Virtual reality meets big screen in Spielberg's new film

Existing VR capabilities are far more limited than what is portrayed in the film. For entertainment, VR’s most prevalent use is in gaming, where players can battle in 360-degree settings seen through headsets from Facebook’s Oculus unit, HTC Corp and others.

Spielberg was among VR’s early adopters. He had been toying with a headset at home before he made Ready Player One, and he incorporated the technology behind the scenes. To appear in the Oasis, the actors had to perform in a nearly empty white room wearing motion-capture outfits so their movements could be transferred to digitally created sets. Spielberg had the Oasis sets re-built in VR.

“Everybody had a chance to put on the headsets, and suddenly, wow, there you are in the set itself,” he said. “It gave a kind of orientation so they weren’t just acting in the abstract.”