With 3D technology advancing faster than a pick-up artist, it was only a matter of time before 3D films became interactive. What we didn’t expect, however, was just how completely and totally creepy the first interactive 3D movie would be.
Researchers at Australia’s University of New South Wales have created a 3D movie, projected on a 360-degree screen, reports New Scientist. The film, entitled Scenario, is based on the story of Austrian woman Elisabeth Fritzl, who had been imprisoned by her father in a basement for 24 years, and was forced to have seven children with him. Uplifting, we know.
Using sensors in the theater, “viewers” of the film are given a humanoid avatar, which mimics the viewer’s movements. The goal of each person is to escape. And to do that, participants must collect the body parts of babies and return them to one “oversized baby.” (Seriously, who thought of this?)
To keep viewers from escaping, sentinels controlled by the film’s artificial intelligence engine either push avatars away from the baby bits, or kick the body parts out of reach. The sentinels decide wether to kick or push based on an avatar’s proximity to, let’s say, a baby head, or which body parts an avatar holds.
Sixteen near infrared cameras track the movements of each viewer in the cinema, providing the sentinels with the information needed to thwart the baby body part collections.
Interactive 3D films sound good, and all. But if you ask us, this just sounds like an overly complex (and, most likely, expensive) interactive 3D video game — something Microsoft has been working on for quite some time now.
No matter what Scenario is, it’s clear that interactive 3D films are going to have to be a lot less creepy for them to gain mainstream appeal.
Watch a video of Scenario in action:
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