XRDC speaker Q&A: Laura Dodds on digitally recreating Sir David Attenborough

When working in virtual reality, it's not often that developers get to recreate the image of people who've influenced the world in so many important ways. But at XRDC this year, Dream Reality Interactive art director Laura Dodds will be discussing about what it's like to recreate someone's presence in virtual reality and honor their work in the process. 

In Dodds' talk, you can learn about her work on Hold the World with Sir David Attenborough, the renowned broadcaster and naturalist, and how Dream Reality refined its pipeline to work with a VR game that depicts real-world people and creatures. 

To learn more about Dodds and her thoughts on virtual reality development, we reached out for a quick Q&A which you can now read below. 

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Tell us about yourself and your work in VR/AR/MR.
Before joining Dream Reality Interactive just under two years ago, I hadn´t worked extensively in VR, AR or MR. However I found the team's passion for these mediums infectious and their expertise and experience in them impressive.  I worked on three small VR projects before launching into Hold The World as Art Director.  Later in the year I also worked on Orbu, a mobile puzzle game set in Japanese zen gardens which was my first experience working in AR.

Without spoiling it too much, tell us what you’ll be talking about at XRDC.
I'll be talking about the VR project Hold The World. Specifically I'll be focusing on the art side and how we combined lots of techniques and developed pipelines to create something coherent and worthy of David Attenborough! 

What excites you most about AR/VR/MR?
I am most excited about the innovative ways in which developers design, adapt and create content in this field. As AR/VR/MR are such rapidly evolving mediums the language and conventions on these platforms are still emerging.  

Who would you like to meet at XRDC?
I would love to meet anyone working on AR / VR / MR projects especially developers in the art disciplines.  

What was the most fascinating part of working on a project headlined by Sir David Attenborough?  
I think the most fascinating part was working with the volumetric video capture of Sir David Attenborough.  It was amazing to have the opportunity to work with such a new technology and then get such rewarding results.  When I got the first clip of Attenborough in Unity and watched it in headset I was astonished - it was like I was really meeting him.  Later, it was a surreal experience meeting him in person after having spent so many hours with his digital incarnation!

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