Wreck-it Ralph Ride to replace Stitch's Great Escape?

[GadgetGuru]

I feel like most people hate VR because it's the ultimate screen - a way to create an attraction of all screens with no physical props.

But, I find something else more worrying. VR is very much in its infancy. I've never heard of a theme park taking such cutting-edge tech into production before. In just a couple years, all of the VR stuff in the parks will look ridiculously, laughably outdated. But, it'll never be fixed. Because you not only need new hardware, you have to rebuild the software using higher-resolution graphics or a brand new framework/engine. That sounds expensive.

 

[UTG2347]

I love this idea :dance:

 

[bob albert]

I feel like most people hate VR because it's the ultimate screen - a way to create an attraction of all screens with no physical props.

But, I find something else more worrying. VR is very much in its infancy. I've never heard of a theme park taking such cutting-edge tech into production before. In just a couple years, all of the VR stuff in the parks will look ridiculously, laughably outdated. But, it'll never be fixed. Because you not only need new hardware, you have to rebuild the software using higher-resolution graphics or a brand new framework/engine. That sounds expensive.

Vr is not in its infancy on the whole. It has matured enough to be widely available product to consumers.

Once you get the tracking accuracy and coverage area sufficient for vr you are pretty much set for an experience as long as it is reliable. The tracking that htc vive uses is dead accurate and cheap indicating that the technology is there. You can also match physical props in a space with good tracking since the system would know your absolute position in a space, Like reaching out to touch a wall you see in vr and having a wall right where it is supposed to be. The current limitation is screen resolution/field of view in the headset. Computer GPU's will also have to be upgraded as the headsets advance.

They can make a great looking experience and upgrade the hardware to run higher resolutions without having to rebuild the ride infrastructure or completely redo the software. A vive, which you can buy today, costs $800 with controllers. You need a $1500 pc to run it. How much more would it be for a custom version? How much would it be two upgrade just these two things compared to sets or proctors. A 4k cinema projector can easily cost over $100,000.

A lot for the VR people have seen in parks with low quality uses the gear vr. A pc based experience would have much greater upgreadability and longevity.

 

[GadgetGuru]

The hardware definitely isn't the expensive part. The software upgrades are. At some point, you'll need to upgrade the resolution of the graphics. That's bordering on a page 1 rewrite. If you get new hardware, you may need to use a different game engine or use different APIs.

The fact is, I still find it really weird that VR's killer app is potentially in a theme park setting. Oculus has barely been out a year. Vive is only a couple months old. Google hasn't released their Daydream VR ecosystem and Microsoft's HoloLens is a couple years out. Theme parks are never on the cutting edge in this way. They also try to give experiences that you can't get at home.

 

[Nick]

The fact is, I still find it really weird that VR's killer app is potentially in a theme park setting. Oculus has barely been out a year. Vive is only a couple months old. Google hasn't released their Daydream VR ecosystem and Microsoft's HoloLens is a couple years out. Theme parks are never on the cutting edge in this way. They also try to give experiences that you can't get at home.

Everything you said in this paragraph actually made me think that this is a fit for TL just because of the technology.

I can actually visualize how it can work within the land.

 

[Living_Bread]

yasss burn SGE to the ground!

 

[MrRoamer]

The hardware definitely isn't the expensive part. The software upgrades are. At some point, you'll need to upgrade the resolution of the graphics. That's bordering on a page 1 rewrite. If you get new hardware, you may need to use a different game engine or use different APIs.

Not necessarily, if you were to build the models and everything in the fairly standard way for gaming (build super hi-res version, create displacement map off of hi-res model, convert to low-res model with hi-res displacement map on it) you could easily scale between as hardware becomes faster. There would be no need to fully replace the engine unless there were many other new features that demanded it. Depending on what engine you are building in, it could have upgrade paths that upgrade the engine but use the same assets and custom code you built on top of it.

 

[quinnmac000]

Biggest problem will be unload time. Its the problem Six Flags has had with people being super disoriented after riding their VR rides and falling as they get off to the point where they make you sit 2 minutes before being allowed to stand in order to prevent lawsuits. Another issue I forsee more so for Disney is with it being simulator rather than an actual full fledge ride and its solely being VR, the moment someone's video and the motion doesn't sync up, they will get so sick and most likely vomit. Add in now cleaning time for that.

 

[Nick]

For what it's worth, Martin says VR is not going to be used from what he's heard. Jim Hill is the one who brought up VR.

 

[JungleSkip]

Imagine this in the Animation Courtyard in DHS. Or literally anywhere else it could fit. It'd be great!

instead we continue the dilution of Tomorrowland.

Oh well, at least it probably won't be worse than Stitch

 

[awhen]

Disney already figured out a lot of this VR stuff out years ago with the Aladdin magic carpet thing. What ended up in DisneyQuest wasn't half as cool as the actual tech demo they used to give at Epcot. I actually got selected to do it once. Of course there was an entire room filled with racks of Silicon Graphics computers (Onyx I think) powering it.

 

[ThemeParkGuru]

yasss burn SGE to the ground!

You speak the truth my good sir :hail:

 

[Parkscope Joe]

Everything you said in this paragraph actually made me think that this is a fit for TL just because of the technology.

I can actually visualize how it can work within the land.

They had something like this as the Imagineering Labs in Epcot in the 90s.

 

[GadgetGuru]

Just throwing this out there: Wreck it Ralph 2 is all about the Internet. This could be a perfect fit for TL

 

[bob albert]

Disney already figured out a lot of this VR stuff out years ago with the Aladdin magic carpet thing. What ended up in DisneyQuest wasn't half as cool as the actual tech demo they used to give at Epcot. I actually got selected to do it once. Of course there was an entire room filled with racks of Silicon Graphics computers (Onyx I think) powering it.

That was before the tech was ready. Small, high resolution screens did not exist nor did the GPUs to process them. I hope people try vr now and not write it off from past experiences that have no comparison to the experience today.

Biggest problem will be unload time. Its the problem Six Flags has had with people being super disoriented after riding their VR rides and falling as they get off to the point where they make you sit 2 minutes before being allowed to stand in order to prevent lawsuits. Another issue I forsee more so for Disney is with it being simulator rather than an actual full fledge ride and its solely being VR, the moment someone's video and the motion doesn't sync up, they will get so sick and most likely vomit. Add in now cleaning time for that.

Gear vr on coasters is not tracking you perfectly like something similar to vive. People in bad vr get sick because their body is confused. In good vr you would be nearly as likely to get sick in real life. VR would be more suited to something where large groups of people could do something at one like stitch is.

 

[Ryan]

Oh well, at least it probably won't be worse than Stitch

See, even Sean is onboard... kinda.

 

[ThemeParkGuru]

I didn't mind stitch in tomorrow land :bolt: but stitch's great escape should have never been made they should have destroyed and do something else with stitch if they wanted stitch so badly

 

[Mr. EPCOT]

Imagine this in the Animation Courtyard in DHS. Or literally anywhere else it could fit. It'd be great!

instead we continue the dilution of Tomorrowland.

Oh well, at least it probably won't be worse than Stitch

Disney is just about diluting everything at this point.

 

[Andy]

Just bring back Alien Encounter!

 

[Galaxy Defender]

Just bring back Alien Encounter!

Otherwise known as the Tiki Room treatment.