Mount Triglav VR experience

Background Story

Mount Triglav has a very special place in the hearts and minds of Slovenian people. It is a symbol of being a Slovene. As the highest peak of our country and it is sometimes even referred to as “ the father” (očak). There is a saying that goes “ You are not a proper Slovene unless and until you have climbed to the top of Mt. Triglav. “ Unfortunately, not all people are able to climb a 2884 meters mountain peak. Some are too old, some are disabled, some are too young and many are just too lazy. Thus the idea to bring the mountain to the people. To do that, we needed the right equipment and the right professional climber to actually go up there in extreme conditions and record it all. Our friend Mitja Šorn, a highly experienced mountain guide and rescue professional happened to be just that.

How hard can it be? It was in the beginning of 2016 when one of us came up with a challenge: How can we make this year memorable by doing something that has not been done before? And also have fun while doing it? VR was just becoming “a thing” so we all agreed to go that route. Few cups of coffee later and the idea came to us: “If Muhamad cannot go to the mountain, let us bring the mountain to Muhamad.” The basic idea was to make a VR experience Slovenia’s pride and glory, our highest peak, Mt. Triglav. Doing that in the safety of the summer would be just too mainstream. We wanted to do it in winter when 3 meters thick layer of snow is covering the path. With the words of Jeremy Clarkson “How hard can it be?” we accepted the challenge.

Despite having over 15 years of experience in the fields of 3d animation and video editing, VR was a fairly new thing to us. We didn’t know much about filming in VR and we knew even less about editing for VR. We asked Google for help and it taught us to get a 360 camera rig - so we bought a pack of six GoPro Hero3+ cameras and we ordered a special mounting frame called Freedom360. We also learned that we needed specialized software to stitch the 6 video recordings into one 360 video sphere. After a few tests with different solutions, we decided to go for Kolor AutoPano video Pro and Autopano Giga for fine-tuning. And we also bought Mettle Skybox tools for adding some info text and graphics to the 360 videos.

When all the equipment arrived, we carefully assembled the rig and started making first tests to get the hang of it. Very quickly we came across specific challenges and limitations of the technology. One can not simply hold a 360-degree camera in hand and walk around filming everything. This kind of camera rig records everything in all directions and would therefore also record the person holding it. That was not what we wanted the experience to be. We were aiming at “first-person view” experience. To achieve that we needed some sort of a head mount. VR was not yet "a thing" back then and no one was selling this kind of accessory. The only option was to construct our own mount. We made some sketches, bought some stuff in a hardware store and locked ourselves in the workshop. This is what we came up with - a height adjustable helmet mount. We took a standard climbing helmet, few bolts, metal plates and rubber pads and started cutting, bolting and welding. The main challenge was finding the balance between stability of the mount and the height of camera placement. If the mount was too low, the view would be blocked by the helmet, but it was too high it would become unstable, shaky and also it would feel like floating in the air instead of walking on the snowy path. Most of the action happened in low light and in extreme terrain and weather conditions.

Harsh recording conditions introduced a lot of noise. And a lot of camera shake. We picked the best parts of the 60 minutes climb and stitched together a spherical 4k shot. Let me explain the 4k thingie:. The basic principle behind any 360-degree video ( VR video) is to record events with more cameras ( at least two, ideally 6 or 8 - double that for stereoscopic video) from the same spot, but each camera facing in a different direction. Then you take all the recorded (and overleaping) videos and stitch them into one big video (usually 3840 pix x 1920 pix or larger) which covers all 360 degrees of view. This video is then projected to “virtual sphere” by special VR video players and the viewer is “placed” in the center of this sphere thus giving an illusion of “being there”. By turning his head ( when using HMD) or by rotating/tilting his mobile device ( when using a smartphone or tablet) the viewer sees the world around him as if he was actually there. To put it in other words - it is not as simple as pushing the “record” button on your iPhone.