Hey Steem!
I’m Mark: I’m obsessed with cameras and computers and using technology to capture and manipulate light.
I'm from the PNW and spent a few years working in Seattle before making the leap to Los Angeles, where I do all kinds of freelance camera jobs for film, tv, commercial, and corporate (http://mgcine.com).
A recent shoot in Moab, UT for Eizo Displays and Phase One Camera Systems
In Seattle I spent 1.5 years on the marketing team for a product development firm called Synapse which had some of the finest electrical, mechanical, and software engineers I've ever met. They pulled of the Nike+ Fuelband and the Disney My Magic Band.
Then I spent the next 1.75 years working for a boutique production company called Orange LV where I cut my teeth on some of the most technical cinematography of my career, including Microsoft's gargantuan in-store video walls which had to be stitched together from several 6K Dragon clips. This is also where my fascination with Unity began as we were using it to pre-vis our photo/video work in the retail environments in VR. I was also doing photogrammetry's of different objects that our 3D modelers were working off of to create photo realistic assets.
Our first 360° camera at Joshua Tree
Upon moving to LA, I built on that fascination with @austindro. We pooled our money to buy 6 GoPro Hero4s and a cage to hold them all, then we began experimenting with shooting and stitching, understanding things like minimum action distances, where action could cross the stitch line, and how to light for 360°.
Going through this process allowed me to refine my approach, and it became obvious I would need to close the loop between editing and viewing, so I bought an Oculus Rift. But at the time there was only minimal Mac support left over from the DK2. I had a Mac Pro (trashcan), and tried everything I could at the time to make it work with Windows and an eGPU, but was finally left to sell off the Mac Pro and build a PC.
My custom eGPU [left], and custom PC [right]
Once I was up and running I noticed how boring 360° video was compared to VR video games. There was all this interaction and engagement from the games that justified putting on the headset, but I wasn't getting that same satisfaction from the video side of things. So I started a project to explore improving the experience and called it Hyperspace.
Hyperspace was built in Unity - although at the end I began to transition it into Unreal which is a better choice IMO - and allowed me to begin experimenting with 360° video inside of a video game engine. This meant I could work on collisions and triggers, free movement and interactivity, and social integration like avatars and chat. I built a few experiences for Hyperspace, including a Joshua Tree exhibit, an architecture pre-vis experience, and finally a fine art gallery from my friend Andrei Duman that showcases his photography. The gallery was in one of the Westfield malls but had to be closed down at the end of 2017, so I'm working to reopen it in WebVR.
Duman Gallery in WebVR, coming soon to dlux.io
Exploring all these questions around VR got my shipmate/roommmate/cellmate Panda (@disregardfiat) very interested as well. Together we rented out a church and renovated it to host private events so we could dig deeper into the overlap of the physical and virtual. We started a company together called OTOLUX that specializes in 360° capture and live stream, volumetric capture, intelligent lighting, and live animation. Basically it is the most futuristic media company we can imagine (http://otolux.la).
Things with our church didn't work out due to, ahem permits, but together we dramatically improved on the concept of Hyperspace. We coined a new term: dlux (decentralized limitless user experiences), and retooled the tech stack by switching from Unity to A-Frame, and from WebGL to WebVR. This gave us a much easier platform to code for since we both agreed it should be a Blockchain experience. STEEM became the obvious choice because it's already built, has a user base, is proof-of-brain, offers crypto incentive, and allows us to build our app on top. So that's what we did! Or, I should say, that's what Panda did (I helped where I could). He went on a three-week NOS-fueled code bender and whipped up a basic version built on open source tech already available. We setup an AWS EC2 instance and created our own IPFS node to pin files to so they are seeded for others (https://dlux.io).
I’m a big believer in Blockchain technology and confident in the vision of the future STEEM represents. I look forward to posting and engaging with the community!
Welcome Mark!
Your obsessions could definitely come in handy here, I guess those are skills people really appreciate to see.
Let me help you out a little by upvoting and resteeming this great introduction!
Greets, @theaustrianguy
Thank you! I think STEEM is the perfect place to share my passions, and I’ll be posting regularly.
shipmate/roommate/cellmate -> Around the world and back again. A hobo's tale.
We’ve seen and done it all!
Welcome to steem, i hope you guys really change this place, @ackza showed me the VR IPFS work youre doing, its stunning and I must thank you for your efforts!
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This will definitely help push up the price of steem in an indirect way! It may not be obvious to most just WHY steemn is THE blockchain platform to build VR with but when you see https://blocktivity.info stats showing steem as the #1 Blockchain in terms of transactions, with 1.7 million per day on steem, 10,000 per second is the actual capacity of steem, and we havent even gotten close to it yet.....
So thanks for seeing the reasons WHY we need steem and EOS for Virtual Reality. And for anyone looking to develop on EOS, Steem is Great practice! :D But EOS is a whiles away and steem is going to have the edge for a year or so before there is any competition from EOS. We have a nice long period of being #1 blockchain in terms of transactions and social media!
My thoughts exactly. Decentraland and competitors will have fees for state change. Average users will not tolerate such. This is the perfect place to build now. Giving every person in the world the ability to make and consumer the richest media, with incentives is a game changer for more than just finance. Entertainment to Education, we're incentivizing people to produce the best for each other, and thats the true power of DpoS.
I’m very curious about EOS as well and will be watching it closely. And I totally agree that steem is the place for now, it gives us a platform to flush out the idea. I want to give people a reason to adopt VR and grow the market instead of shouting into a cup and no one hears or pays attention. That’s the value of this community.
Welcome to steemit
Holaaaa, es bueno descubrir a nuevos usuarios día a día en nuestra red social.
Hola!
Hi buddy welcome to steemit.
Thanks glad to be here!
Welcome to steemit Mark!
Welcome to Steemit. Enjoy your paid blogging life.
Good intro and good project(s) !
i had a laugh when i read about rent the church, guess it was cool, lol
keep it up, looking forward to see and learn more about your projects :)
The church was an interesting experiment... Complete with a prayer room!
Sick! Where's the follow button...
Hi @markegiles, thankyou for your post, in order to support you i showed your picture in my blog. Please feel free to check the link below and if you like my effort then kindly donot forgot to upvote and follow me too. ;). If you donot like your reference in my post then just comment under that post, i will remove it.
https://steemit.com/life/@sultanmr/best-new-steemers-introductory-posts---page-3-1524535737-1825259
Thanks for including me!
Welcome to steemit @markegiles. Though I am not familiar with the different photography terms and equipment, I enjoyed learning about your interest and meeting you. I like photography too and hope to one day at least own a DSLR and do photography as a hobby. So, I am sure I can learn something from you. Have a blast on Steemit. Looking forward to seeing some of your captures/work.
Thanks @honeysim! If there’s any terms you’re curious about I’m happy to answer any questions I can!
Thank you. I will keep that in mind.
Yo!
Nice introduceyourself post! ;)
Welcome to Steem and the Community!
Have fun Steemin! :)
Thanks Jan! The community here is awesome, I appreciate the warm welcome.