empathy in the viewer and yes, immerse them in new worlds.

[As a total side-note, ​Unreal 4​ was the secret winner of the whole conference. ​Everything seemed to be powered by Unreal. If you’re looking to get into the 3D industry, in any form, you might want to download U4 and start learning it now.]

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First Found At: VR, AR and More at SIGGRAPH 2017