Future look: New dimension opens

For centuries, your imagination offered the only refuge from reality. Now you can roam inside a virtual universe by wearing sophisticated headsets, which are so “immersive” that they fool your brain into thinking you are somewhere else. One day soon, you might be able to walk “inside” a film, while tucking into popcorn and strolling around your living room.

These radical innovations are creating business opportunities in Yorkshire. Animation and 3D visualisation firm Virtual Resolution, for example, has embraced the commercial opportunities presented by virtual reality (VR).

It aims to create a centre of excellence for visual design in Yorkshire, which will help to attract the most talented graduates from the county’s universities.

The company has built an HTC Vive demonstration area for clients at its 3,000 sq ft production studio in Elland, West Yorkshire, to show businesspeople the possibilities offered by VR technology for marketing and design.

Virtual Resolution director and head of VR John Hales believes this is just the start of a bold new era.

He said: “We are very much on the road to being recognised as one of the UK’s leading specialists in using VR to bring architectural design to life, and engage audiences with a more immersive style of marketing. “The way consumers interact with everything, from homes and hotels to conferences and events, is changing and we want to be at the forefront, enabling companies to use the latest visual tools to do things differently.”

He founded Virtual Resolution with fellow director Tim Power in 2009, and the firm has grown to become one of the largest specialist architectural visualisation firms in the UK.

The team offers computer design technology which is capable of delivering everything from enhanced computer generated stills to complex video animation.

Virtual Resolution has been shortlisted in the CGI and Visualisation category at this year’s Society of British and International Design (SBID) awards, which are due to be held in London in October.

Mr Hales believes virtual and augmented reality (AR) have a big role to play in the technology of the future.

He said: “Immersive technology has the ability to change how we communicate, how we work and how we shop, not to mention how we play, learn and exercise.

“We’re at the start of the virtual and augmented reality journey and the technology is evolving at a remarkable pace.

“While nobody can be certain what the future of VR and AR will look like, the fact that there’s such massive investment from the likes of Google and Facebook tells us there’s an expectation that it’s going to be huge. There’s a lot of interest in VR from forward-thinking businesses, but a fair bit of scepticism too, which is why we encourage clients to try the technology for themselves and experience what it can do.

“By providing some brilliant marketing gains to our clients using VR technology, there’s a growing realisation that this isn’t just a gimmick.”

Mr Hales believes that VR is a vehicle for building excitement before a product launches.

He added: “As interest grows, so does our team, putting Yorkshire at the heart of VR job potential for artists within the industry to innovate and excel. Our studio here in Elland puts Yorkshire at the centre of that growth.

“There’s a lot of local talent capable of pushing the limits of the technology. We’re part of a range of companies creating great VR content, meaning the VR industry in Yorkshire is starting to boom.

“We’ve recently created two game-ready, interactive, student accommodation products and with our client’s audience already embracing the technology within their own homes, it has helped them sell the first year’s accommodation, long before it was even completed.”

A new VR experience was also unveiled in Leeds earlier this year. Tick Tock Unlock, a company which specialises in escape games – where participants have to work together to break free from confinement – established a new attraction at Trinity Leeds.

The Hyper Reality Experience combined the principles of VR and escape games so that people can join forces to tackle a mission which they see through their headsets.

Company director Ali Khan said: “People don’t just want to sit back and be spectators anymore.

“The escape and VR games allow people to create their own story and make decisions.”

Keighley-born Samrien Hussain, 31, co-founded the company with Mr Ali in 2014. It was believed to be one of the first adventure game companies of its kind in the north of England.

Since then, it has added further venues in Glasgow, Liverpool and Manchester and it also operates a mobile escape game for corporate activities.

The Hyper Reality Experience is a trademark of Tick Tock Unlock, and has been developed by former JP Morgan executive Mr Khan, who worked in credit derivatives at the bank and was an expert in trading technology.

Mr Khan told Yorkshire Vision: “From an immersive entertainment company’s perspective, we certainly think VR/AR will grow to be a very powerful medium to help deliver incredible experiences to our guests.

“There is already significant investment in filming for VR and I think very soon you’ll be able to walk around within the movie, as the story unfolds around you.

“If the recent scale of the investment going into VR/AR companies continues, then we will see sizeable job opportunities emerge all over the country.

“Tick Tock is creating a new company focused on VR and we will be creating roles in the region ourselves.

“We are proud of being a Yorkshire company and are certainly looking to develop a lot of our infrastructure in Yorkshire, as we compete nationally and, in certain cases, internationally.

“We are doing this because we believe in the region being competitive internationally.

“There is a strong pipeline of talent emerging from universities in Yorkshire, and we are hoping that the talent would stay within the region.”

It’s hoped the brightest and best students from our region’s universities will believe it’s a smart move to immerse themselves in this virtual world.