How to truly pause a scene at the start?

MRG

In multiple scenarios we have scenes where either the scene should start paused (because you start with a introduction text for instance), or scenes where you jump to a certain time and get a question right away. The problem is, the scene ALWAYS starts playing for half a second, even if the very first On Show action is to pause the scene.

Especially in situations like these this is very annoying / immersion breaking: scene A plays, question 1 pops up, you pick answer b, you jump to 2:45 in scene B where question 2 pops up. In this case, scene B briefly plays from 0:00 and then jumps to 2:45 and then pauses. If the camera in scene B is at a different position at 0:00 then at 2:45 (because the person the camera is mounted on walked towards another room or so), it looks really weird and confusing.

How do I fix or work around this?

jholland

Yes, using a video where the camera moves from one location or focus point or walks to another location can be "weird and confusing" as you stated, or even upsetting and disorientating to a person taking the course who is stationary. We recommend not using video that moves the user along as this can be unsettling to a user who is sitting still. Usually, we recommend the user teleport to the next location using Hot Spots.

If you know the user is going to jump to 2:45 in the next video, then one option is to create a fresh video that has that spot in the original video as the 0:00 mark. You could edit this new video to have a static scene at the beginning so if the video starts exactly at 0 or plays a little too half a second, the scene hasn't really changed.

Due to limitations in headsets' memory, processing power, network transfer speeds, etc., tweaking courses is sometimes necessary. Remember, headsets are less powerful than most smartphones and all desktop computers, so some optimizations are necessary. Image, video, and audio sizes should be as small as possible to minimize any issues that come from running on headsets. 

MRG

Thanks for your extensive reply, jholland!

I understand your suggestion of not using video's that move. I can have our video's start with a second or two of non-movement, but when you enter a scene that dictates a jump right away (because of a certain score you have or a question you answered), you will still see the first half second of that scene. Still confusing, even without movement.

Most of the scenarios we create are filmed on shoulder to sort of mimic a first person view. The goal is that this way you can experience whatever that person is doing as closely and personally as possible. Combined with branching (different choices lead to different scenes/scene jumps) and sometimes multiple rooms, it is impossible for us to have all scene starts, scene ends and jump moments have the same point of view.

Btw, the issue does not occur on our headsets - it only occurs when viewing online/in an LMS. It seems the on-show actions of a scene are not triggered instantly in that case. Perhaps this can be looked into?

johnb

Actually, I would consider breaking those scene videos up into multiple scenes, which should solve the problem.

MRG

That seems like a workable solution, thanks John!

The only downside of this is that I need to be very precise with cutting the videos and also knowing where all scene jumps will need to be before uploading the videos to CenarioVR. Normally I decide the exact times when building the scenarios. Would be great if you could trim video's on the fly in CenarioVR - hint hint ;-)