Enabling Content Creators to Produce Virtual Reality On Their Own
Rod Edwards is an international award-winning stills photographer, an interactive content creator, and a moving-media artist. Over the last 25 years his imagery has been published worldwide and he has worked with many large international corporate clients.
For the last thirteen years this UK-based photographer has specialized in the highest quality, industry-leading 360° imagery. He has introduced and pioneered this media to Visit Britain, Sony Pictures In Hollywood, the National Trust, Coca-Cola, Regal Cinemas, US National Parks, Dezeen and many more.
Rod Edwards wanted to take his 360° content to the next level and create VR experiences in order to expand his portfolio. Doing this by himself seemed a daunting task. So how did our visionary develop his ideas and blow them up to full-scale VR publishing?
You can learn more about Rod Edwards here: https://rodedwards.com/biography
Rod Edwards is available for commissions. To explore his commercial website and online portfolio, please visit : https://rodedwards.com
Push-Processing Images into VR Experiences
As a self-employed photographer in a competitive world, Rod Edwards is always looking for new projects and revenue streams. In the past, these were from stock photos and library footage, exhibitions, and commissions from clients.
Rod has always been keen to try out new technology, to play with it, and to explore new possibilities for his clients. In particular, Virtual Reality media appealed to him as a way of expanding his portfolio and maintaining a competitive edge.
For sure, this pioneering photographer already produces industry-leading work of the highest standard. He could see the potential for also creating online virtual tours from his 360° content and thereby attracting much sought-after commissions from international corporate clients.
Snags in Development
Rod is able to shoot 360° images & videos in the highest possible quality, but it is hard to make use of them. Selling images that are only 360° is not a huge business, so finding new clients and worthwhile projects is difficult and time-consuming. Furthermore, printing 360° isn’t easily transportable: unless you print an image on a huge 360° wall as a panorama you cannot duplicate the full surround-vision effect.
VR looked like offering opportunities to develop his 360° content into desirable cutting-edge products, but Rod was reluctant about allocating large portions of the project budget for what seemed like overpriced technology. Instead, he wanted the budget to flow mainly into creating a high-quality end-result for the customer and give them the biggest bang for their buck. He felt that bringing in outside VR app developers and coders diverted away from him concentrating on the core experience and diluted his creative independence. Involving big VR agencies was also much more expensive for his clients who are always conscious of their budgets.
A VRdirect Fixing Solution
The VRdirect platform enabled Rod to take his 360° images and video footage one step further. He found he could operate VRdirect himself without the need for coding skills, therefore no need to get an expensive specialist in. This means Rod can take the pain and stress out of his client’s content creation, as he can now produce the entire end-product himself. This keeps his commissioning client’s costs down and their profits up, bringing sharp focus on a visually pleasing bottom line.
Working with VRdirect means this smart operator can maintain his independence whilst maximising the cost-to-benefit ratio soundly on the quality product side. He has enlarged his portfolio by using his high-end 360° photography for real VR storytelling and interactive projects, just like he planned. He’s also able to show his portfolio of VR projects in his own VR app. And VRdirect’s cross-platform operability means he can offer clients interactive projects for web VR, iOS, Android, and Pico headsets, all in one step.
VRdirect opens up new opportunities for this technophile photographer. He can now offer stills photography, video and professional VR services that would previously have been only in the realm of big and expensive VR agencies.
The Perfect Picture
The outcome for the UK photographer is that he can now create Virtual Reality worlds from his high-quality 360° images and video, and this opens up a whole new revenue stream for him. Indeed, his commercially enhanced extended portfolio separates him from the competition. He also uses VRdirect for his own marketing: pitching projects with his own VR app.
Rod is also thinking about using his skills to create VR experiences in the fields of fashion, real estate, architecture, interior design, super-yachts, tourism and museums, with the latter offering interactive VR art projects as a new solution. VRdirect has given him a wide-angled view of possibilities.
