Realitty revolution: virtual reality is ready to take Utahns to new landscapes.

• Author: Madison, Rachael
• Position: TECHNOLOGY - Report

Imagine being able to scale a mountain, visit outer space or conduct a meeting in person--all without leaving the comfort of your own couch. Thanks to virtual reality (VR), these types of experiences are becoming more and more possible. While the technology still has a way to go, leaps and bounds are being made across the state of Utah to make VR a daily experience for consumers, whether for entertainment, educational or business purposes. Two organizations, Salt Lake City-based Morph 3D and Lindon-based The Void, are just a couple of examples of this VR technology that's quickly becoming mainstream.

The rise of virtual reality

Morph 3D, a company that creates characters, or avatars, for virtual reality use, began as a 3D modeling and CG company and has since evolved to focus mainly on virtual and augmented reality (AR). The avatars available to consumers can mimic what they look like or can be completely stylized. Morph 3D has over 350 body shapes to choose from and an artist community of over 800 artists who work with the organization's parent company, Daz 3D, to continually create new options.

"About a year and a half ago, we pivoted our business to take our technology into more mainstream markets like game development and augmented and virtual reality," says Jim Thornton, CEO at Morph 3D. "We built a very unique platform for avatar creation that allows you as a user to create an online identity for yourself and have that identity persist on multiple platforms. Our roadmap is to be that avatar solution for multiple platforms across social VR, educational VR and gaming. We've anchored a good position in game development, AR and VR."

Another Utah VR company, The Void, originally started as a concept for an experience that would be inside Utah Valley's yet-to-be-built Evermore theme park, a project The Void's founders began working on first before realizing The Void's potential. Curtis Hickman, chief creative officer at The Void, says as he and his cofounders were working on Evermore, they began to toy with the idea of an immersive world people could go into and actually be a part of.

"There's a number of challenges with doing that, and VR solved a lot of those issues," he says. "As we started on working on The Void, all of our time was focused on making it a reality. It's not just VR. You won't only see amazing things, but you'll feel them too. You will feel the wind blowing, or if you're by a fire, you'll feel the heat. We add extra...