I loved the class we had today.  I have experienced VR before, but I've never been able to play with 2 different headsets in one sitting and for that extended period of time.

During class, I experienced three different worlds first hand: a Mario castle, being a giant dragon who can breathe fire, and a cirque de soleil performance.  Two of the worlds I visited were more stylized and one made me feel like I was actually there.

Storytelling is definitely a huge part of the VR experience as a whole.  All of the VR realms that I went through had a story or theme to them, but the one that had a more definitive theme/ story definitely work the best for a viewing experience.  The cirque de soleil performance was definitely easy to follow and gave the user cues on where to look and when.  The other two words I explored were a little more hands-on and allowed the user to do whatever s/he wanted.  This proved to be a little more confusing and I found myself questioning what I should do next or what buttons to push and when.

I love being immersed in a VR realm.  I was honestly a little disappointed in the Mario castle when they had various doors to enter but no way of entering them.  I also didn't feel like I was physically in the world, but that is because the whole scene was very old-school and stylized, much like the original N64 game. When I was a giant dragon, I was very confused as to the objectives of the game and spent most of my time trying to figure out how to move faster and breathe fire on the village people. I sort of felt like I was there, but it mostly felt like I was just playing a video game. Although this was fun, it was not as enjoyable and immersive as the cirque de soleil show. When I was watching the show, I definitely felt as if I were sitting on stage amongst those clowns. Maybe this is because I was actually wearing headphones as opposed to listening to an external speaker, as I did with the first two realms I explored.  As I said before, the ones that required a controller were a little harder to follow than the ones where you just looked around, because I wasn't sure what was going on or what I had to do half the time.

It was interesting to see my classmates interacting in the virtual reality worlds.  Many people were pointing at things and shouting at them, not realizing that what they were pointing at in the real world was not the same as what's in the virtual reality world.  It was definitely funny when that happened and gave me a different perspective of the VR experience.  Having a giant Oculus headset definitely looks ridiculous, especially when you see a user interacting with one.

I did not experience nausea, nor do I think any of my classmates that I was working with experience it as well. I only got to play with two of the headsets in class today and didn't feel any nausea.  I also own a Google Cardboard and have never experienced nausea while messing around with that. All of the experiences were pretty well-designed and had no real lag when I moved my head around.

I definitely got a sense of uncannyness in a scene, especially when I was immersed in the more "video game-y" scenes like the Mario castle and the giant dragon one.  This was only because the scenes were very stylized. Being a 3D modeler myself, I am very aware of the "uncanny valley" and notice it very easily.

a) Screen resolution definitely affects the quality of the experience.  A higher resolution experience, as with the cirque de soleil scene, definitely made the experience a lot better and made you feel like you were actually there.  A lower resolution experience, as with the Mario castle, did not really affect the my overall experience due to the stylization of the world I was in.  However, I could see it affecting a world that's trying to be more realistic.

b) Sound played a huge part in my experience.  When I had headphones on and was able to fully be immersed, I felt like I was actually in the scene.  When I didn't have the headphones, I felt as if my attention wasn't fully on the scene.

c) The smoothness of head tracking plays a huge role in the VR experience.  The smoother the experience, the less nausea the user feels.

d) I liked being able to lean forward while using the DK2. It allowed for a more immersive experience.

e) I personally like wireless better than wired.  I have a wireless mouse when I do animation related things and its a lot nicer than when I have to use a wired mouse.

f) I guess it depends on what type of experience you want to have.  With the Mario castle, the quality of the 3D graphics obviously wasn't that good, but that was intentional because they were trying to allow the user to further explore a classic game for the N64.  If you want a more realistic experience, however, the quality of the 3D graphics makes a lot of difference.

g) I definitely liked it better when I had a full spherical range of vision.  It made me feel like I was in another place, instead of sitting in a room with a weird mask on my face.

Overall, I enjoyed today's class.  Although I was bummed that the Star Wars mission I suggested was unable to load, I was still able to check out some cool new worlds.  I was also bummed that I didn't see the Star Wars scene that DID load, but that just means I'll have to go back and check it out some other time.  Every time I put on a VR headset, I realize again why I am a 3D artist and love what I do.  It's just such a cool experience and I can't wait to learn more about it in the next few weeks.