Work in Progress - 1 - June 2020
Computer Consultant upgraded my PC (22.6.20)
Thanks to the incredible generous donations I received my PC is getting a complete overhaul. The old graphics Processor is replaced by a raytracing machine Nvidea RTX 2070S, a new 8TB fast Hard drive is added and USB-C ports. I am not just developing for Mobile VR but looking at Raytracing when new powerful graphics processing will become standard. I now have 20 Terra Bytes of storage. Some projects I am working on require half a Terra Byte on there own and I often back these up in case things go wrong which they have done in the past.
THE ASTRAL OVERVIEW EFFECT PROJECT
At 10am the postman delivered the Oculus Quest. Again thanks to the incredible support I have received. I had already given up on the idea of getting into VR again on my pension. Anybody who supported me another big Thank You. This is the essential item needed to get the ball rolling again.
The picture quality on this headset is astonishing compared to my DK2. The day before I copied all the VR files over from CELESTIAL SONG which I will rework for this device. I will bring the lengths down to about ten to fifteen minutes. The quality of the new generation will make it like a new experience. It will probably take me two to three days to convert it and cross fingers it will run smoothly on the mobile device so a lot of rejigging will be required, hopefully without lowering texture resolution. I will share the results here and the finished VR App will of course be free.
There is no getting away from it, I’ll have to brush up one my tech skills and enroll in a programming course. It’s not enough just being an Artist if the medium involves Virtual reality and software which seems to be changing every few weeks.
But alongside I started using a sketch pad to scribble down ideas. I also feel the medium can be used to connect people to their archetypes, even their Inner Self, via wave forms in sound and vision. I was inspired by Rupert Sheldrake this morning, showing us how life springs from sound which creates pattern, the base of all life, which can be found throughout nature. Patterns and Fractals have always been my “thing” because they appear during deep meditation and especially if you break through the barriers of the lower consciousness.
I have spent all day copying files from my Mac to my PC while updating Unity to Version 2019.4. It takes several hours to update every single item and every texture so I’ll have to leave it running over night. In the morning I will find out wether I have something to work with for testing the complexity I am allowed for the mobile VRs. I have chosen a jungle scene. Last time I tried a forest scene on the mobile the frame rate was totally unacceptable, so everything will have to be optimized which of cause can take days.
So Sheldrake directed my focus back to a VR App I produced in 2014 which I will be focusing my attention on, but it will incorporate new things which I have learned since then. So patterns like this one find their way into the first App and perhaps trees.
Sometimes a single tree in nature can take you into another world if the thoughts are silenced. Trees are an obsession of mine. I keep designing trees by the hundreds. If I want to relax I design a new tree. A tree which nature hasn’t thought of.
20th June
22nd June:
24th June:
Completely out of the blue it was just announced that the Oculus Go is being discontinued, and anybody considering buying the budged priced Oculus Go is advised not to, or to return it, because support for the device will stop. FaceBook owner have realised the Oculus Quest is the way to go and the next model will be more powerful which of cause as is the case so often will leave people annoyed and angry, myself included.
My early testing has revealed that at present it will be hard to convert the more complex worlds into mobile VR apps. PC driven VR with a powerful Graphics card may still work after heavy optimisation. Though in the short term I will need to focus on VR movies, which are not interactive but allow for infinite complexity. Eventually the tech will catch up. VR movies will need to be short though because of the amount of information compacted into each frame, but on the positive side they can be edited like any movie in 3D with multiple layers.
Alongside I am planning to create VR environments which are build along simple elements, atmospheric and immersive. Along the way I will still be generating immersive VR stills which make little demands on processing power and which I shall be posting here for people to download.
26th June:
Three days of teething Problems. My trusty iMac was quickly adapting to the Quest, but my super powerful PC had issues recognizing the Headset. After hours of fiddling I finally sent a report off to Oculus who came back a few hours later promising to look into the issue. If worse comes to the worst I will have to call on my engineer, after browsing through YouTube videos and finding other people with similar problems and nobody seemed to offer a solution that worked for me. Ten hours wasted trying to figure it out. It’s not what I had in mind. I was rather looking forward to creating.
Fortunately I can create on my Mac until the problems are sorted out and I am happy to report that the first App is coming out soon. Those with an Oculus Quest will have the doubtful pleasure of roaming around in a scenery which is very reminiscent of the lover Astral levels. It is based on an experience I described in “Vistas of Infinity” on Page 68. The feeling and the Atmosphere is quite close. There is a fire too and it is gloomy, an old run down town from the past. This one though, unlike in my OBE, has no people trying to get out, just the atmosphere. I will be posting this as the first experience on the App page for people to explore and experience as sense of lower Astral gloom.
Work is starting in earnest. Click on the Next Page Button at the Top Right to find out more.
