I'm surprised people aren't bringing up the "original" Sphere. Vegas had an Omnimax dome 45 years ago! I have fond memories of it as a kid. The entire theater was comprised of speakers on which spherical movies were projected. It's a shame it never got more traction.
The Sphere
41–50 of 73 posts
Re: The Sphere
#42I am curious how they handle motion sickness, aka "vection" which we are so familiar with now because of VR.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4403286/
The basic rule is... don't accelerate the camera, positionally or rotationally, basically ever. You can present constant velocity or rotation, but even then it's risky.
It takes a lot of discipline to not move the camera inappropriately in an environment like The Sphere. Hollywood people don't like to be told that the camera shouldn't pan, track, etc. But really, it shouldn't... unless you want a whole bunch of very uncomfortable, sad, sick people in the audience.
Re: The Sphere
#43I am curious how they handle motion sickness, aka "vection" which we are so familiar with now because of VR. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4403286/ The basic rule is... don't accelerate the camera, positionally or rotationally, basically ever. You can present constant velocity or rotation, but even then it's risky. It takes a lot of discipline to not move the camera inappropriately in an environment li…
The Dead Forever show includes a moment of rotation that got me a bit queasy. It was kept to a minimum, but would have been nice if they avoided the camera motion.
Re: The Sphere
#44I went to see the Dead there and it was fantastic. The sound was excellent and they used the beam-forming to have the vocals sound like they were coming from the stage below, while the instruments seemed non-directional. The haptic chairs were killer fun for Drums and Space. The Dead usually do about 10 minutes of improvisational percussion (Drums) and about 10 minutes of sonic exploration (Space). Watching Mickey Ha…
> One complaint was the lack of bathrooms. burying the lead here!
*lede :)
Re: The Sphere
#45> my guess is that most viewers are 20m from the screen The point being made in context here is valid, about depth perception and immersion, but picking nits, to me this guess doesn’t feel right at all in terms of describing the viewing experience. The main viewing area is center front, opposite from the “good” seats in the middle, and there’s nothing within 20m of it, or even 50m I’d speculate. The good seats are pr…
Author here: I was being overly conservative with the 20m, yes. Assuming the cutaway view in the post is to scale (it's from an architectural firm), it shows the inner screen dome is quite a lot smaller than the exterior structure – perhaps 70-80m tall; so 40-50m might be more accurate.
Oh your statement might be correct, that the average distance to closest point on the screen probably is about 20m, and guaranteed to be less than 1 radius (more like 0.5 radius perhaps.) If the cutaway is accurate, and it probably is, the interior is smaller than it feels like. So I may be underestimating how far away 20m is. I felt further than 20m away standing on the floor, but I probably wasn’t. But, what I’m really saying, is that the direction to the closest point and the average viewing direction are only similar for the best center seats, and they’re as much as orthogonal for the bad seats, the further away from the center you sit. The average view is probably greater than 1 radius, you’re generally looking across the center of the sphere. I am picking a bit, but this is also an important part of why there are no terrible seats, the viewing experience is more uniform because the view across does not correlate with your distance from the nearest point. I think this relates to why it feels immersive and works.
Re: The Sphere
#46Dead & Co. at the Sphere was an unforgettable life experience. So much creativity in what they did with the visuals to honor the history of the band, its San Francisco roots, and the canvas the Sphere gave them. I'm going back in August!
I went opening night and was a bit disappointed with many of the visuals. Apparently not all of the rendering was done so I missed some of the better ones. I'm also going back in August to see the show again, hopefully with improved scenes.
Re: The Sphere
#47U2 was fantastic, and they really took advantage of the format but Postcards from Earth was awful. They didn’t correct a lot of the video so you’d have things like pillars and objects like trees that were curved. And the cheap tickets are at least $100. The other problem was that the story, [Spoiler Alert] has an environmentalist theme but it was being told on the world’s largest LED screen in a giant air conditioned…
Environment is a theme, but not sure about environmentalism. I am pretty sure the message is “don’t sweat it, we can always get another one when we mess this one up”.
Re: The Sphere
#48Sooo much whining about the heat outside. God forbid he should have to walk outside knowing its a desert.
Its the dry heat, so its really not that bad. The only thing that makes it bad is perception when rapidly changing from artificially cooled air conditioning. With this in mind I also found it perplexing he kept mentioning climate change, probably because he couldn't take the heat. If you get used to the climate you have substantially less need of environmental control factors like air conditioning, your appetite decreases to compensate for the heat, and instead your thirst for water (not sugary garbage) greatly increases. Those factors result in physiological changes that alters a person's perception to their natural environment, but whatever.
I have lived in Kuwait for several years and its tied with Death Valley, California as the hottest place where people live at around 129.3F. (The actual hottest place on the surface of this planet is the Danakil Depression of Ethiopia.) Yes, I promise, you can get used to 110F degree weather and be just fine for hours so long as you continually hydrate and protect your eyes and skin from excess sun exposure.
Re: The Sphere
#49I'm surprised people aren't bringing up the "original" Sphere. Vegas had an Omnimax dome 45 years ago! I have fond memories of it as a kid. The entire theater was comprised of speakers on which spherical movies were projected. It's a shame it never got more traction. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IMAX#Dome_and_Omnimax
There's an operating Omnimax dome at the Cincinnati Museum Center at Union Terminal. I don't know how it compares to The Sphere but if you're close by it's worth the trip in my opinion.