I recently attended SIGGRAPH 2018 in Vancouver, BC.  This conference is the premier event in North America for computer scientists, software makers, motion graphic artists and educators. This year, there was a keen focus on the best-of-breed software, practices and techniques in Virtual Reality, Augmented Reality and 3D.

There were many hands-on examples of VR in use in multiple industries. My two favorites were NASA VR/360 Astronaut Training: Space Walk and nVidia’s Holodeck ( Hint: You are not watching robots – you are the robot.)

There were two key takeaways from the conference, one is that VR is at the cusp of going mainstream and two is you can’t really explain VR, you have to experience it.  With Captivate 2019 you can finally do that for your students.

Traditionally creating and annotating 360 video is a tedious technical process that includes specialized software or advanced After Affects techniques.  Captivate now allows you to do this easily and elegantly.

360 Video

You have seen these all over Youtube and Facebook. This is the most accessible form of VR to create and share. All you need is 360 camera such as a Samsung Gear 360 or Insta360. Once you have filmed your subject you simply drop it into a 360 VR Slide.

Where the real power comes in is the HotSpots. Not only can you easily add custom content such as scenes, graphics, text you can also add advanced actions to control the experience, all while using familiar tools and techniques you have used for years. This sounds like a simple enhancement, but it really is a game changer.

The Captivate development team has clearly put a lot of thought and planning into the developer’s workflow. The ability to guide learners through a 360 experience and then evaluate that experience with interactive questions is amazing.

In my next post we will look at creating a 360 video end-to-end using Captivate to annotate and package for distribution to a headset.  We will also discuss the technical issues that arise when filming and using 360 spherical video.