CYBERSPACE—If there's one thing we're pretty excited about around here, it's the fact that virtual reality technology is finally making some inroads into adult entertainment. It may take a few years to get fully realized, but being able to put on a pair of goggles and watch recorded 3D masturbation and sex scenes (and, likely someday, live 3D cam shows) on one's home computer or mobile phone—and actually move around the images for other perspectives, or bring the images closer or push them further away—is an idea whose time has come. And new company VRtube is ready to offer that experience right now.
"What you're buying is esentially a hologram, and you get the player free from our site, which comes with an intro video, in which I tell you how to use the controllers, how to make the hologram bigger or smaller or turn around, whatever, and then you can buy the individual holograms of the women," explained Ela Darling, adult entertainer and the "Chief Officer Zombie Bloodbath" (hey, that's what it says on her T-shirt) of VRtube. "We're planning to release them in packages, so each girl is shooting a solo masturbation video, and then a short fetish video based on tits or ass or feet, and then, usually I'll do a girl/girl with the person. It's usually like a make-out video. Like, Sinn Sage is one of my best friends, so when she shot for me last week, we banged a little."
Though the physics of the process are a little beyond what we learned in our basic college science courses, it begins with a pair of cameras that not only shoot regular video but infrared as well, with the infrared helping to form a "point cloud" that keeps track of the subject's depth as well as her height and length. Think of the "point cloud" as equivalent to a fog bank, made up of thousands if not millions of individual droplets of water so small they hang suspended in the air—except in this case, the droplets are individual video images, which a special computer program uses to allow the viewer to "navigate" within the cloud to see multiple sides of the subject.
One important difference between the offerings of VRtube and other VR programs that readers may be familiar with is that with VRtube, players will see the actual model, not an avatar created by having real people shoot against a green screen and having their images animated into the environment. The star you order is the star you get, not an animated figure that sort of looks like her.
So ... how did a well-known porn star get involved in this project?
"I came into [this company] when it was still in its infancy, and I found my business partner, James Ashfield, when I went out to Maryland to shoot my first VR," Darling said. "He's a quantum physics major at a large university, and he's brilliant. I met him through a Reddit post that his then-partner posted, saying, 'Me and my friend are doing virtual reality porn,' and I saw it and I was like, 'Dibs! Please use me!' Within a few weeks, they decided that they wanted to bring me out there, I believe because I was the only person they knew in the adult industry, so they didn't have a lot of other options, so they flew me out there.
"Basically, I didn't know who I was working with until I met him in person," she added. "I knew I was working with entrepreneurs, I was working with young professionals, I was working with 20-something dudes, but I didn't realize they were actually just 20, exactly, and students, and we shot the first scene in his dorm or his college apartment around July, and they were really happy with my work.
"When I realized that they were young kids, I advised them as best I could. I told them I could recommend other girls—I just wanted to be involved, because having my name attached to the product meant a lot to me because I really care about virtual reality, and I think it's going to be a big deal in our industry and it's something I have been very enthused about. They offered me a percentage of the company, and that eventually grew to be equal partners with the CEO, so he's the tech genius, the brilliant mind—he does all the research—and I'm the face of it. I promote everything; I have the contacts, I get the girls, and I direct and produce."
And now VRtube has come online, offering virtual reality glimpses of stars like Darling, Lotus Lain and Arabelle Raphael for less than $5 each; all one needs is a VR headset from Oculus Rift or another supplier, a computer and the open-source VR program available free on the VRtube website.
"My partner created the program, but it's open-source, because people really don't want to download an executable file from a porn site, so we're making it all open-source so people can see what they're downloading, and they can make modifications to it as they please," Darling explained. "We're selling the holograms; we're selling the work the girls are doing. The environment is up to you to change if you'd like to. You can fuck with it however you want to; put the girls in your own bedroom or on top of the Eiffel Tower; we don't care. A lot of people who are the early adopters of this, they know a lot about programming, they know a lot about what they're using here, and we don't want to imply that this thing we're creating is the best that they can possibly have. There are people who are going to watch this who have more talent and more skills than we have to create that 3D environment, and we want them to be able to take the product and use it however they want."
Darling expects new models to be added on a regular basis, and we have it on good authority that the next ones are likely to be Sinn Sage, Amy Black and Madison Scott.
So grab those goggles, download the holograms available on the VRtube site, and get ready for something you've never quite experienced before!
Pictured: Ela Darling about to be made into a VR hologram.
