“Ever been to a virtual reality (VR) ride? It gives you such a high that you literally get the feeling of an adrenaline rush,” exclaimed Vidushi, a healthcare professional, while talking about her recent visit to Universal Studios in Singapore. Universal Studios is house to an amazing, VR-based roller coaster ride that is a favourite among the visitors and has created a benchmark in the entertainment world.
The main highlight of the ride is the rider participation using VR technology. Each rider during the roller coaster trip feels one among the Transformers squad with a real-time feel of playing along like a videogame character.
Inside the VRIn India, we have Smaaash, an exclusive VR entertainment hub that offers exciting avenues to experience sports simulation technologies and VR gamification experiences for children and adults alike. Sachin Tendulkar, brand ambassador for Smaaash, has been quoted as saying that “The advanced simulators at Smaaash are fascinating and very close to the real-life experience.”
Currently, Smaaash has a presence in Mumbai, Delhi, Gurgaon, Noida, Ludhiana, Bangalore and Hyderabad along with the foreign offshore location of Mall of America in Florida.
“The Vertigo plank game gives you such a thrill. The whole out-of-the body experience of imagining yourself jump off a high cliff is quite stunning. It is my and my 9-year-old nephew’s favourite entertainment place. My Nephew just swears by their cricket zone. He has a record of spending an entire day there just playing the game and eating some good food, and claims that day as his best outing ever!”
In its flagship location at Lower Parel area in Mumbai, Smaaash is spread over whopping 12,000 sq.m. It offers exhilarating options ranging from finger coaster to cockpit 360, cricket, bowling, great food and much more.
VR entertainment at Smaaash (Courtesy: https://i1.wp.com)Talking about movies, while the world swears by technology used in Hollywood movies like Iron Man and Harry Potter, our very own Bollywood embraced some high-tech VR in Baahubali: The Conclusion. It is the world’s first trillion-pixel film and was screened at the prestigious Tribeca film festival in New York. The VR-dubbed sword of Baahubali made waves not just in India but the US as well.
A.R. Rahman was enticed to create his first story Le Musk using VR. “The (VR) technology is evolving and everybody is doing experimental stuff with it. I found the technology exciting and I had a story. I felt that my story would come out beautifully in this technology,” Rahman said in an interview with Economic Times.
Rahman is a big technology geek who is known to use the most advanced technologies to create his music. In Las Vegas’s Consumer Electronics Show, he mesmerised the audience by creating music using Intel’s curie technology.
In Bollywood, Shah Rukh Khan’s next big movie, Dwarf, will use technologies from movies like Hobbit and Lord of the Rings to make him appear shorter than his real persona.
Are you ready?
From giants like Apple, Samsung and Google to brands like Disney and Audi, all are leveraging the power of VR to engage with their customers better. British Museum has already launched its online VR version, so people can marvel upon the art sitting in their homes. New York Art Gallery is offering an exclusive VR-empowered digital art platform for both the artists and art enthusiasts.
VR technology now has forbidden the closed shackles of science and flown into the open skies to be adaptod by one and all to entertain the common man.
—Nidhi Arora, executive editor, EFY
