Speaking of VR entertainment, most people think of games and offline experience, but with the penetration of VR/AR in the entertainment industry, many concerts have applied this technology. The combination of VR/AR and various traditional performances brings an unparalleled visual experience to the audience. VR/AR can even allow singers who have died to "sing on stage" again, which is undoubtedly the most unique feature of this technology. Therefore, both virtual idols and real stars are trying this special form of performance.
Watching a VR/AR concert
Recently there have been many similar VR/AR concerts, among which there are many global superstars.
- Hollywood rapper Post Malone launches live VR performance
On October 18, Hollywood rapper Post Malone announced to join the Oculus Venues platform and held a VR live concert on the platform. Post Malone sang the tracks on the latest album "Hollywood Bleeding". The audience can watch the concert from different angles such as the stage and the crowd at five separate "jumping points" in the 360° video. Oculus Quest, Oculus Go and Gear VR users can watch it for free.
This concert is Post Malone's second performance on the VR platform. The first VR performance was at the 2018 autumn concert held by MelodyVR.
- Billie Eilish launched a series of VR live performances
. The popular superstar has joined the Oculus Venues platform and launched a series of VR concerts during his tour in Madrid, Spain on September 3. Fans who cannot be there experience live entertainment through Oculus Go, Gear VR or Quest.
Billie Eilish said: “It’s really great to be able to bring the live experience to people who have not yet participated in the show through VR. I hope everyone has fun.”
Oculus Venues once launched a singer and singer on May 30, 2018. The performance of composer Vance Joy, as well as many sports events, comedy performances, movies, etc. During the experience, users can choose between "personal viewing" or "social sharing" two modes, the latter supports sharing experience functions.
In addition to Eilish (Oculus Venues's biggest artist so far), Oculus Venues has also held VR performances such as Tenacious D, Lupe Fiasco, Chromeo, Everclear, The Head And The Heart, and Kamasi Washington. In June of this year, Avicii's final studio album "Tim" also premiered on the platform with a VR experience, and each song was equipped with a 360-degree visual content experience.
- Hatsune Miku VR concert
introduced before, Hatsune Miku has held several VR concerts. (For details, please click the blue words: BML offline VR show, VRLIVE "Vサマ!", you can watch Hatsune's concert at home!)
This is a VRLIVE "Vサマ!" concert held by VR real-time platform VARK , Viewers can use Oculus Go or Oculus Quest to watch.
At the 7th BML VR concert, station B brought together virtual idols from different countries and different developers for the first time and held a summer carnival. At the performance site, Hatsune and the currently popular Chinese virtual singer Luo Tianyi performed on the same stage for the first time.
From November 2nd to November 3rd, the "Hatsune Miku 2019 China Tour in the Future with You" was officially opened at the Shanghai 1862 Fashion Art Center, bringing high-standard holographic performances to domestic "Hatsune fans".
- Madonna debuts with AR special effects at the 2019 Billboard Music Awards Ceremony
is pulling this yearAt the 2019 Billboard Music Awards Ceremony held in Vegas, pop music queen Madonna collaborated with rising star Maluma to perform her comeback single "Medellin". Among them, Madonna appeared in various digital versions and decorated the stage with a series of cool AR elements. In the
performance, Madonna and the series of AR characters perform on the same stage, including agents, Cha Cha dance teacher, brides, and musicians. All of this is achieved by the Unreal engine and volumetric 3D capture, and it can appear and disappear at the right time, making the overall performance more artistic. The live performance of
used three AR-enabled cameras, including standard front cameras, boom cameras, and Steadicam. Madonna herself performed volumetric 3D capture in advance in her London studio. In addition, a Canadian company has also produced digital effects for various AR weather, and used a tool called Brainstorm to ensure that all live videos fed to Unreal can be accurately matched to the stage performance. The
VR concert is being accepted by the market. While
is being accepted by the performers at the VR concert, some capital and audiences also expressed their optimism about it.
- raised a total of 70 million US dollars, and Sensorium launched the XR concert platform
. Recently, an XR company called Sensorium is planning to cooperate with the social VR platform Redpill to jointly build the XR concert platform, which will be officially launched in 2020. It is reported that Sensorium has received nearly US$70 million in financing so far, with investments in games and entertainment in the United States, Europe and Japan.
Redpill will use UE4-based exclusive social music platform technology to provide XR concert platform with real-time interactive live broadcast, real-time music separation, and modular, cross-platform integration; Sensorium will provide its own experience in concert simulation and digital entertainment , Its former partners include New York Barclays Center, Webster Hall, Ushuaia Ibiza, Hi Ibiza and other places.
For Sensorium, social VR can solve the isolation characteristics of VR and create an attractive shared virtual space. When this space is still surrounded by music, game activities and programs, the audience can create and communicate in real time while experiencing visual and sound effects. And this is also a big step forward for VR concerts to get closer to reality.
- MelodyVR's latest VR concert live broadcast received more than 100,000 views
On September 7, the VR music platform MelodyVR announced a news that its "Good Morning America" summer concert series has been viewed more than 100,000 times. The audience came from 50 states in the U.S. and 14 countries outside the U.S., and this is just the data users watched in the app. It is reported that the summer concert series invited Marshmello and Kane Brown to perform the single "One Thing Right" live in VR.
Marshmello and Kane Brown
Of course, such high broadcast volume also benefited from the cooperation with ABC TV. Prior to this, MelodyVR's other VR concert viewing data were relatively mediocre, and the traffic of "Good Morning America" played a promotional role for MelodyVR. However, the broadcast data of "Good Morning America" has also been improved. Originally, the daily broadcast of the program exceeded 4 million, but after the promotion of MelodyVR on 238 relevant channels, its promotional content received tens of millions of views.
In order to make the hardware no longer limited to Gear VR and Oculus headsets, and to pass VR concerts to the audience more widely, many teams like MelodyVR have launched iOS and Android mobile apps. The editor also hopes that the traffic generated by these successful VR live broadcasts and VR concerts can be converted into downloads of apps.
seems futuristic, but full of pain points?
It can be seen from the above that the audience can enjoy the real feeling of being in the concert scene only through the VR headset, adding cool special effects to the star concert stage. Such technical support not only allowed the concert organizers to see new business opportunities like a kaleidoscope, but also allowed many domestic and foreign celebrities to put the VR label on live online concerts.
However, VR concerts that seem to go smoothly are actually blocked by the "technical threshold" just like the VR live broadcast. Currently, VR concerts can do more to add some special effects on the stage or conduct live broadcasts. Although the market is gradually accepting the entry of this industry, and VR concerts have also been favored by some fans and capital, the technology is far from mature but it is the consensus of the industry .
Tan Weiwei VR concert
For example, a VR concert needs to shoot all scenes within a 360-degree range, so the bandwidth required is ten times that of ordinary live broadcast. Before 5G was popularized, the existence of bandwidth issues meant that VR image quality was compressed, which ultimately resulted in a reduction in experience. If you add simple and empty content, lack of effective information points to attract audiences, expensive costs, and incomparable live sound effects, the experience of the VR concert will drop again and again.
Therefore, when we see the cool experience brought by VR concerts in the conceptual sense, we still have to realize that the future sense of VR concerts and the current potential are not fake, but technical pain points still exist.
"Resurrected" Teresa Teng
However, some people use "holographic projection" technology to restore the late singer. This method solves the cost problem required by most audiences, but there is still the drawback of traditional concerts-audiences cannot watch at home. At the same time, there may be a "small movie phenomenon" in the current VR concerts: when the content is too "brilliant", the image quality and cost will become "clouds".
This article is an original manuscript of VRPinea, please contact: [email protected]
