Hello, hello, the audiovisual producer of VR Kiwi is back and I’m here again to share some thoughts about VR filming.
We are advancing into the project and different formats of video come up on the way but still I believe that the best way to tell a VR story is within the game and from the eyes of the player.
Now, with the introduction of characters and a multiplayer mode in Cave Digger 2 we got the chance to experiment and play with VR acting further, and jump from 1st to 3rd person point of view.
Probably the easiest way to describe the VR filming experience is comparing it to motion capture because in essence this is what we are doing. This technique is already relatively mature and we can take reference from it to work on the growing vr storytelling telling.
Here are some of the things we’ve learned to take in account:
The advantages, live motion capture
The actors have a great advantage when working on VR gameplay filming. Interacting with a digital live rendered environment is something that we already see in some recent traditional film productions but it comes as default for game video one since the world is already constructed for an actor, which will be in the end, the player.
This means that the actors can experience the game in the same way the final user will do and therefore the filming experience will only be better if the actors have good VR space awareness and they master the game mechanics.
The limitations, the more sensors the more fun
Our movement is limited to the sensors. We can do full body tracking with the game models separately but when it comes to gameplay footage we will often be limited to hands, head and spatial movement. There are some VR games that include the possibility to play with leg movement but for the majority of the titles we will be limited to the top part of our bodies. The actors need to know these limitations and be as expressive as can with the resources available.
“Hand held camera” vs animated camera
I think one of the greatest things of filming in VR is the capacity to jump in-game as a cameraman. This can be done from two points of view:
1st person view
This is probably the most common case of gameplay display for VR games. The camera becomes the actor, the player and therefore, from this perspective we have the responsibility as cameraman of not only showing the scene correctly but also to act and represent feelings and reactions of a possible player.
3rd person view
With a bit of help from the developers we can include an in-game camera that can be controlled from a VR headset and controllers giving us the possibility of more organic camera movements. This comes handy when showcasing games that contain full body characters or multiplayer options.
I think that’s enough rambling about filmmaking for a Friday evening so I’ll leave you here the latest video we made for Cave Digger 2. But before I would like to mention that the full immersion of VR is probably one of the greatest things that an actor can take out of the VR experience but it became even more valuable in my eyes during the pandemic. Filming with several actors and sets becomes difficult if human interaction is not there. VR and live motion have been a great advantage since we’ve been able to work fully immersed in the Cave Digger world.
The conversation about the metaverse is a hot topic in the media and I believe that this is not something reduced only to a social Facebook feature. XR technology has been developed for some time now for many other purposes and filmmaking will not be an exception. Full body characters for both actors and filmmaker and voice communication made it feel like we were together on set, and believe me, we probably socialised there for more hours while working on Cave Digger 2 than during the rest of the day in the real world.
🤠⚒️ “Cave Digger 2: Dig Harder ” | Steam Early Access Launch Trailer | VRKiwi
Cheers,
Susana
Random development quote: “-Jammu sä oot kanssa jonne! -Jumalauta, mä oon oikeasti jonne“.