How to Create VR Training Content?

How to Create VR Content?

Enjoy the video and read along with the exact transcript below:

David Cleverdon (CTO – 360immersive):

How do you get, how do you get engagement up? How do you get people excited about training?

It’s that we can demonstrate consequences that we could never demonstrate in the live 360° live training side.

You’re going to learn something today about creating virtual reality or VR training content. So… we get the question, asked a lot by our viewers, how do you create VR content? What is it? Really the answer is VR training content comes in two general types. You have 360° video-based content, it’s real people, real processes, and real tactics. Then you have computer-based VR simulation, that’s kind of like serious gaming to people. People feel it’s kind of like a cartoon that you interact with. And then you have the hybrid of the two, which I firmly believe is the strongest means of training.

But let me take each one and give you a demonstration and a discussion about how do you create it? So… 360° video content, we start with a 360° video camera. Now, these cameras can run from anywhere from $600 to $60,000, but for the most part, a $600 camera can shoot wonderful training content and that’s all that’s needed.

So you place a camera in the scene. You run the simulation that you might already be doing on a weekly or monthly basis and you capture that simulation exercise. The camera that’s in the scene may be set up on a tripod, you may place it on a helmet worn by actors within the scenario, from a Rover, or you can even shoot the video from a drone-based on the simulation.  The great thing is that you’re actually capturing the content and that makes it extremely affordable.

If you’re not interested in learning how to create the 360° video content that we certainly can help you by doing the shooting for you. Once you get the content shot and edited based on your input from a shot list and your needs of the particular simulation, then we start adding the interactivity.

We add animated call-outs. We add branching so that you can have people make decisions within the simulation that can affect them, not only within that simulation but in real life, then we add testing strategy which feeds into an LMS that allows you to gather data on the particular adult learners that are taking that particular simulation.

So it’s all about real people and real things. And actually, it can be captured by the organization itself.

On the other hand, when you’re looking at computer-based VR simulation, it’s more of a complicated task that requires specialty types of skill sets. So when we meet with an organization. We’ll determine exactly what their content needs are.

The advantage of simulations that are computer-generated is we can interact with the scene. We can move around with the scene. We can grab and move things, let’s say we’re doing Lockout Tagout. We can grab a handle and something can happen. So… VR simulation is more like serious gaming and it allows you to interact with the simulation in ways that 360 video simulations cannot.  For example, we can actually have you walk through a scene where on the 360 video side, the cameraman has to walk through that scene.

The biggest advantage in computer-based VR simulation is we can demonstrate consequences that we could never demonstrate in real life. For instance, we can have you walk outside of the shielding in a seven-foot high trench, and that trench collapses and bad things happen.

We set you up on a scaffolding, maybe four or five stories high and the scaffolding has a problem and you fall. In real life, we could never do that in a training simulation. But in VR computer simulation, you actually feel like you’re falling. Maybe you’ve inspected your harness and your lanyard saves you… You’re safe. But maybe you didn’t do a good job of inspection and your lanyard was frayed, and you fall. 

So… it’s those real-life decisions that we can simulate here, that have meaning and real impact on an adult learner. So let’s take the best of both worlds. A hybrid approach is what I personally think is the best method to convey a learning objective. Let’s take the harness safety and inspection simulation.

We shoot the donning and inspection of the harness on the 360° video. You can look around during the inspection as if you are actually handling the harness itself, you understand how to don the harness and adjust it, basically, how to work with your PPE equipment as in real life. Then based on some decisions that you have made, we switch then to a VR computer simulation that has you go up five stories, maybe 25 stories, and you’re working and suddenly something happens and you feel like you’re falling and maybe you’re arrested by your lanyard…  You’re safe. But maybe you didn’t inspect the harness properly and the lanyard breaks because it was frayed and you have that visceral feeling of falling that you will never forget and cannot be replicated in traditional training.

You take that learning and you take it out on the real job site. You remember when you’re actually tasked with inspecting your own harness, your fall protection PPE gear, prior to going up, you’re going to remember that VR training moment.

So when you think of VR training and impacting the adult learner in the most meaningful way, I feel that the hybrid approach of using 360° video and VR computer simulation is the most impactful.

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