A while back, Google created a system for viewing VR\/360° videos called “Google Spotlight Stories.” You can view the short films in YouTube or in the Google Spotlight Stories iOS app, or possibly in other VR systems; on a mobile device, the viewer lets you turn around and see different things going on in different parts of the world of the movie.<\/p>\n
I'm not doing a very good job of explaining it. I recommend trying it out.<\/p>\n
If you download the app, you can download and view the videos directly in the app. But if you just want to get a sense of what it's like, you can visit the Spotlight Stories site<\/a>, which includes links to various of the videos in YouTube. On a computer screen, you can click the four-way controller at the top left of those YouTube videos to look around.<\/p>\n All of the stories that've been published so far have been pretty cool in one way or another. But my favorite by a fair bit is the most recent one: “Pearl.” A lovely, sweet, 6-minute story of a girl and her father and their car. I think you can get most of the impact of it by watching it in plain 2D on YouTube<\/a>, even without using the fancy VR features, or maybe just rotating a little bit left and right.<\/p>\n But as discussed in an article by Mark Wilson<\/a>, if you do use the VR features, you can get different perspectives on the story, including (for example) sitting in the front seat of the car or the back seat.<\/p>\n