Most of my recent work in VR and Mixed Reality has been rough, proof-of-concept stuff. Nawlz is an attempt to create something with a little more structure. Returning to Australia from a secret overseas Tilt Brush project, SUTU stayed over for a couple of nights and we documented the entire creation of a Tilt Brush artwork.
The piece is a 3D re-imagining of a panel from his interactive comic Nawlz (Season 1, Episode 5, Page 3 for those following along at home).
The video combines a number of mixed-reality techniques I’ve been developing for months: VR timelapse, VR Automatic Camera Tracker in both timelapse and realtime modes, in-app greenscreen painting and some other secret spices.
Australia is lucky to have one of the greatest youth-oriented national broadcasters on the planet – Triple J. Their weekly current affairs show Hack covers a huge variety of topics, and an excellent example of this is my interview about working on VR and music performance being introduced by 10 minutes of Tinder Date Murder Trial coverage. [Skip to 11:25 to avoid murders]
Listen: music video and VR on Triple J Hack
Broadcast 18 October 2016. Reporter Stephen Stockwell visited my place to experience Ball Park Music’s Whipping Boy VR video, then we talked about Tilt Brush, Reggie Watts playing AltspaceVR, and what virtual gigs might mean for Australian bands.
In brief: Sam Cromack painted the clip in Tilt Brush; I directed and built the technical rig; the conversation moves from turning a room-scale work into a 2D music video to performing live inside VR.
“If you can put on a show that people from all around the world can come to—without having to physically move around a lot—that’s a pretty magical thing.”
Jaymis Loveday, Triple J Hack, 18 October 2016
Archive update, 2026: This 3:47 Jay-focused excerpt uses 11:25–14:40, 16:22–16:48 and 17:03–17:10 of the preserved 29:45 broadcast. The intervening interview with Lincoln Savage and brief headset-removal chatter are omitted; the full source recording remains preserved offline. Audio: Triple J Hack / Australian Broadcasting Corporation.
Transcript
Speaker-labelled transcript generated from the preserved broadcast with Whisper (medium), checked against the source timings, and lightly edited for names, punctuation and readability. The audio remains the authority.
TOM TILLEY: Now, when you think about virtual reality, you probably think about it in porn or the gaming context. And in just a moment, we’ll take you inside a virtual reality game so real that some players even vomit. But what about music? Some virtual reality developers say we could be going to virtual reality gigs within months. There’s already some serious movement in the virtual reality video clip space. Stephen Stockwell went inside the first video clip ever created in virtual reality to find out what’s in store.
STEPHEN STOCKWELL: I’ve never been in virtual reality before, so I’m trying to figure out how I actually describe this place. I’ve never had to sit in a galaxy looking at a volcano erupting from a man’s chest through a spiral rainbow. That’s all part of a film clip. This is a piece of art painted inside virtual reality—which is the music video for Ball Park Music’s Whipping Boy. The world I’m standing in was drawn by Sam from Ball Park Music. And Jaymis, whose house we’re sitting in right now, was the director and provided the technical gear to make it all happen.
JAYMIS LOVEDAY: The best way to experience this is to own a VR rig and walk around inside it with the song playing. But most people can’t do that, so we sort of tried to figure out how we could show it to people on a 2D screen and have it still be exciting.
STOCKWELL: It’s really hard to describe, but the light painting that Sam has created in virtual reality is really immersive. And you put on the headset and you put on the headphones and it really feels like you’re in another world. Now, there are still limitations with the cost of virtual reality. The headset I’ve been wearing is about $1,500. And then you need a pretty pricey computer to run all the software—probably a couple of grand there as well. I don’t want to tell you that it’s worth it, but I did have an incredible time in virtual reality.
JAYMIS: VR itself—it is actual virtual reality. That’s the weird thing. People will not walk off a cliff in VR because that’s scary. And being inside these psychedelic scrawlings of Sam’s, you get in the mindset of someone who’s sitting inside this crazy piece of artwork floating in a galaxy. While you’re in there, it’s entirely convincing.
STOCKWELL: While the Whipping Boy video was the first film clip made in virtual reality, it’s really just the first step.
JAYMIS: From here, we’re going to start seeing a lot more of this kind of stuff—interactive music experiences, and even virtual reality gigs. Altspace put on a show with the comedian and musician Reggie Watts a couple of months ago. They basically put him in a full motion-capture suit, built him a custom avatar that looks like Reggie—with the amazing afro and beautiful kind of suspenders that he always tends to wear—and he put on a live comedy show in a virtual comedy club. But that’s comedy, not music. There are some electronic gigs that are happening in virtual reality already, but there’s a bit more technical work that needs to be done before you can get really sweaty to Violent Soho in your living room. Electronic music is much easier because it’s mostly about hand movements, which are already tracked. To get live rock bands with people playing guitars and things like that is going to take a little bit more time because generally there are more people. So there are a little bit more technical hurdles to get—for instance, a Ball Park Music set live in VR—but it’s not out of reach at the moment.
STOCKWELL: Jaymis isn’t the only person doing this kind of thing. He’s not even the only person in Brisbane working in this space.
[The broadcast’s separate interview with Lincoln Savage is omitted from this Jay-focused excerpt.]
STOCKWELL: Being able to go to a variety of live performances in VR is something that’s going to be happening inside of a year. While the idea of strapping on a VR headset to check out a band might sound pretty futuristic, Jaymis says it’s not far off at all.
JAYMIS: Touring for a band in Australia is really hard because it’s such a big country with such a small, relatively, number of people. If you can put on a show that people from all around the world can come to—without having to physically move around a lot—that’s a pretty magical thing.
TOM TILLEY: Welcome back, Stocky. That was Jaymis he was speaking to there, who directed the first film clip created in virtual reality.
It’s been a little over a week since I launched my Automatic Camera Tracker project. It’s still a work in progress, but as SUTU is monopolising my Vive and nerd-basement at the moment, it felt like a good time to check in on its progress.
The current version is working alongside other VR apps, and can track a controller or VR headset at realtime or timelapse speeds as the user moves around the VR and IRL space. A little like this:
I now have a robot camera sidekick who follows my movements around the room while I'm in VR! Can't believe I got this working so quickly. pic.twitter.com/dNAhFdOkDa
… which is exciting, because it’s a project I’ve had in my mind since I first used the Vive over a year ago, at PAX Prime in Seattle. As soon as I waved the controller in front of my face and noticed the tracking speed and accuracy I started mentally designing camera tracking systems. I wanted a VR system in my life because I love games, but I needed a Vive for filmmaking science experiments.
I’ve spent today with SUTU filming with my most recent version of the system, using it for both timelapse and realtime, handheld shooting while he worked on a Tilt Brush version of a piece from Nawlz.
I’ve been thinking for a while about taking the Vive outside to test how it handles Nature. The object-tracing capabilities of Tilt Brush have already been pretty well established. SUTU and I had planned to take the VR rig outside last week, but it ended up raining, so I had to do it by myself after he left :|
To view the art in Tilt Brush yourself, and spend a little time in my virtual backyard download the .TILT file here.
The process was great fun! Outside Vive is a super strange feeling, but it worked well. Even climbing a ladder while blind was quite fun. (Note: Don’t take your Vive outside at daytime, tracking won’t work and sunlight through the lenses can burn the screens.)
I took a couple of precautions, most important was applying some tape to the controller so it didn’t get scratched up by the brutal nature in my suburban backyard. I figured out last week that the most accurate way to “trace” objects in Tilt Brush is to use the back of the controller, as the “stylus point” is at the top of the handle, not the tip of the tracking ring.
I’m still experimenting with mixed-reality motion-control shots. This version I stabilised the Tilt Brush feed in After Effects as it had a constant slow oscillation which I think may be to due to vibrations from my robot’s stepper motors.
While investigating tracking precision for motion control timelapse filming in VR I had a thought, and then sidetracked myself for half a day designing various Tilt Brush/Vive pendulum rigs. The first one is very simple, but worked beautifully:
After completing the Nihilist Party Album video, the Ball Park guys spent a couple of hours trying my Vive VR rig, and they were quickly on board with the idea that their next video should be produced in VR.
