In 1965, Philip K. Dick’s novel, The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch, was published. It featured this memorable ingredient:
… unwilling colonists have fallen prey to a form of escapism involving the use of an illegal drug (CAN-D) in concert with “layouts.” Layouts are physical props intended to simulate a sort of alternate reality where life is easier than either the grim existence of the colonists in their marginal off-world colonies, or even Earth, where global warming has progressed to the point that Antarctica is prime vacation resort territory. The illegal drug CAN-D allows people to “share” their experience of the “Perky Pat” (the name of the main female character in the simulated world) layouts. This “sharing” has caused a pseudo-religious cult or series of cults to grow up around the layouts and the use of the drug.
And in his 1968 book, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, Dick included a religion called Mercerism that was totally virtual reality (this element is not included in the movieBlade Runner):
Philip K. Dick was soooo far ahead of everyone.
Recently, I finally got a glimpse of what he meant.
And it will change everything. Everything.
This is how it happened.
I went to the 23rd Street/6th Avenue Best Buy with two intentions:
1) Try the Insignia Flex Elite 7.85 tablet again.
2) Try the Samsung Galaxy View again.
I did the first. Never did the second.
Why?
Because sitting next to the View was the Samsung Galaxy Gear VR headset. Which I had no intention of trying but the pricetag said US$99. So I figured, what the hell.
I’d never had the chance to try VR before. At trade shows, the lines for demos had always been impossibly long.
So to see a VR headset sitting there unused?
Why not?
There were several demo VRs (is that the right term, VRs? I’m using it anyway.) available. I selected the largest icon in the view, which was for a Cirque du Soleil thing (which I later learned is called Kurios).
Stop.
Before that, when I put the headset on (well, I never strapped it on, I held it against my face), it beeped and the view became active.
And I sneered to myself, “I thought so.”
Because I was looking at a stupid screen. With edges. That didn’t fill my view.
Seriously, that’s what I expected all of it to be like. Because at a trade show ages ago, a company was selling a headset that promised watching TV through it would be like being in a theater with a ginormous screen. Well, I got to try that. And I thought the company was delusional. It looked like a shitty tiny screen floating in front of my eyes.
The choice selection screen on the VR appeared a bit larger than that, but still.
At the side of the headset is a touchpad of sorts and it’s used to position the pointer to select a VR to, um, view.
So, Cirque du Soleil.
A momentary spinner and then … BAM!
I could see pixels. It was low-res.
But …
… I was surrounded by it. No edges.
… the three-dimensionality of it was better than real life, even at low-res.
… at one point I reached out with my hand to touch one of the people — and I had no hand!
This was just the beginning.
Another interruption: I haven’t been to see a 3-D movie in just about forever. I’ve never been impressed by the 3-D. It always looked like animated paper cutouts on different planes of depth. Everything was still flat, just at different depths.
The 3-D of the Cirque du Soleil was not like that at all. It was full freaking 3-D.
And people talk about “immersive” experiences? How you can lose yourself in a book or movie?
No, only VR is actually immersive.
Another demo I tried was Cinema VR. I played a Transformers movie 3-D trailer.
And there was the pathetic 3-D I detest. Flat cutouts at different depths. Not immersive at all. Like those “TV glasses” of ages ago.
Another demo was a CGI rendering of being underwater (I think it’s called Blue VR). This had far fewer pixels than the other demos. And it was eerie. I turned my head all around. Fish came up to my face. Sharks sped past me — and because you can’t hear them, boom!, you’re shocked to see one blithely passing by. And being in the water and looking up at the bottoms of icebergs is a real trip.
Immersive. This was 360-degree in all directions immersive. Left, right, up, down, every damn angle. No seams, no edges, all How The Hell Did They Do This?!
And then there was the demo/trailer of The Martian, from the movie.
This one above all the others made my head explode.
I’m in outer space. No. I’m surrounded by outer space. Stars all over the place. The dust of galaxies spanning countless miles. I look down. I have no feet. I turn my head. I’m in orbit above Mars!
Then I’m moving over the surface of Mars. Moving. I look down. I have no feet. But the ground is moving. I become disoriented and reach out to grab the countertop!
It went on from there. But my god, the sensation. I was totally disembodied. I was surrounded. I was elsewhere. My real-world feet didn’t matter. I had no hands to touch anything “out there.” I was just eyes.
Another demo was called Bandit Six. I’m in the turret of a World War II tail gun. I can look all around me at the “cockpit.” I look down and I have to huge-ass fighter’s body I don’t have in real life, seated. If I look down more, my “body” disappears and I see the seat itself! I didn’t know if this was interactive nor how to interact. The touchpad at the side of the visor isn’t easy to distinguish, a weak point of this. Bombs were going off, fighter planes were attacking, and all I could do was … sit there. At least it never ended in death! But looking at that setup, it wasn’t a stretch to imagine it redone for a Star Wars game and the classic scene of Luke in the Millennium Falcon shooting TIE Fighters.
Another demo I tried was called The Recruit. I’m seated in a low-res dimly-lit room with a badly-CGIed desk. A human — not CGI — woman enters and begins a spiel about what I’ll experience, what they can do to me, and how they want me to work for them. It was very weird. The weirdest part was at the end, when she said they could even instill fear. And suddenly we’re outside. Above a cityscape. And I look down. And I have no feet. And I’m in mid-air between and higher than the roofs of two skyscrapers! Geeeeeez! I had to grab the countertop again because I had the fear I would plummet to the ground!
I must have looked like a spaz to anyone passing by. Turning my head all over the place, going “Holy shit!” at certain points.
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