Virtual reality (VR) is a powerful medium to immerse your audience in your story and make them feel part of it. But how can you use VR to create excitement and engagement in your audience? Here are some best practices and tips to help you craft a captivating VR experience.
Depending on your goals, budget, and target audience, you need to choose the right platform for your VR story. You can use 360-degree videos, interactive VR games, or mixed reality applications. Each platform has its own advantages and limitations, so you need to consider factors such as interactivity, accessibility, and distribution. For example, 360-degree videos are easy to produce and share, but offer limited interactivity and immersion. Interactive VR games are more engaging and immersive, but require more resources and specialized devices. Mixed reality applications combine VR with real-world elements, but pose technical and ethical challenges.
Understanding your audience is pivotal for creating excitement with VR. By conducting thorough user research, you can tailor VR experiences to align with audience interests, ensuring maximum engagement. Analyzing demographics and preferences allows for crafting immersive content, be it gaming adventures, educational simulations, or brand activations, that deeply resonates with your target audience.
Definitely. Using the right platform is super important when being able to present Or be involved in VR with real world elements. In the case of development in VR and mix reality, it is essential for Mix reality applications to have a secure system to perform professionally and accurately. Without a doubt, is important that ethical challenges can be faced when using the right platform, especially when VR streaming live.
Another factor you need to consider is the skills you have available to you. If you don't have 3D engine skills then a 360 video experience may be better for you. However, a 360 video may not be able to provide the level of excitement you want so to provide so you need to weigh up how much energy/funding do you have to acquire these new skills to create what you are after.
I think this step, even if it is the first step, is usually missed or not considered during a VR project. I totally understand that some educators for example, would love to have almost all interactive features in their project, but at the same time, they wanted to use 360-degree videos! We definitely need to know what are the available options for each platform/meduim!
If you're aiming for broad reach with minimal fuss, I believe 360-degree videos are your go-to. They're simple to share and can still pack a punch with the right content. For deeper engagement I would go for interactive VR games for that full-on immersive experience, but of course they demand more from both creator and user. I think the key here is to match the right platform to the product vision and audience for that unforgettable VR impact
A good VR story needs a clear narrative arc that guides your audience through the experience and keeps them interested. You need to define the beginning, middle, and end of your story, and create a conflict, a climax, and a resolution. You also need to consider the point of view, the setting, and the characters of your story. You can use different techniques to create a narrative arc, such as linear, branching, or emergent storytelling. Linear storytelling follows a fixed sequence of events, while branching storytelling offers multiple choices and outcomes. Emergent storytelling relies on the audience's actions and interactions to create a dynamic and unpredictable story.
story telling is very different in VR. You cant just cut to a new scene like you do in other forms of media as this may disorientate the user. VR is great for one shot takes or longer scenes where the user is in the scene for a period of at least 2 minutes before their experience is interrupted. You need to keep this in mind when creating your narrative arc as you will be creating scenes that might run for a bit longer than you might be used to. A good way to think of VR story telling is a live play and the camera is the audience. Look at how plays do scene changes or keep the audience attention and try to find ways to use those techniques for your story.
One of the main benefits of VR is that it can create a sense of presence and immersion in your audience. You can use different elements to enhance the immersion and excitement of your VR story, such as sound, motion, haptics, and visuals. Sound can create a realistic and emotional atmosphere, and guide your audience's attention and actions. Motion can make your audience feel the movement and speed of your story, and add realism and thrill. Haptics can provide tactile feedback and sensations, and increase the involvement and empathy of your audience. Visuals can create a stunning and immersive environment, and convey the mood and tone of your story.
What makes VR a great medium is that it places the user into the world of your story as either a character that the actors interact with or as a "fly on the wall" that just watches the story unfold from a distance. VR also incorporates the best technology in 360 Audio and you need to use every part of that technology to fully immerse your users. Users need to hear the bullet fly past their head, or the sounds of distant creatures in the forest. Haptics are a great way to add subtle features to your story. Meta has a wonderful tool called haptic studio that allows to to link haptic vibrations to audio clips so when your characters begins casting a spell you could feel the power of the spell in the haptics of the controllers.
Interactivity is a key feature of VR that allows your audience to influence and participate in your story. However, you need to balance interactivity and control, so that your audience does not feel lost or overwhelmed by your VR story. You need to provide clear and intuitive cues and feedback to your audience, so that they know what to do and what to expect. You also need to design meaningful and rewarding interactions that advance your story and motivate your audience. You can use different types of interactions, such as gaze, gesture, voice, or controller-based interactions.
Depending on the type of story you are telling and platform you are using you need to be careful when allowing your users to contribute to the experience. The user needs to be well aware that they will be making decisions or interacting with the world before they begin the experience. I remember watching a 360 video about dinosaurs and enjoying the experience as a person explained how the dinosaur they were talking about looked after their young when all of a sudden the video pauses and goes blurry. I was stuck here for a few seconds before realizing when I looked down I could select "questions" that I could ask. This was not made clear to me before I began and completely broke my immersion.
Some movement is good, but too much can cause motion sickness, so the design is important. Balance is the right word. The best apps are those that are the most inituitive.
Finally, you need to test and iterate your VR story to ensure that it works well and meets your objectives. You need to test your VR story with different devices, platforms, and audiences, and collect feedback and data. You need to identify and fix any technical issues, such as glitches, bugs, or latency. You also need to evaluate and improve the quality and impact of your VR story, such as the immersion, the engagement, the emotion, and the message. You can use different methods and tools to test and iterate your VR story, such as user testing, analytics, surveys, or interviews.
Testing and iterating is definitely the secret sauce of any good product. "Don't just create; refine!" Put your VR story through its paces across devices and platforms, gather feedback, and polish until it shines. Tackle those pesky glitches and fine-tune the immersion and emotional pull. Whether you're using user testing, analytics, or surveys, remember that iteration is key to delivering a VR journey that resonates and captivates. Keep iterating, and watch your VR story transform from good to unforgettable
Testing is a must. A poorly designed app where the user gets stuck is a terrible experience and some people, particularly in the corporate world, only give new tech one chance. Testing is also the way to make it more and more intuitive.