Virtual Escape Me
Introduction
Virtual Escape Me is the next big thing ready to revolutionize the applications of the VR technology. Just by sitting in your homes, you can explore landmarks across the world.
Unbelievable, isn’t it? Read along to learn more about Virtual Escape Me— a segment offered exclusively by Virtualia.
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What is Virtual Escape Me?
A native VR headset application
Much has been said about our virtual VR headset feature that can benefit people who are not able to travel worldwide or discover every corner of the planet.
This cohort is addressed with our VR headset native application for Oculus Quest users. But don’t worry, we will make it also available to other VR devices.
Virtual Escape Me will present a list of curated 5+ hotels, resorts, private luxury accommodations that have been scanned. Moreover, we also show 360° videos with audio comment or not from one of our travel influencers partners.
VR users can select 15 min, 30 min, 1h, 2h tour videos in 360°. They can also pick auto-guided tours with vocal comments or none (just the sound of nature like waves on the beach, or the birds singing, or any ambient music). What’s more?
They can also decide to move with controllers from one point to another at their own pace.
Investing in the new technology of immersive and spatial sound
Sound recordings are generally “channel-based” such as mono or stereo with two distinct channels and two speakers with the sound going from one side to another. On the other hand, surround sound systems are also a variation with a system of speakers and channels where you have a sound all around you and deep bass. This is still a sound moving over the same horizontal direction between a system of speakers, around the same “plane”. However, it lacks the third dimension of height like a sound from the top of your head or from the ground.
But, no need to worry.
With an immersive sound, we have a 360° spatial sound, where the sound comes from all around you (center, left, right, above and behind) hence, integrates the 3D aspect. To make this happen, we play with the location of the sound at any time. Objects are attached to their sound trail, so by moving 360° the sound, we feel that the objects are moving around us.
Moreover, spatial Audio adds another layer that makes you feel like the sound you are perceiving depends in which direction your head is facing. In simple terms, this is perfectly matching Virtual Escape Me virtual tours.
As a VR application specialized in 3D travel experience, we must thus produce immersive soundtracks, but this takes more time and therefore costs more money as we are working with the next generation three-dimensional audio standard.
We are also looking to partner with sound artists as a way of building a library of truly immersive experiences and spatial audio streams for creative freelancers to enhance their 360° video tours.
Do I need specific equipment to experience spatial and immersive lossless audio?
Normally the headphone you need should be compatible with spatial audio and/or Dolby Atmos otherwise you will likely get regular stereo or surround sound playback as a default.
Be ready
Once you have picked your tour, you definitively need to set up your physical environment to enjoy fully the immersive, escaping experience!
We recommend the following options for exterior:
- Lay down on a chair near a pool during the spring or summer and avoid sun exposure to your head.
- Add a fan, if necessary, especially to refresh your electronic devices.
- Get a cocktail with fresh juices
- Play a sound you like on your smartphone and protect it against the sun. Only do this if you want to turn off vocal comments or select ambient music in the virtual tour or add yours instead. In future, we may partner later with third-party providers to add direct sounds from the VR application, but you may still not find your favorite song, or you may have to pay for getting access anyway.
- Pick a 30 min tour. This can be range from a single place to multiple places. However, we recommend multiple place tours for a 1 or 2h display.
- Just relax, seep your cocktail and relax while you are traveling from Peru to London to Bali.
For the interior, we recommend the following environment:
- Get a bath if you have one.
- Get a cocktail with fresh juices
- Play a sound you like on your smartphone and place it far from reach to avoid throwing it on the water while you wear your VR headset
- Pick a 15min or 30 min tour and just relax while you take a warm bath. Isn’t that awesome?
How to join as a content provider?
We are looking for 360° high-quality video masters, content providers, and travel influencers around the world.
Virtual Escape Me is more an open community that is user-based rather than centralized by a corporate entity.
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While it is backed, developed, and funded by Virtualia Interactive Technologies, the contents are voted and generated by the community itself.
In fact, anyone can upload their virtual 360° video tours. Generally, we recommend GoPro cameras as they offer fantastic image quality and stability for 15 min or longer sessions.
We recommend cutting each session in part so we can rebuild tours based on samples rather to be stuck to one giant tour that could be boring for users at the end to watch.
Moreover, anyone can join but videos are submitted for review by the community. Hence, if you’re a professional or passionate about this field, this is the right place for you.
How does it work?
1. Applicants submit freely their tour on our website.
2. You need to fill a form with technical questions on the settings such as frame rate, quality, audio codec, raw or compressed format, etc… Your form is reviewed, and you qualify for the next round on its basis If you don’t pass for the next round, it can be due to our technical limitations to host such content, or the purpose is already being filled. It’s purely objective and not always because of a bad record. Fortunately, you may resubmit the content later if you see that there is clearly a niche not exploited in the catalog.
3. At least 5 members of the Virtual Escape Me community need to vote to receive a final mark. Ideally, 10 are required as we use a truncated means to remove extreme scores. Usually, Virtualians’ votes are based on personal beliefs and subjective judgment. Hence, this can lead to bias, but we are mere humans. You cannot be happy with the judge panel decision as with any sports judge in the real world. Therefore, you need to get an average score above 7.5/10 to ensure content quality.
4. Once your recording has passed the minimum mark, based on the thematic, it will be added to our catalog and available worldwide.
5. If you are registered in our Virtualian network, you will be able to earn points and be financially rewarded in coins and dividends as you are participating in the success of the platform.
6. A NFT is created by our 3D services for a small fee and as an author, you can sell your rights in our Virtualia NFT marketplace as well.
7. You can also add your virtual tour to our relaxing virtual world.
Can I sell/rent you my content rights?
If you have already a book of interesting videos that could fit our spirit, You’re most welcome and we will propose you buy the intellectual rights or pay you a royalty based on views as a rental service. You will still benefit from our gamification system and earn Virtualia coins if you have joined the Virtualia network.
However, this deal is generally offered to recognized artists, travel influencers, and video makers with outstanding videos.
You can also sell your content with digital copies to Virtualians in our NFT marketplace. For that, you will have to purchase our 3D services so that we mint a NFT in our blockchain and add your video tour to the marketplace.
You can either fully sell the rights or just a digital copy to be placed in our virtual worlds or kept in the purchaser’s wallet for investment.
Moreover, you can also sell a digital copy classically on our website to any client and benefit from an advantageous % share compared to other hosting video marketplaces.
How we work with professional travel influencers
Our key investment is betting on quality content and building hype and marketing brand around a travel influencer. If you’re an established travel influencer, you’re most welcome to join us.
Please apply at https://virtualia.ai/travel_influencer_application
There are several ways we can work with you, depending on your status.
- Premium travel influencers are independent that get offered reimbursement of their travel expenses when they work with us to add new content. We will communicate heavily with our PR strategist to get super deals with 5* hotels and resorts. In exchange, we will receive a cut of their social network revenues/sponsors and own the property right attached to the video creation.
We also provide them with the best camera and an insurance policy. In case of a change of camera, we will resell it on the secondary market and provide them with an improved camera. This is a parfait deal for those having cross-selling opportunities like a blog or a social network account with many sponsors. It is a win-win strategy for both. We grow. You grow.
- Independent travel influencers receive only our cameras, and we don’t take any cut on their social network revenues/sponsors neither we keep property rights on the recorded videos. In fact, we are sponsoring them so that they can talk about our VR application and publish their content on their favorite media and in our Virtual Escape catalog.
- Travel influencer employees are employees from Virtualia Interactive Technologies that owns the Virtual Escape brand. They get full expenses paid out and an additional fixed wage. In exchange, we build their social network reputation and receive a huge cut of their sponsoring deals. We own all property rights during employment. They can leave the company any time after they reach a certain status and become independent, working with us preferably. However, this option is not at the moment available but could be possible depending on our fund-raising success.
Conclusion
Virtual Escape Me by Virtualia indeed offers a great opportunity for travel enthusiasts and bloggers to earn. By just talking about your stories and displaying them, we make sure you get decent remuneration.
[1] Rebranded Neta Quest 2 at the time of this writing. Visit store at https://www.oculus.com/quest-2/
[2] Images for illustration. Credits to https://unsplash.com/photos/DXuxHw3S5ak, https://unsplash.com/photos/Ql9PCaOhyyE, https://unsplash.com/photos/lfCoM9Rjtk4
[3] Illustrative images credited to https://unsplash.com/photos/wKS46KBpolg, https://unsplash.com/photos/wJK9eTiEZHY, https://unsplash.com/photos/6hXD9Nh6obw, https://unsplash.com/photos/RUsczRV6ifY, https://unsplash.com/photos/EP6_VZhzXM8
To learn more about what we do
1- Stay tuned to our Medium article campaign by subscribing @The Virtualia Team
2- Read our first introductory article, our second article on the spirit of the Virtualia ecosystem, and the third on our vision of the future facing technological challenges with Exascale supercomputers, AI-human like interactivity, nanotechnology and 3D printing, and blockchain P2P payment. The fourth article is about the future of the ecosystem by 2030.
3- Visit our company website at https://virtualia.ai to know more about what we are doing at Virtualia Interactive Technologies and understand better how 3DVRAR applications can have major impact on both the real and virtual economy.
4- Visit our journey in the Metaverse, hybrid and multiverse worlds at https://virtualiaworlds.com
5- Visit our virtual shopping platform at https://virtualia.shop and follow our journey constructing the future of e-commerce!
6- Visit our 3D design architecture company working on the next big thing in realtech with AI and automated 3D immersive experience at https://virtualytics.design.
7- Follow us on LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/company/virtualia-interactive-technologies/
