Interview with Enea Le Fons: from #30DaysInVR to #XDaysInXR and beyond
Enea Le Fons is the epic guy of #30DaysInVR: he spent 30 days inside a virtual reality headset to help to shape an open and better future for virtual reality. After this VR performance, he was interviewed by a lot of magazines and websites and became famous in the VR communities of the whole world, China included. We also recently seen him at the Vive Ecosystem Conference, where he took the stage to talk about his interesting experiences.
There are a lot of things we all would like to ask him, like further details on the #30DaysInVR project and what he’s preparing for the future, what new amazing adventures he’s preparing. Having become a friend of him, I’ve managed to have a new opportunity to interview him: I would have liked to ask him a thousand questions, but I decided to not take too much advantage of his kindness and so I just asked a dozen ones. The answer he provided me have been amazing and gave me a better picture of all that is inside the cybernaut’s mind. I found them not only interesting but also very inspiring. Are you ready to read the words of a guy that sees in the future? Then keep on reading…
Hello Enea, nice to meet you again! Let’s talk about the #30DaysInVR project, that has given you a lot of popularity inside the VR community. How has your life changed after these 30 days?
Hi! Such a pleasure being with you again! So, how has my life changed? Change is in constant progress, but if I had to pin down some changes in particular, I came to appreciate RR (Real Reality) more than ever, even more than before… and I’m really glad I was contacted by VR researchers and developers who are exploring extended use of VR in the same direction and with similar motivations. We already started sharing code, tricks, and solutions on a number of subjects. Exciting times ahead 🙂
What are the biggest lessons that you learned during #30DaysInVR?
Big lessons? Several!
- I had to agree with some professors that when it comes to VR, all impressions and impact on users’ brain seem to be amplified. Hence, I believe it’s especially important to use VR for content creation, immersive learning… and really anything that will seed useful impressions in one’s “store consciousness”;
- Our native visual perception is three dimensional: extended use of VR for computing purposes shows clear advantages of creating 3D since you’re able to experience all of its dimensions at once. Can you imagine modeling 3D without having to switch between projection views? Well, in VR, you don’t need to, because all three dimensions are present at once, right in front of you;
- Eye hydration, eye exercises, daily headset disinfection and a polyphasic approach to VR immersion were keys to long immersions with current hardware.
Enea while meditating with a Vive Focus on. That building that you see in the background is the Mole Antonelliana, the symbol of Turin (Image by Enea Le Fons)
After all the experiments you made, do you think that we are ready to live inside VR? And if not, why?
I think humans are more than ready, the hardware is getting there… and software making VR more relevant and useful is being built as we speak. So it’s an integration in progress. Why do I think “humans are more than ready”? Cause If you look around in any modern city, you’ll see humans living in symbiosis with phones and tablets adding layers of information to their realities. So technically, humans have been living in augmented reality for quite a while! At the moment this extra layer of info is represented in 2D on screens of any size, but as soon as overlaying it to reality, in native 3D, will be comfortable and natural enough… humans will naturally switch.
You developed a lot of stuff inside VR. Do you think that it is more convenient for developing in 2D? Because using VR is currently more tiring to be used, 2D is more effective…
I forced myself to develop in VR for VR in order to push the boundaries of the currently available tools, test unreleased hardware and explore short and long-term effects of repeated extended immersions, not because it is more convenient. I agree with you: as of May 2018, 2D software UX is often far more efficient for most productive tasks… but it is so only because it’s the result of 30+ years of daily 2D human-computer-interaction and feature requests stemming from the discourse between millions of users and hundred-thousands software developers… an incredible amount of hours of R&D and work! VR / XR UX and VR DCC software are still in their infancy and it will simply get exponentially better as more users and developers will get involved (This is happening at an exponential pace).
What are the best development tools that can be used inside VR?
I spent 80% of my time on a slightly customized version of Unreal Engine for Developers in-VR Editor (by Epic Games). It enables sophisticated in-VR level design and a good part of Unreal’s interface is exposed within it. Unreal is currently my favorite tool, and I went from empty scene to compiled without leaving VR, with a few workarounds… but it was great! I also used Google TiltBrush for sketching and Blocks to create low-poly environments for Vive Focus.
How do you answer to people that have said that you have just done something ordinary?
I’d answer that I approached the challenge in order to make native in-VR development as ordinary as possible.
What has been the impact of what you did? What pleasant consequences the whole VR ecosystem had from your experiment?
First and foremost, thanks to the openness, responsiveness and military-grade mindset of the developers of the “alpha” hardware and software we used, most of the boundaries I hit during the 30 days were removed. None of these bugs and limits is present in the shipped products that thousands of developers and users have been enjoying in the last months… so that’s the “short-term” benefit. Speaking of long-term, sharing the #30daysinVR experiment with select faculties and research groups opened a stronger open discourse on VR as an environment to enhance creativity and productivity, also the other chapters (health improvement, post-VR realignment of perception, long-term sustainability) are being picked up with enthusiasm by a range of VR explorers eager to contribute… so I guess we are just at the beginning 🙂
Having been so exposed to all the latest VR technologies, forecast to my readers how the future of VR will be!
VR is a very powerful technology, deeply intertwined with our senses, and it will get better, very fast. It could go either incredibly well, empowering humans with an unprecedented power of visualization, connectivity, expression, abstraction, exploration…. or terribly wrong, giving the upcoming two generations of fine humans an irresistible way to escape an increasingly competitive and confusing world, and to commercial entities a powerful way to deeply intertwine new products and artificial needs in people’s subconscious and lives (even more than now). I obviously work hard to bring forth the non dystopian scenario… but I’m also getting ready to see millions of people disappear into digital worlds (Ready Player One scenario). So, It’s up to us, developers and creators, to steer the technology in the right direction. It’s a big responsibility and incredible opportunity!
You have just been in China to participate in the Vive Ecosystem Conference. Tell us what you learned about the Chinese VR ecosystem
Yes, as you can see I’m still in Shenzhen… where to begin? On media, advertisement…VR here is omnipresent. For one, each major mall in SZ offers a VR booth: a green-screen box equipped with HTC Vive, hundreds of Viveport titles and embedded MR: you get in, play and at the end of your session, you can share a mixed reality capture of your gameplay on social networks…
So VR here is very accessible to the public and the VR ecosystem here is booming. China is creating a concentration of VR software development and full-stack hardware expertise on an unprecedented scale… groundbreaking initiatives such as IVRA (Industry of Virtual Reality Alliance), a VR expertise knowledge sharing hub enabling VR hardware and software to collaborate, share their expertise and converge on common standards are raising the bar of what’s possible.
And what is the future of Enea Le Fons after #30DaysInVR?
Look, I’ve been holding on to VR and interactive 3D for the last 20 years… even survived 4 commercially unsuccessful VR startups (seems like too early is as bad as too late)… and only now VR is starting to really pick up beyond Enterprise, so I’ll obviously keep on with bleeding-edge R&D, VR / XR experimentation and knowledge sharing, in an effort to push the borders of Human-Computer Interaction as a tool for the augmentation of the best and most desirable human abilities. Artists, Developers and established Companies often reach out asking me to double check their products and ideas, and I love being able to foster new connections between them… and help them avoid potential dead-ends or stale concepts. Whenever I can help talent and tech inspiration to reach its full potential, I truly rejoice, it’s really “my thing”. For the long-term future, I’m truly fascinated by plant-computer interaction, seasteading, Architecture beyond Earth, AI… and I’m devolving most of my free time studying these subjects, maybe in the future, I’ll be able to contribute also in these processes.
Tell us something more about Whitelabel Foundation! What is it? What is its vision?
WHITELABEL Foundation creates multidisciplinary R&D projects pushing the boundaries of emerging technologies, beyond any commercial goal and constraint. All knowledge and tech created during these projects is shared between participants and can be used, white-label, for any commercial purpose. This fluid framework allows us to run very experimental projects with temporary collaborations between companies, independent professionals, artists, hackers, and institutions that otherwise wouldn’t collaborate.
What do you mean by “beyond any commercial goal and restraint”?”
Being WHITELABEL non-profit, all projects can truly incarnate experimentation in its full meaning. And yet, all participant still profit by applying their learnings and new connections back in their commercial endeavors. I can finally have fun, and everyone wins 🙂
And what do you mean by “that otherwise wouldn’t collaborate”?
Well, each of these entities has different goals, visions, and styles… but guess what, they are still made of… fine HUMANS! Who generally have a range of complementary skills and common passions. So I found out that one-off, time-limited, hackathon-style projects, focusing on far-out experimentations that aren’t currently requested by the market (unless you invent one)… help removing all pre-concepts and barriers, and create the basis for these amazing individuals to work together and enrich each other. And this always reverberates positively on their business after… It’s sheer magic.
Last time we met you told me about a #XDaysInXR event that should carry on the spirit of #30DaysInVR. Tell my readers about it!
Yes! #XDaysinXR Architecture 1 is part of WHITELABEL’s #XdaysinXR initiative. This time I’ll use immersion time and the #30daysinVR codebase to guide a group of brave Architects in the creation of projects of a sustainable and desirable life on Mars. In VR. We’ll touch many chapters and I’m extremely excited 🙂 all results will be showcased at the upcoming Im-Arch conference.
Are you sure you want to collaborate with me for some of your future projects? 😀
Absolutely! As long as you bring your coding and logic skills to the Unreal Engine… and you promise to never tell yourself X or Y “can’t be done” 🙂
How can people contribute to help you and WhiteLabel foundation in shaping a better future for VR? How can they support #XDaysInXR?
By taking part in WHITELABEL’s initiatives, re-running with the same spirit WHITELABEL projects such as #30daysinVR… or proposing us projects… just get in touch!
Before you leave, you have the opportunity to tell anything you wish to my readers
WHITELABEL is all about collaboration, we are as open and fluid as it gets, so it’s really easy to get involved! If you see any open chapter you feel inspired by, just jump on it!
Look at how the internet and 2D computing changed society and became deeply interwoven with human perception… impressive right? Well, AI, Robotics and Virtual / Augmented Reality (not to mention genome programming and nanomachines) are extremely disruptive technologies, that will truly reshape human experience as a whole. Most of the best minds of our generation graduate with a master thesis on “healing X part of the world” and end up working at least 8 hours a day serving the interests of very commercial entities, using these technologies for short-sighted and consumerist needs… in order to survive. Not saying this is wrong, I’ve done it as well for years… but imagine how further along and more empowered we’d be, if more of us devolved part of our time also to collaborate freely on projects geared towards evolving these technologies towards non-dystopian applications and setting them free, forever, for all… we create our future with our current actions, so it’s up to us, technologists and creators, to take responsibility for the future of the magic technologies we inherited from previous innovators. I invite you all to enjoy this responsibility… and to keep helping to bring tech and wisdom back to everyone’s benefit. Whether we like it or not, we are all entangled… so by benefitting others, we can only benefit and thrive ourselves! More collaboration and openness is key! So how about we join our forces?
The cybernaut Enea will begin his new adventure tomorrow and will be at the Immersive Architecture event on June, 1st-2nd in Venice (Italy). So if you want to meet him and ask some questions by yourself, be sure to come to Venice. If you can’t, you can subscribe to his website, follow him on Linkedin or Facebook. He’s an amazing person, so be sure to get in contact with him!
(Header image by HTC Vive)
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