How to Create VR Content: Short Guide by ...

Do you think about creating VR content and wonder if you can?

Want more information on VR Interactive Equipment? Feel free to contact us.

Good news &#; you can.

Non-technical people can create VR content.

Simplifying the whole process of VR content creation is heading your way.

In this article, we review 2 basic ways on how to create VR content:

• with help VR development
• without programming

1

What is VR content?

According to Merriam Webster, Virtual Reality means an artificial environment where users experience sensor simulations provided by a computer. Users can control VR content to some extent.

Google states that VR content primarily includes two types:

• 360-degree videos
• interactive 3D simulations

Users access VR content via special electronic devices such as VR helmets and smartphones.

Using a game as an example, the main difference between VR content and other types of digital content:

• When playing a game, you play a character.
• When playing a VR game, you become the character.

There is a dispute on whether a 360-degree video can truly be VR content because it is not as interactive as VR apps.

We believe it is.

Interactivity might be limited.

But immersion is not.

2

What are the technical requirements for creating VR content?

Making VR content requires heavy graphics calculations as complexity of the drawings grows. It takes much longer to produce and animate 3D objects.

360-degree videos also need more time for processing because they include several camera views to be merged into one video.

You need advanced, high-performance equipment to create, test, and launch VR content&#;plus special software.

Here is a short list:

The quality of provided VR content is key to its success among end users. Be prepared to make several takes and test each one to see how it displays in the VR gear.

It is important to note that the choice of the target platform determines VR software development stack. One size does not fit all. Choosing several target VR platforms also means you must adapt your VR content to them all.

Neither VR platform dominates the market. Be wise and make a preliminary study on users&#; preferred VR headset before you start creating VR content.

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3

Who can create Virtual Reality content?

Everyone who has equipment and has done some training can create VR content.

Virtual Reality is an environment created by technical and programming tools and transmitted to a human through his sensory organs. The main attribute of the Virtual reality experience is a special headset&#;a so-called stereoscopic Head Mounted Display (HMD). The full virtual reality picture could also include smells, sounds, tactile perception, and, in this case, the VR equipment should also include special robotic gloves and exterior simulation facilities.

Example video: Audi is working on turning their auto into a real VR simulator making it possible to experience a voyage in any world you can imagine right in the back seat of the car.

4

How to create VR content?

Quick and easy VR content creation has become an essential challenge for companies looking to expand client experiences. The technology is trying to fulfill this demand by inventing different tools to create 3D objects.

There are two ways to create VR content now:

5

To shoot a 360-degree video

This is the simplest way to create VR content. If you want to immerse your spectators into an environment close to the real world, consider filming a real place on the Earth as a 360-degree panorama. There are special spherical cameras that do this, for example, 360 Penguin, RICON THETA

When creating this kind of VR content, remember your spectators see the world from where your camera &#;sees&#; it. They can swipe the panorama around but cannot get closer to or farther away from the picture. The whole user experience is programmed by the video as you shoot it.

Example 360 video from National Geographic:

A virtual tour to Google Data Center:

Some technical tips on how to create VR content of this type:

• Install your camera in a fixed and secure position, either on a tripod or to a drone. If doing the latter, you must use special gear to stabilize the image. Attaching it to a cameraman or to you with steadicams is an option. The binding equipment might be visible in the frame, but you can edit these out of the video afterwards.
• To avoid triggering user nausea during the virtual reality experience. make sure the video is shot &#;smoothly&#; with &#;even&#; moves.
• Prepare a scenario for your video in advance. Let it surprise, impress, and stay in the minds of your spectators. Create an emotional response, but don&#;t overdo it. Do not cross the line leading to horror or aversion.
• Use creative shooting tricks like camera acceleration, bold angles, &#;reach out and touch&#; effect. Again, do not visually overload your spectators. By the way, the &#;reach-out-and-touch&#; effect has proven to be an interesting &#;mind game&#;: even if spectators cannot grab the thing, they want to touch it!
• Stitch, synchronize and process your video with a special software like VideoStitch. When packing it into a virtual reality application, make sure it works well on different devices: desktops, smartphones, tablets, headsets.

Here is another example of a 360-degree video: Flight over Dubai:

6

To create 3D animation

If you would like people to &#;walk around&#; your virtual world and look at it from different viewpoints, just as users of Google street view can do, consider creating 3D animated VR content.

How is it possible to create 3D animation for Virtual Reality?

There are two main approaches to creating VR content:

1) making 3D scans of real objects

2) creating 3D animations

Animate 3D scans of real objects as a base for VR content

There is a strong demand from businesses to get easy tools for VR content creation, and the technology is trying to fulfill this need with 3D scanners. Yes, it is possible to scan real objects, premises, interiors, and even people with cameras and then get their 3D versions. For example, this is possible with the Canvas app. It works best with iPhones and iPads.

Check out how Canvas app works:

There are also some platforms providing similar services, such as Matterport, Entiti Creation, YouVisit.

This is how they work:

• Scan the object with the device camera.
• Upload the scanned photo to a specific software platform that processes the image.
• Receive a 3D copy or virtual tour based on your media from that platform.

Each of these platforms targets a special market segment and suggests its own playing rules in terms of pricing and technology.

Create 3D objects as a base for 3D animation from the ground

You need unique 3D animation for successful VR game development . Consider VR content creation with the help of specialized programming tools.

The following modeling software allows VR development: 3DS Max, LightWave, Modo, Cinema 4D, Houdini, Maya.

For experienced developers, check out VR content creation software for complicated 3D game programming engines like Unity and Unreal Engine. These are professional VR content creation software solutions. They allow creation of really sophisticated Virtual Reality worlds.

7

What industries use Virtual Reality content?

The technical tools for creating VR content described above make it possible to develop VR apps for a wide range of human activities. Below you can get some inspiration of how to use your VR app:

• Automotive industry &#; Some auto giants, like Audi, Ford, and Volvo, recognize VR as a great tool for working with clients. Their VR applications allow showcasing and customizing car models even before they come off the production line.

  Also, car manufacturers offer their clients virtual test drives. Users can try different car configurations, feel the difference between the different model generations or even have a short drive inside a company&#;s legendary models.

• Tourism &#; The possibility to virtually demonstrate foreign destinations is a great gift for travel agencies. Clients get an enlightening and engaging experience guiding them in their decision-making process.

  In tourism, travel agencies can make a short tour to a chosen destination to help clients decide whether this is a vacation of their dreams. They can also show clients various features, including hotel room, dining, anticipated weather on vacation, and more.

• Real Estate &#; A virtual real estate tour is a great sales tool for agents. Offering a 3D scheme of a property clients can visit online, it is quick and easy to make great deals.

  Players in the real estate market also invest in innovations. It is often hard for clients to find a suitable time for an appointment. Several French real estate agencies make the visits for their clients, take multiple photos of houses or apartments and prepare a virtual tour. This saves clients&#; time on offers they might not want to consider further.

• Education &#; VR apps help students remember the subject matter much better.

VR educational apps help teachers explain materials students struggle to imagine. For example, dimensions of marine mammals, their life, and habits. As a result, students memorize learning materials better than when using traditional illustrations.

Here is a VR tour to exoplanets:

• Training &#; it is much safer and easier to train people using Virtual Reality for everything, especially for activities assuming extreme risks&#;like divers, drivers, astronauts, pilots. One of the first purposes of VR app development was to train pilots in a laboratory rather than in the air.

VR can be used to train mechanics on maintenance and repair new cars. They get acquainted with new models even before those cars arrive at the dealers. This improves the quality of services and ensures mechanics know how to service new cars as soon as they arrive.

8

What are the benefits of VR apps for businesses?

VR content opens up opportunities for various businesses by providing an exact copy of different items in their respective environments. This way, users learn both the particular item and the entire context in situ.

Remember: VR content is available 24/7. When your brick and mortar is closed, your VR content keeps working for you.

VR content helps businesses in several ways:

• SHORTENING DECISION TIME
• SCALABILITY
• TIME SAVING
• CONCEPT PRESENTATION

Shortening decision time &#; VR works best for the &#;try-before-you-buy&#; concept. This applies especially to retail. Users can test drive cars, try on clothes or take a short tour&#;all virtually. They know about the offer before entering the showroom and need less time to think about their purchase.

Scalability &#; a physical showroom or a brick-and-mortar store have limitations. Limited number of dressing rooms often causes queues. Time limitations prove problematic when customers want to test drive a car.

There is no waiting with a virtual showroom. Just download the software, press the start button&#;and let the fun begin.

Time saving &#; employees can serve a limited number of customers within their hours of work. With the help of virtual showrooms, the same number of employees can better serve a larger number of customers.

• Risk-free training &#; VR content can be used at the initial stage of training where training activities are expensive and/or dangerous for both employees and customers.

Companies can train employees how to handle emergency situations.

• Travel agencies can use simulators to train guides to learn routes in advance or act quickly in non-standard situations.

Concept presentation &#; early feedback saves businesses time and resources on building unwanted products. Models can be presented to different audiences. Collected feedback helps improve a product even before it gets to the prototype stage.

Immersion is definitely the biggest benefit of VR content. Users do not stand back; they land right in the middle of a situation. This approach helps them learn product features and their use&#;better and more quickly. This approach saves time. And, because virtual immersion is always available, users can easily access the information again.

!

Conclusion

Contact us to discuss your requirements of VR Arcade Machine. Our experienced sales team can help you identify the options that best suit your needs.

Businesses see great benefits using Virtual Reality technology. Marketing minds already understand the great possibilities VR content opens for product presentation and sales. There are also many other advantages from which both service providers and their clients can benefit, such as modeling a future product in an easy and comfortable way.

Simplifying VR content creation and making it accessible for non-developers are two great challenges technology continues trying to resolve.

Another approach is also taking place&#;not simplifying but rather making the whole 3D animation programming process more comfortable and refined for professional developers.

We are witnessing the advent of Virtual Reality in our every-day life, as technical experts find ways to make VR easier to make and cheaper to use.

However, Virtual Reality is already easily accessible and still refreshingly new. You can take this innovative tool straight from the pages of science-fiction books and provide your clients with new, great experiences.

Make your product stand out from the crowd&#;literally. Create eye-catching VR content and win client loyalty.

From our side, we are ready to help you. ITC has created great VR applications based on their clients&#; ideas.

IT Craft can do it for you.

LET&#;S START BUILDING THE FUTURE TOGETHER. TODAY.

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Creating an interactive Virtual Reality (VR) project from scratch is much easier than you think. Especially because nowadays there are no coding skills required to do so. Additionally, there are more quality free resources available today than ever before to help you hit the ground running with your new VR project.

To save you time and put you right ahead of the pack we created this resource guide with only the best free resources available in the Virtual Reality world today.

Please still be aware that even though something is free, it might not automatically mean that you can use it for your purposes. Our advice is to always check licensing rights (especially for commercial use) and attribution regulations.

Step 1: Idea generation

If you want to get started with VR and VRdirect but have no idea what kind of experience you want to create in the first place, you can always get some inspiration from existing projects and content. The following two resources offer you an enormous collection of material that you can work through to generate the perfect idea for your Virtual Reality approach.

Virtual Reality has great potential to be used profitably in all industries. VRdirect enables business scenarios ranging from virtual tours to training & education, marketing & sales and product visualization. Explore our VR showroom and learn how you can leverage Virtual Reality for various use cases in your business.

If you want to take it one step further and want to see what is possible in terms of 360° video, you can use the Youtube and Facebook search to find 360° video content and watch them for free in your browser.

For Facebook, just add &#;360&#; to your search term &#; if you are looking for 360° skydiving videos for example just search for &#;Skydiving 360&#; and you will find multiple 360° videos.

On Youtube, the search for 360° content works even better. Input your search term and afterwards use the &#;Filter&#;-tab of the Youtube search to display 360° videos. You can also apply multiple filters in order to, for example, show videos with the most views first.

Please note that these 360° videos are not interactive experiences but merely nice 360° videos that users consume passively.

Step 2: Wireframing and Storyboard

Every great Virtual Reality experience starts off first with a plan of action, even if that plan is rudimentary and minimalist at first. All you need to get started is a simple storyboard (physical paper or digital paper, it makes no difference) to act as the foundation that the rest of your VR world will be built upon.

Adobe XD CC is a free wireframing program that is usually used by Web- or App-Designers that want to visualize their user experience and create a prototype. Although you will only need it to create a roadmap that shows the possible paths your user can take through your experience, a resource like Adobe XD CC can be really helpful for that. It is available for both Mac and Windows.

After you&#;re done sketching your user experience it&#;s now time to create your storyboard. A storyboard is a shot-by-shot visual plan that shows what a film will look like before the film is shot. Working with a storyboard is very important so you don&#;t miss out on any important shots when filming your footage. If you are producing your Virtual Reality project for someone else, you should definitely consult your client about the storyboard first before you start producing.

If you&#;ve never worked with storyboards and don&#;t know how to make one, head to the ACMI website for a free crash course

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Step 3: Footage and content

You should now have a clear idea of what kind of story you want to tell and what media and content you need for that. For Virtual Reality projects, the basis will always be 360° photo or video content or something that was rendered out in 3D.

360° Photo or Video Content:

Most of the time, 360° photo or video content will be the foundation of your interactive VR project.&#;You don&#;t need complex 3D footage or models to create stunning interactive 360° experiences with VRdirect.&#;Although we always recommend a dedicated 360° camera, there are some free apps out there that can help you to get started or even to draft up a demo. Here you will find our guide to filming your own 360° footage.

The Street View App lets you create 360° photos directly with your smartphone &#; for free and without any additional hardware. Just open the app on your iOS or Android device and click on &#;Create&#; and take a series of photos. The photos are taken automatically and once you&#;re done, the app does all the stitching work for you. After the stitching is done, the 360° photo will be automatically saved to your smartphone and can then be integrated into your Virtual Reality project.

iOS: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/google-street-view/id

Android: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.google.android.street&hl=en

Stitching Software
If you already have a 360° camera, the stitching often comes with it for free, e.g. the THETA stitching app (for Ricoh Theta cameras) or the Insta360 Pro STITCHER (for Insta cameras).

Editing 360° Content:

If you have 360° content that you downloaded from a stock footage platform or created with your own 360° camera, you can directly import it into your VRdirect project. Although, sometimes you will have to edit the footage before using it, for example in order to trim your shots to the correct length or to enhance the colors of your shots.

GIMP is a free software for photo editing. With the open source image editor, you are able to use a wide range of photo editing tools. By adjusting the contrast, color saturation, brightness or other parameters, you can make your 360° photos look more professional.

While 360° photo content can be edited with many free image editing tools, this is not the case for 360° video and it&#;s not too easy to find a good solution even for basic editing such as trimming.

If you are only looking for basic editing options, V360 &#; which is available for free on iOS and Android &#; is exactly the app you need. V360 is an app that lets you edit 360° videos directly on your mobile . Basically, it allows you to trim and sort your 360° footage very quickly to get a somewhat rough cut and save the final product to your smartphone. It is definitely a great resource to get you started, but some 360° videos might require further editing.

3D Animations and Models:

Although you don&#;t need any fancy looking 3D-animations to create a stunning and interactive VR experience, some people still want to use them or even have to. With 3D-animation, computer graphics are used to give the impression of objects moving and being in a three-dimensional space.

At the same time, using 3D models of rooms or halls can give you just the look you&#;re searching for when taking 360° photos yourself is not an option.

Blender is a free and open-source 3D creation software. If you don&#;t have access to 360° footage or need parts of your experience to be created in 3D, blender is an ideal way to get started and create your first 3D models. There are thousands of tutorials online that can help you create exactly the 3D models that you need.

Other software tools might offer more advanced features for creating 3D models, but if you&#;ve never used a 3D modeling tool, you can probably do everything you need to do without the more advanced ones. Also, other and more advanced software tools aren&#;t free most of the time.

Blender is more than suited to create your very first 3D models for your VR experience and we would definitely recommend taking a look at it. Sure &#; it might take you some time to really get started, but that&#;s the case for almost any software.

Mixamo is an Adobe tool for 3D character creation and animation. It contains a free library of rigged and animated characters that can easily be imported to your 3D software (e.g. Blender). Using this tool is completely free &#; all you need is an Adobe ID. A Creative Cloud subscription is not required. If you ask us, Mixamo is a great way to work with pre-designed characters and animations.

Please note, however, that the current version of VRdirect Studio does not allow insertion of 3D objects. You&#;ll have to render them out as MP4, PNG or JPEG or integrate them directly into the background, which you&#;ll then be able to import as a video or an image.

Sketchfab allows creators to buy and sell 3D, AR and VR content &#; although, a large part of their onine library contains completely free 3D models. Offering mainly objects and characters, Sketchfab should be your go-to resource if you&#;re looking for free 3D models to get started with. All of the models can be downloaded as an .fbx file that can be imported to your 3D software (e.g. Blender) &#; where it can be rendered out for use in VRdirect Studio.

Just like Sketchfab, Turbosquid offers a library with 3D models, but focuses on full rooms and 3D-modelled places next to characters. A lot of models are available for free and can be downloaded as an .fbx file that can be rendered in any 3D software before importing it to VRdirect Studio. If you want to know more about the VRdirect Studio schedule a free demo with us.

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Step 4: 2D-Elements and Graphics

If you have the main content like 360° footage or 3D-animations set up you can now think about 2D-content, like videos, photos or graphics, that you would like to include in your VR project. Some of the main use cases for these interactive objects are to trigger connections, start a video, or play a sound. Icons and PNG graphics often represent those.

A great place to get access to such icons that you can freely use in your projects is iconmonstr.com. The website hosts over + free icons that you can download as .png graphics in your preferred resolution and color or as .ai to use it as a vector graphic. The license of iconmonstr.com grants you every right you need to have: use the downloaded icons in non-commercial and commercial projects, services or products without attribution in any media.

After you&#;ve downloaded your .png icon you can just import it to VRdirect Studio and use it for your interactive elements.

If you are not happy with everything iconmonstr.com has to offer, you have some other choices for sure. One of our preferred ones is definitely freepik.com. They offer millions of vector graphics, icons, and illustrations. But that&#;s not all; if you want to use stock photos in your VR project as well, freepik.com has over a million of them &#; free to use in commercial or personal projects. Just make sure to take a close look at the license which tends to differ between different media files. Some are free to use with attribution, while for others you need to attribute the author.

Another website that provides fantastic free-to-use icons and graphics is Flaticon. All these assets can be downloaded as PNG or SVG files and usually come in different colors, so you can choose which suits your VR project best. Please be aware though that a small attribution of the creator is required in most cases. Another thing to pay attention to is the look & style of assets when using different icon sets in order to keep the consistency within your project.

Lastly, Pixabay is a great source for free photos, illustrations as well as videos and music. Here you can also find full-body shots of people that you can cut out in order to integrate them into your Virtual Reality project &#; for example as a staff member at the front desk with a speech bubble who greets users. Most of Pixabay&#;s assets are licensed for commercial use and require no attribution of the creator.

Step 5: Audio

Everything you need visually should now be ready and, in the best case scenario, already imported and implemented into your VRdirect project &#; your 360° or 3D content as well as your icons, photos or videos. The only thing that is missing from your perfect interactive VR experience now is music and sound effects. Audio can play a big role in a fully interactive experience and can give the user additional feedback (e.g. a &#;click&#; sound when clicking on a button).

Music:

In Virtual Reality projects, music is most commonly used as background music that is audible throughout the entire project. It&#;s not too easy to find good royalty free music that is free to use in a personal or commercial project, but as always there are exceptions.

One of them is Bensound. It is a royalty-free site with around 100 tracks ranging from cinematic to world music, acoustic, folk and other genres. You can use Bensound&#;s music licensed under the Creative Commons License in your multimedia project as long as you credit Bensound.com. Examples of proper way to credit them are: &#;Music: https://www.bensound.com/royalty-free-music or &#;Music: « Song Title » from Bensound.com&#;.

Sound effects:

Similarly to music, sound effects can make the difference between a good and a great Virtual Reality project. Whether you trigger them by timed events or add them to interactive objects, sound effects add realism to your project and make it even more immersive. Characters and objects that you use in your 360° videos are usually performing everyday actions, so it is important to reinforce these actions with the sounds that people are used to hearing. But where can you find sound effects that are free to use?

The answer might be simpler then you&#;d expect, but using YouTube&#;s search function to find royalty free sound effects works pretty well. Just search for your desired sound (e.g. &#;punch&#;) and add the term &#;sfx royalty free&#;.

You will find many videos including download links. Again: make sure to read the whole video description or visit the website of the creator (if one is declared) to make sure under what conditions the effect is free to use in your project.

FreeSFX offers a huge library of free sound effects and even some entire music tracks that you can use for your Virtual Reality experience. All you need is a free account &#; then you can download the needed tricks as MP3 files that can be directly imported to VRdirect Studio.

Editing:

Although you can directly import your sound effects or music to VRdirect Studio, you sometimes might have to edit it or cut it to the right duration. The same thing might also be true for the audio you recorded with your 360° camera or with your smartphone. For example, there might be some background noises you want to cut out or to enhance the audio level of your recordings.

And that&#;s exactly what Audacity is used for. It&#;s a free, open source, cross-platform audio editor and recorder that is very intuitive and easy-to-use. It is available for Windows, Mac and other platforms. With audacity, you can basically do everything you would ever need to do with your audio files. Again: there are thousands of tutorials available online for free that you can use to get started.

Step 6: Putting it all together & Publishing

So you&#;ve worked yourself all the way through and have got everything ready that you need to create an immersive interactive Virtual Reality project? Then it&#;s time to put it all together. And that&#;s where VRdirect Studio comes into play.

VRdirect Studio is a vr software that lets you create and publish your own professional interactive 360°/VR projects. VRdirect Studio is available for Windows and Mac. It is an easy-to-use drag & drop editor that lets you create interactive 360° projects within minutes. We have created a complete user guide on how to use our Studio so you can convince yourself:

Create an account and use the VRdirect Studio for free within our free trial period. During that time you may create and preview as many projects as you like and even publish a project for demo purposes.

And this is it. You have just created an interactive VR project that you can show to your audience, just by using free resources. Isn&#;t that amazing? We think so too.&#;

If you have any questions regarding your Virtual Reality projects,&#;feel free to contact us anytime!

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