Name: Janet Vaughan

Course: Multimedia Literacy

Date: December 5, 2002

The Advantages and disadvantages of Virtual Reality in Entertainment

Today, multimedia trends are adding new dimensions to our daily lives.  Virtual reality is one such trend.  In virtual reality, computers are used to engross its users ‘into a simulated experience so authentic it seems real’ (Hofstetter 2001).  Increasingly, virtual reality is being used for education and entertainment by museums and the entertainment industry.  More and more flight and fighter pilot schools are also using virtual reality to enhance training.  Intensive visual backgrounds, clear-cut audio, and physical motion sensation are used to create highly immersive environment and to boost realism.  While there are definite advantages to a simulated experience, there are certainly disadvantages.  The world of virtual reality will lose interests without room for more interactive participation except in a simulated form.

Virtual reality promises to take us to places we could never have reached otherwise.  This experience is becoming common in museums around the world.  With the aid of virtual reality, computer-generated museum displays let visitors travel thousands of years through space and time without leaving the building.  A spectacular example can be seen at the new Getty Museum in Santa Monica, California.  It displays a virtual reality exhibit of the Forum of the Emperor Trajan. 

This second-century forum was an expansive public gathering place used by ancient Romans as a corporate building and most likely, a venue for celebrating many different kinds of special occasions.  The exhibit offers a panoramic view of Roman markets, libraries, marble corridors, and a gigantic column of Trajan.  This one-million-polygon 3-D simulation is based on real archaeological data.  It is full of history and educational as it is eye-catching, in its vast richness.  Clearly, this is the closest anyone will come to experiencing the great Imperial forum first-hand, since the monument was destroyed in 850 AD.  A third of the forum is excavated, while the rest is buried under the Victor Emmanuel monument and the streets of modern-day Rome (Emmett 1998). 

For many people it is hard to imagine what it would be like to take part in an historic event or visit an ancient place.  Through virtual reality, they can have a complete history lesson in an environment that is the closest to authentic.  Giving a child the opportunity to walk through such a spectacular and historic place like the Forum of the Emperor of Trajan could leave a lasting impression.  Likewise, children who are normally quiet or shy may be encouraged to speak out and ask simple questions like, who was Trajan. Or, why was this place built? etc.  In these ways, virtual reality helps to stimulate educational discussions.

Disneyworld’s Innovation Center at Epcot is home to another eye-catching virtual reality masterpiece.  It displays the historic St. Peter’s Basilica of Vatican City, Rome.  The display includes a detailed re-creation of the structure as it is today, as well as the original fourth-century church as it was before it was destroyed in the fifteenth century.  Visitors can interchange between the new and old structures via these computer-generated immersive technologies with just a change in motion of their bodies, either to the left or to the right.  Visitors get a greater sense of realism from the St. Peter’s Basilica display because of its stereoscopic image quality.  It also has a field of view of 140° and is displayed with real-time simulation (Emmett 1998).  Again, this virtual reality experience is a great source of entertainment.  More importantly, this display enables us to understand more clearly, how such magnificent structures once functioned in society.  In this way, the virtual reality model is an educational breakthrough because it offers an immediate, unique, and rewarding experience.  Researchers, historians, teachers, students, architects, archeologists, people with religious interests, and many others can benefit from this intensely interactive and wonderful, virtual innovation.

Another prime example of how virtual reality affects the entertainment world is seen in the steadfast development of virtual reality theme parks.  For some engineers, safely dropping you ten stories in an elevator, or dangling you 120 stories in the air in a glass case, or taking you on a magic carpet ride is all in a day's work.  Theme parks are using virtual reality to do everything from enhancing rides to creating deep desires for personal, home-based, virtual reality software products and equipment. 

In 1998, Disney opened the first indoor, interactive theme park called DisneyQuest, in Orlando, Florida.  The park includes several virtual reality attractions, including “Aladdin's Magic Carpet Ride,” “Pirates of the Caribbean,” and “Find the Comix.”  On Aladdin’s Magic Carpet Ride, riders sit on a seat similar to a motorcycle and grip the handles, which allow them to move up, down and side to side.  The handles also control the speed of the carpet, therefore, the speed at which the rider seem to be moving.  With the help of head-mounted displays, they visit a virtual world where they clutch the edge of a flying carpet and search for a magic land.

The experience includes background noise from speakers embedded in the head-mounted display.  There is also 3-D imagery designed to make the experience more intensive and realistic.  “The 3-D imagery can be very compelling. You get a sense of depth like you're looking out to a great distance, while objects are flying right at you,” said the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc., (IEEE) member Jesse Schell, a professor of entertainment technology at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.  For several years Schell designed, programmed and managed numerous Disney projects, including Aladdin (Alber and McCluskey 2002).

Initially, you are divided into three groups of four people, before the ride begins.  Once again, virtual reality allows the rider to see fellow teammates, all of whom appear as Abu the Monkey, each in different colored vests.  The goal is to explore the town of Agrabah to release the Genie, who is trapped in the Cave of Wonders.  The entire experience lasts 4½ minutes, and according to Izman Thurman, an avid fan, “is worth any wait to experience” (Hansen 2002).

Many other parks followed Disney’s lead, including Universal Studios’ Islands of Adventure in Orlando, Florida.  The park’s “Amazing Adventures of Spider-Man” ride, which opened in 1999, was the first to combine a rough motion-based ride with 3-D animation.  Currently, the Amazing Adventures of Spider-Man ride is described as the most sophisticated attraction on the planet.  “Spider-Man blurs the line between virtual and reality so well that you will emerge slack-jawed and awe-struck” (Levine 1999). 

It is a ‘dark ride.’  This is an entertainment industry term for a virtual reality attraction that sends guests through an indoor setting (Levine 1999).  Onboard twelve-passenger vehicles, riders begin their journey as spider man through the desolate streets of New York City.  “In addition to traveling from scene to scene, the computer-controlled vehicles are outfitted with motion bases” (Levine 1999).  The motion bases move in harmony with the filmed act that is projected on ten or more screens throughout the ride.  In addition, the films are presented in 3-D.  As soon as you get comfortable in the ride, Spider-Man suddenly appears “out of nowhere and lands with an audible thud on the moving vehicle.  One of his archenemies, the Hobgoblin, hurls a flaming pumpkin and real flames all but singe the hairs off the riders’ skin” (Levine 1999).  According to Arthur Levine, the final act, a 400-foot free fall off the top of a skyscraper, is convincing enough to “completely take your breath away.”  Although the experience is dramatically real with incredible speed and realness, in reality, the motion-base vehicles are secured in the ground.  They never move more than a few miles per hour.  It is purely virtual reality based immersive illusion but it is done so well you can hardly tell the difference.

It is hard to imagine that anybody will ever top The Amazing Adventures of Spider-Man ride, but already technologies are being developed that will incorporate many aspects of multimedia to not only give riders the experience of a lifetime, but to urge people to do and create bigger and greater things.  Hopefully, these new technologies or developments are far in coming.  While experiences like the sophisticated Amazing Adventures of Spider-Man are exhilarating, exciting, and new, it is worthwhile for the economy and people on a whole, to get and take time to appreciate this current experience before being bombarded with new, more exhilarating and exciting bigger and better technologies.  Until then, Universal Studio’s Islands of Adventure can set the new standard for entertainment and how theme parks are built, at least, for a while.

The movies are a prime example of how virtual reality has pushed entertainment along.  Today, most of the graphics and sounds used in television programming are computer generated.   Films like “Titanic” and “Jurassic Park,” with the many digitally created scenes, are good representations of how far the entertainment industry has immersed into simulated reality.  For instance, in the “Titanic” the realistic and majestic detail of the ship, the lavishness of its staterooms, down to the delicate china used onboard, in first class, remarkably brought the Titanic alive.  This same attention to detail and realism is portrayed in the film’s superb sound design.  Every sound that was very likely part of that night, the giant, roaring pistons pumping down in the engine room, the ripping metal hull when the ship hits the iceberg, the creaking of the wood floors as water continue to flood the compartments and hallways is dissonantly realistic and believable.  The experience of the grandeur of the ship and sounds are all digitally enhanced to bring about feelings of reality.  You too feel as if you drown in the water when the ship breaks apart. 

As filmmakers try to capture the virtual reality experience on film, increasingly, a large number of movies are being created using computer-generated surroundings and experiences.  Although, going to the movies produces a reaction rather than an interactaction with this form of simulation experience, it is surely a positive experience.  These movies are captivating and at the same time educational.  Moviegoers enjoy these films and engage themselves by picking out mistakes filmmakers could not conceal even with these advances in technology.  On the other hand, filmmakers try to go beyond their talent to further decrease the margin of error.

The Internet also offers some of the most innovative computer-generated ideas.  One such example is virtual reality object movie.  A virtual reality object movie is an image of an object, scenery, or structure that is projected on a background that has multiple viewpoints linked together.  In this experience, a viewer can take a virtual reality walk-through-tour of such a location.  The viewer clicks on an object and is able to twist and turn the object around to an angle of 360° by simply moving the computer mouse over the object.  Certain keyboard keys like CTRL or ALT can also be used to zoom the object in and out.  A virtual reality object movie is entertaining as it is informative about the object being displayed.  It allows for a more detailed inspection of products before you buy.  Many commercial businesses are taking advantage of this opportunity, especially in advertising, as they seek to expand their market to include the vast Internet population. 

Another prime example of how the world is changing is seen in the development of virtual reality gaming software, which simulates real flight and war games, to name a few.  This type of technology is beneficial in many ways.  For instance, soldiers can completely immerse themselves in the experience of a real war situation to improve their skills and battle techniques.  They are now able to explore areas that would otherwise be inaccessible, and carry out tasks that would otherwise seem impossible without putting themselves in harms way.

One of the earliest uses of simulators in a military environment was the flight trainer, called Link Trainer, built in the late 1920’s and 1930’s.  These trainers looked like sawed-off coffins mounted on a pedestal, and were used to teach instrument flying.  The darkness inside the trainer cockpit, the realistic readings on the instrument panel, and the motion of the trainer on the pedestal combined to produce a sensation similar to actually flying at night.  The Link trainers were effective in teaching thousands of pilots the night flying skills they needed before and during World War II (U.S. Congress, 1994).

To move beyond the field of instrument flying, engineers and software developers launch the idea to use multiple monitors to simulate the entire field of view from the airplane cockpit.  Today, virtual images are projected onto the inside surface of a domed room from which airplane cockpit images are displayed.  The virtual images are transferred to real flight simulation software, which is used by the military and other forms of flight schools to train pilots in tactical maneuvers and instrument rating.

Flight simulator games like Microsoft Flight Simulator 2000 offer a virtual experience of flying with 3-D landscapes, the ability to switch between a large number of aircrafts and land at more than 20,000 airports worldwide.  As in the 1920’s and 1930’s, virtual flight or war games protect soldiers and pilots from potential fatal accidents that are a risk during real physical war games, wars, or flights.  Another advantage is its effective use in cutting costs for organizations like the military.  Civilians can also use simulation software to determine if a career choice in these areas is for them before they take part in it.

The virtual war game, U.S.S. Harry S. Truman, is a striking reminder of the 1991 Persian Gulf War with Iraq.  “Although it is only a war game, the fiction is strikingly real,” says Bob Woodruff, an ABCnews.com correspondent and author of, A Serious Scenario.  The game depicts an oil-rich country that has invaded its neighbor, and is defying United Nations resolutions.  All four branches of the U. S. military are involved, along with 60 planes, and a twelve-ship battle group led by the U.S.S. Harry S. Truman aircraft carrier (Woodruff 2002).  The whole group ‘comes to the aid of an oil-rich country called Kartuna.’  U.S. ships launch helicopters to search for enemy submarines; fighter jets patrol no-fly zones and bomb terrorist training camps (Woodruff 2002).    Tank simulators of this kind allow soldiers to fight entire war games in cyberspace.  Participants of a single war game are able to choose completely different global locations in real time.  The usefulness of virtual reality simulation gaming software is obvious.  It is entertaining, as well as reliable in its ability to improve soldiers’, military pilots’, as well as civilian pilots’ skills without putting them in harms way.  

Since its inception, virtual reality promised to revolutionize the way we think and perform even the simplest tasks.  In reality, it has lived up to its promises.  However, like everything that is revolutionary and potentially good, it can also be manipulated to do harm.  One such incident is seen in one of the most despicable act in the history of the United States.  Along with actual flight lessons, flight simulators were used as training weapons by terrorists to destroy two of the country’s most prominent buildings, The World Trade Center, fondly called the twin towers, in New York, and The Pentagon, in Washington, DC.

The terrorists who attacked the United States on September 11 trained at flight schools in Florida, Arizona and Minnesota, learning some of the skills they needed to carry out the attacks.  According to reporters, instructors who taught some of the attackers revealed that the men were only interested in ‘turns and approaches,’ not landings.  Coincidentally, this is significant, since they were successful in their attempts to fly commercial jets into the buildings even though they received training on smaller aircrafts.  On trial in a German court, a close associate of the terrorists, Mounir al-Motassadek, confirms, “after Atta and al-Shehi had received their licenses for propeller planes, they had gone to a simulation center to practice flying jet aircraft” (BBC News, 2002).  Although, they took flight lessons, it is startling and unbelievable to think flight simulation played a vital role in the men’s training to commit this appalling act that destroyed thousands of lives.

 One of the goals of a virtual reality game is to diminish one’s perception of the outside world as much as possible.  This is achieved in the special design and nature of the headset and monitor.  Screens are located very close to the user’s eyes, yet the user has to focus on the screen as if it were far away.  Obviously, constant play can eventually lead to vision problems due to excessive strain on the eye.  Moreover, headsets are still designed as clunky toys.  This makes it impossible to adjust the headsets for clear, comfortable vision.  This discomfort and potential blindness associated with virtual reality games definitely takes away from the enjoyment of what is supposed to be a relaxing and carefree experience. 

In the same way, some users of virtual reality games may experience problems of motion sickness, dizziness, and disorientation.  This is due to the fact that most of the excitement and realness of the games involve motion, whether it is flying an airplane, racing down a passageway, or going through a maze.  For many, the nausea and disorientation associated with virtual reality games may be severe enough to prevent them from playing these games.

A fourth disadvantage of virtual reality is seen in the field of education and training.  Users of virtual reality environments have to accept a world that is pre-created.  They cannot modify or interact with it beyond the scope of its design.  Throughout the years, the field of education and training has pushed for students to become more involved creatively in the learning process.  The more a person is engaged in constructing how something works, in understanding the material and organizing it for themselves, the more powerful the learning is (Bellman and Laudauer, 2000).  In many ways, playing a virtual reality game is similar to watching television, while designing the software is similar to attending a class, or reading a textbook.  In a virtual world, a participant simply reacts to the environment that is already created for them.  There is nothing to do in an immersive virtual world than play with the technology; there is no room for interaction.  In this way, it is more entertaining than it is educational.  The virtual reality game user is absorbed in a world that is designed and prearranged to work depending on motion senses it receives or how you press a button.  Even though the average virtual user may master these games, they have no idea about its inner workings or why it reacts the way it does.

Despite the realness of a virtual reality experience, in the back of the brain, the user knows it is not real.  Although soldiers and military pilots show dramatic improvements in real events after practicing with virtual games, these results lack reliability.  While using immersive simulation softwares, users know they will not die.  Therefore, soldiers and pilots are inclined to be more aggressive and reckless in their endeavors to beat the enemies than if they were outside the virtual world.

In conclusion, virtual reality can be used for both educational and entertainment purposes.  Intensive visual backgrounds, clear-cut audio, and physical motion sensation are playing a big part in diminishing the line between reality and the virtual world.  On one hand, it can be used positively to depart knowledge and create great innovative technologies to positively transform the world.  On the other hand, it can be used negatively, which can have a devastating impact on society.  Inevitably, as computers gain more power more researchers will focus on making the interactions between humans and machines more efficient.  However, researchers and developers in the field of virtual reality need to be careful not to create a society that lacks creativity and the ability to think for themselves.  If virtual reality software is not designed with the capability for users to take a more interactive role, soon, it will lose interests.  Without interactive capability and more comfortable virtual equipments, the simulated reality has too many disadvantages to outlive itself as a trend.

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Woodruff, Bob.  “A Serious Scenario: U.S. War Game’s Target Looks a Lot like Iraq.”  ABC News.Com.  1 November 2002.  Online Available: http://abcnews.go.com/sections/GMA/GoodMorningAmerica/GMA021101Harry_truman_woodruff.html