VR with others

Some months ago, during their second beta-test week-end, I had the honor to be introduced to AltSpaceVR by @CymaticBruce himself. It was a really fun experience as he was running around full speed while shouting in his mic. We made ” the first to get to the pirate boat” race and had a nice conversation ” at the edge of the world”  with another guy … I will remember this event as my first convincing multi-user VR experience. The best aspect of it was the reactivity of the avatars. Their head movements follows your HMD movements so you clearly see who’s talking. If you have a Leapmotion or a Kinect, your hands will be visible too.

Inside the volcano

Yesterday, the good people from AltSpaceVR pushed the experience further. They invited the extreme explorer Sam Cossman to give a virtual tour of the Marum crater, the biggest active volcano. During his last expedition, Sam and his team used quadcopters and GoPros to scan the entire volcano in 3D. The result is a full scale 1/1 virtual volcano where I could follow Sam’s avatar with 20 other users while listening to his explanations and terrifying anecdotes. It was really impressive to feel the scale of things when we where at the core of the crater close to the magma.
As in every good virtual world, you can wear a silly hat.
When you think about it, the possibilities of these kind of interactions are endless. Been in presence of the most relevant specialist on a subject while using 3D environments to illustrate his speech is … I can’t find the words as I am still trying to realize what happened yesterday in that volcano. I would love to go on the moon with Neil Armstrong or relive D-Day with veterans. Maybe Slash could give guitar lessons !

http://altvr.com/