Florida State University Libraries Honors Theses The Division of Undergraduate Studies 2015 Building Worlds: Creating an Affordable and Efficient Virtual Reality Mari M. Kyle Follow this and additional works at the FSU Digital Library. For more information, please contact [email protected] Florida State University College of Visual Arts, Theatre, and Dance BUILDING WORLDS; CREATING AN AFFORDABLE AND EFFICIENT VIRTUAL REALITY By MARI KYLE A Thesis submitted to the Department of Studio Art in partial fulfillment of the requirements for graduation with Honors in the Major Degree Awarded: Spring 2016 2 The members of the Defense Committee approve of the Thesis of Mari Kyle defended on April 17th, 2015. ______________________________ Professor Joelle Dietrick Thesis Director ______________________________ Professor MK Haley Committee Member ______________________________ Professor Lilian Garcia-Roig Committee Member ______________________________ Doctor Jennifer Feltman Outside Committee Member 3 Acknowledgements To Roger, for being a constant source of inspiration. To Yukiko, for her undying support and kindness. To Richard, for going the extra mile to ensure my happiness and success. To Naomi, for everything. To MK Haley, for being my guide through the incredible world of immersive environments and augmented realities. To Dr. Jennifer Feltman, for providing structure through chaos. To Joelle Dietrick, for being a wonderful research mentor. To Paul Debevec, Nonny De La Peña, Phil Lelyveld, Mark Mine, Mark Bolas, and Thai Phan, for graciously allowing me to visit and teaching me more than I could have ever hoped for. To Jacquelyn Ford Morie, for her gracious welcome to Los Angeles. To Tsuneko and Takehiko, for showing me the beauty in the simple things. 4 Table of Contents Abstract Page 5 The Purpose of the Study Page 6 Methodology Page 7 State of the Literature Page 10 Industry Evaluation Page 16 Conclusion Page 24 Appendix A: Interview Questions Page 27 Appendix B: Interview Transcription Page 30 Appendix C: Survey Page 63 Appendix D: Survey Results Page 67 Appendix E: Interviewee Profiles Page 80 Figures Page 84 Bibliography Page 90 5 Abstract Building Worlds; Creating an Affordable and Efficient Virtual Reality, began in August of 2014. The objective of this thesis is to explore the phenomena of virtual reality through the marketing of its developing technologies, its future opportunities, and its potential of mass production. I spent the first semester of my research, the fall semester of 2014, gathering information on current virtual reality and immersive environment trends. The second semester of my research, I began analyzing the current market of virtual reality (VR) evaluating its advertising trends to explore the opportunities of VR in various fields such as education, art, psychology, and entertainment, etc. This thesis will offer a quick introduction to the history of VR and then proceed to analyze the market of VR during the ‘90s ‘Fall of VR’ and compare it to the market of the present. I interviewed the nations most revered virtual reality and computer graphics pioneers and gathered from their discussions a set of strengths and weaknesses of current technologies. I traveled to Japan to the Chiba Institute of Technology to see how immersive environments and augmented reality technologies were evolving around the earth. This thesis will combine this inside-industry perspective with an audience perspective (backed in the market research form of a survey) in order to accurately study analytically the present day market. Ultimately, these studies have revealed a change in target demographic and societal interest for virtual reality. Through our industry studies, I can conclude also that virtual reality applications in entertainment are the most influential and renowned in popular media, suggesting a change in current advertising strategy. This is supported by the fact that the target demographic is to this day, unaware of the industrial uses of VR that have been extant for decades as proven in the survey of the target demographic, but very aware of the entertainment-based uses of VR. 6 The Purpose of Study Mostly perceived as an aspect of the future, virtual reality is a complex, ever-expanding field of technology. In order to understand the concept of virtual reality, one must first understand the presence of the balance of art and technology extant within the field of immersive environments. Virtual reality development teams are often comprised of artists who long to create impossible worlds and engineers who strive to make the technology to build them. At its origin, development in the field of virtual reality was almost exclusive to engineers and artists. Now, however, it is comprised of journalists, architects, doctors, teachers, psychiatrists, video game designers, marketers, and writers, etc. With this trend of virtual reality becoming an all- encompassing industry, I have turned to examine how the technology, once it becomes marketable, will be presented to the mass public. Thus, my research aims to understand the predicted direction of virtual reality within various industries (by determining what extant virtual reality technology will be most easily adopted by the general public and most cost-efficient for mass-production) and aims to utilize the information currently available to understand how virtual reality marketers can begin to market and apply virtual reality to broader fields of study as well as how to do so successfully in order to steer clear of making the same mistakes in virtual reality marketing that earlier (in the 1990’s) served to be one of the major causes that brought forth its declension. The general statement for my purpose of study is that virtual reality (VR) is a new beast evolving so quickly that it lacks a general, academic market and industry analysis. My thesis will allow me to look to the future and create a market and product analysis based on available information now rather than later when it will begin distribution and popularization. This thesis also provides a brief history of virtual reality in order to be more easily comprehensible to a broad, non-virtual-reality-affiliated audience, as the field of VR can be complicated to newcomers of the topic. However, it must be brought to attention that, as previously stated, this market is evolving. My research serves as an academic analysis of the VR market as it stands today, though ultimately, the market and the technologies of VR are progressing and changing every day, meaning that this research is a “snap shot” in time. Regardless, this research will help the virtual reality industry to understand how to raise awareness about developing technologies in a way that can facilitate the growth of positive brand and product image instead of stunt it as it may have in the past. The market study will break down the market from the 90’s and the current market, allowing us to better understand the mechanics of why the market for virtual reality failed in the 90’s. I have chosen to analyze the market of the 90’s so as to better understand how marketing impacted or worked as one of the factors that brought forth the “fall of virtual reality”1 that took place around the year of 1994. I will shift the focus to the present and relate our decisions from virtual reality marketing in the 90’s to our current circumstances. Finally, I will be able to predict a strategy for successfully earning mass acceptance and gaining public interest for virtual reality based on the information gathered during the duration of my research from my 1 Christopher Mims. "Whatever Happened to ... Virtual Reality?" MIT Technology Review. October 22, 2010. Accessed January 25, 2015. 7 own experience with immersive environments, the words of prominent virtual reality pioneers, market (target demographic) research, and virtual reality literature. Methodology Virtual reality is a broad term for an eclectic field. That being said, research in the field, however in depth, is relatively scarce (relative, of course, to the amount of research behind other developing technologies, i.e. the cell phone). Thus, this thesis aims to cover most of the basic aspects of virtual reality, allowing for better understanding of VR for a broader audience. The information gathering portion of this research project began in August of 2014. I began by reading every piece of literature I could find in relation to virtual reality, augmented reality, and immersive environments, all of which are listed in the bibliography. I then began meeting with MK Haley, Florida State University professor and 20-year veteran of Disney Imagineering. We met for an hour or two roughly every other week to discuss current virtual reality trends, pioneers, and developments. During this time I guest lectured on the topic in two art technology history courses under the guidance of Joelle Dietrick, digital artist and Florida State University Professor and presented on the subject in multiple courses. After reading commercial literature on the subject, I began reading academic literature in the forms of academic journals, articles, and dissertations. The interview process began during the second semester of my research, though the planning began in the first. I was introduced to several virtual reality pioneers and professionals (profiles for each provided in Appendix D) through MK Haley, who graciously guided me through the world of modern virtual reality. I then flew to Los Angeles to interview these pioneers throughout the days of February 18th, 19th, and the 20th. On February 18th I met with Jacquelyn Ford-Morie, founder and chief scientist of All These Worlds, LLC. On February 19th, I met with Mark Mine, a Walt Disney Imagineer and former technical staff member of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory at NASA. Later that same day I attended the Digital Town Square event on the topic of virtual story telling hosted by the Entertainment Technology Center at the Institute for Creative Technologies at the University of Southern California.