Get Lost In Nature With Luke
• 4-star rating
• PCVR, Link
• Free, Travel
• Comfortable, Stationary
A wide, slow flowing creek in verdant New Hampshire Waterville Valley.
Get Lost In Nature with Luke is an immersive PCVR travel experience that exhibits secluded forests, rocky ocean coves and celebrated waterfall, all located in the north-eastern United States. It's excellent use of photogrammetary - high quality images wrapped around 3D models - provides an awesome sense of realism that is further enhanced with effective use of animated video imagery. Realistic streams flow, waterfalls cascade and the ocean laps against the rocks; complete with accompanying background sounds captured at source.
The program uses a simple menu system of markers to help visitors steer through the locations. The introductory page and the navigation menu are placed within two further impressive but unnamed 3D modelled locations - a floodlit cave and a moss-covered woodland spot. Each location also features an animated video version of the experiences' creator, Luke, who upon summoning will materialize upon the landscape and provide some color about the place you are experiencing.
An animated Luke pops up in each location to treat you to a narrative.
While some travel experiences focus on famous locations, you're not likely to recognize many of these places - except maybe for Rainbow Falls. Here's a list of the locations available to experience with this app. Note that the addition of more locations is teased in the program, but it looks like further content is unlikely to materialize as the developer is now working on publishing new VR travel apps.
• Forest creek in Waterville Valley, NH
• Rafe Chasm at Gloucester, MA
• Sea inlet at Fort Wetherill State Park, Jamestown RI
• Rainbow Falls at Watkins Glen, NY (2 locations)
The four locations on a map.
Controls and movements are easy to use, and the 3D effect of the modelled photogrammetry is best appreciated as a mostly stationary experience with either rotation in place or snap-turning. Loud background music selected for each location can overwhelm at times, and though there's a menu icon to turn off the music it returns every time we change locations.
Utilizing realistic video imagery to animate each scene works extremely well, and we prefer it to some of the artificial effects and superimposed objects that other travel apps employ, like those of Brink Traveler. This feature is not without its drawbacks however, as the animated video loops can be quite short in length. The Waterville Valley forest creek location was particularly distracting since both the sound and video would loop every 2.5 seconds with a noticeable black flicker that would make it difficult to enjoy the scene. Other scenes had longer loops - up to 9 seconds - which were less noticeable. Perhaps if not possible to create long loops, it might be possible to employ some tricks make the issue less noticeable - like running the video at a slower framerate and having longer audio clips that play over several repeats of the video clip.
Some other issues stood out to us too that could have been easily avoided. Though we were pleased to see that the 360 degree experience does a great job of hiding the camera and tripod used to capture the scene, the creators didn't go to the trouble of hiding their own backpacks and other equipment that can still be found in frame. The animation of the ocean lapping up against the rocks of Rafe's Chasm looks great, but there is an unmoving seagull in flight featured prominently in the foreground that completely breaks any sensation of immersion. Finally, the short audio loop in one of the Watkins Glen locations includes a moment of someone in the background briefly shouting, so this is repeated non-stop every few seconds.
Screenshot from Rainbow Falls at Watkins Glen State Park, NY.
Realism is shattered a stationary floating seagull.
Get Lost In Nature With Luke is a marvellous experience featuring some lesser known locations that virtual travelers will enjoy immensely, particularly since this program is free. Lost Eagle also has several other PCVR travel experiences including the free Flume Gorge In Winter (review incoming). They have been hard at work developing a new travel app called Orbis VR which we assume will be a spiritual successor to this app and featuring even more wide ranging content and visual effects. We hope to be able to bring you a review Orbis VR when it releases.
✅ Most realistic virtual travel app we've seen.
✅ Excellent animated photogrammetry with no CGI elements.
✅ Free.
❌ Only features four locations.
❌ Looping video and audio transitions impairs enjoyment.
• Languages: English
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