Technology

Virtual Reality highpoint of our 'evolution' VR evangelist tells Canberra

The real Matildas (of the Australian women's football team) are formidable enough but the virtual Matildas as seen on Thursday with my virtual reality headset were giantesses, each about three metres tall.

From my virtual view of them from down on the virtual turf where they were kicking the ball around, I was just a worm wriggling in the grass.

Executive creative director David Budge of Isobar with one of the VR devices.
Executive creative director David Budge of Isobar with one of the VR devices. Photo: Jamila Toderas

But I was a spellbound worm, for fine VR as demonstrated and evangelised about on Thursday by VR developer and virtuoso Dave Budge is magical.

"VR really gives you a sense of being somewhere else," Budge rejoiced.

"This room [we were in the Events Room of the CBR Innovation Network, in Civic] becomes anything you want it to be ... being in water without having to be in scuba gear is amazing ... you're on a sunken wreck and a whale comes past!"

Budge, tall, slender, young, and with spectacular soccer-star's hair was there as an expert guest of the CBR Innovation Network. As the best evangelists always do he was telling us of momentous things to come, in this case VR's "endless possibilities".

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He believes, passionately, that VR is "the last medium" because it embraces something of all the mediums (like moving films and recorded music) we have hitherto invented. VR is the latest point in "the evolution of storytelling" with "all of human experience to create and tell stories now coming down to one device".

That one device is represented for now by the HTC Vive. But Budge imagines the day when we may be able to do, with devices almost as dainty as contact lenses, what the HTC Vive enables with its biggish headset and many wires.

VR is a godsend for gaming but Budge gave us examples of VR's use in the real world. For example a VR interview situation has been developed to help timid job-seeking women rehearse ways in which they can do their best in interviews with male bosses.

When you see a man on TV sitting at a desk reading the news he hardly seems alive at all and you know he's not talking to you, Budge fancies.

"But when someone in VR looks at you they're really looking at you," so the VR boss seems a living, breathing someone you, the timid female, must engage with as if you are there with a flesh and blood boss so real-seeming you can smell his intimidatingly blokey aftershave.