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posted by CoolHand on Monday June 19 2017, @04:46PM   Printer-friendly
from the don't-look-back dept.

YouTube's revealed the secret to making an engaging virtual reality video: put the best parts right in front of the audience so they don't have to move their heads.

Google's video vault offers that advice on the basis of heat maps it's created based on analysis of where VR viewers point their heads while wearing VR goggles. There's just such a heat map at the top of this story (or here for m.reg readers) and a bigger one here.

The many heat maps YouTube has made lead it to suggest that VR video creators "Focus on what's in front of you: The defining feature of a 360-degree video is that it allows you to freely look around in any direction, but surprisingly, people spent 75% of their time within the front 90 degrees of a video. So don't forget to spend significant time on what's in front of the viewer."

YouTube also advises that "for many of the most popular VR videos, people viewed more of the full 360-degree space with almost 20% of views actually being behind them." Which sounds to El Reg like VR viewers are either staring straight ahead, or looking over their shoulders with very little time being devoted to sideways glances.

A video channel wants people to treat VR like video. Hmmm. Perhaps the answer to their question is in the question: people should be considered "participants" instead of an "audience."


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  • (Score: 2) by rigrig on Monday June 19 2017, @05:17PM (4 children)

    by rigrig (5129) Subscriber Badge <soylentnews@tubul.net> on Monday June 19 2017, @05:17PM (#528029) Homepage

    The advantage of VR is the immersion you get because you can look anywhere and still see the virtual world.
    Having the action move around you is at best annoying because you need to keep turning around to watch what is happening, and at worst really detrimental to the experience because you are constantly reminded that things are only zipping all around you because the content creator felt the need to use the possibilities of VR to the fullest.

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  • (Score: 2) by bob_super on Monday June 19 2017, @07:15PM (1 child)

    by bob_super (1357) on Monday June 19 2017, @07:15PM (#528093)

    I'm split between the need to point out people dwindling attention spans, with the need to always look around rather than focus on something, and the need to point out that people's lives and ficus now seem to fit on 5 degrees of their visual space, or whatever less than 6 inches resolves to at arms' length (crotch location optional).

    • (Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 20 2017, @01:38AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 20 2017, @01:38AM (#528280)

      arms' length (crotch location optional).

      I'd call that low-hanging fruit!

  • (Score: 2) by VLM on Monday June 19 2017, @08:28PM (1 child)

    by VLM (445) on Monday June 19 2017, @08:28PM (#528127)

    The advantage of VR is the immersion you get because you can look anywhere and still see the virtual world.

    On the other hand something like "very full field of vision with few distractions" would work well for games like minecraft.

    As a gaming related topic I'd say based on the flight lessons I took in meatspace that 75% of the time looking forward is not a problem for a flight simulator.

    "Gaming" as defined in the popular press as FPS sequels probably works 75% looking forward. I can't imagine turning physically in circles IRL to play a game so glancing left and right is for situational awareness not bodily rotation. I don't rotate my neck to turn my body anyway, seems unnatural.

    Probably a separate problem WRT people not being used to being passive observers who can turn around. So you're playing the FPS or whatever and the something is sneaking up on you while you don't turn around, or something.