This week we’re joined by XR Training Lead, Brian Melven to discuss all things Virtual and Augmented Reality. As an XR training lead, Brian’s job is all about connecting the latest tech with effective learning solutions. He collaborates with experts, instructional designers, and developers to create immersive training simulations that let learners practice in safe, controlled environments.

Brian's strength lies in understanding how VR and AR can meet specific training needs. He’s a big believer in experiential learning and is always looking for new ways to make training more engaging, interactive, and memorable.

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Welcome back to Learning Matters. I'm Doug Wooldridge, your host, and today we're joined on the podcast by Brian Melvin. Brian is an XR training lead, and he's here to talk about virtual reality and augmented reality and training. Let's get to the interview. Thanks so much for joining the podcast today, Brian. First and foremost, how do you find yourself getting into a career within the world of learning and development? So, you know, actually when I was in college, I studied business.

But there were all these other classes that I was interested in that I just thought I would take. So I took video production, 3D modeling and animation, multimedia authoring tools. And I have found those tools to be very helpful later on in my business career. I was working for a consulting company and our company was sold to another company and since we had to create all new processes and training. And that's when I got involved with training.

Warmly, so yeah, so this is kind of fell into it. What what type of authoring tools were you working on back then man back that it was a Macromedia director Author where So some of those really old ones Yeah, was it kind of an easy transition to get into training from from that side of things or was it more just out of necessity? They're like, hey, we need to build this program. You're the best guy to do it. Yeah, so

I had been a consultant for a couple of years and we needed to develop training for consultants at my level. I got to know was tasked with bringing together subject matter experts and developing the curriculum. And I really enjoyed it and have been here ever since. Awesome. And early on in the, in the TTC days, you were part of that early team as kind of a freelancing side of things.

What was adult learning like back then? You know, I would say that back when in my career, I think a lot of companies, I think we often used a waterfall approach, kind of an adi model. And still many people use that today. It's a great, great model. You know, we would go in and do a letter analysis or gap analysis. We would do a high level design and a detailed design and then write storyboards and scripts.

And then we would actually build it and test it and implement it. And I think that's a great approach. think since those days, I think a lot of companies have become more comfortable with using a rapid prototyping approach. And that's an approach that I enjoy using when I can. It's not always the right solution, but it gives you some freedom and allows you to discover things along the way. Definitely. I guess it

depends on what the project is, what the needs are, and honestly, how much time you have to put things together. So I want to get into little bit of VR technology and AR technology. So when did you first start getting into that side of technology? And what was it that excited you about those type of things? Was it more like on the commercial side of things or was it just like consumer side?

you wanted to get into it for just out of interest, those type of things. You know, about 15 years into my career, I realized that, you know, I wanted more, I wanted to do more. you know, I developed lots of classroom based training, lots of e -learning modules, but I wanted something just a little bit different, a little bit more, a little more innovative. And that's what I became interested in that. I started looking around and found somebody that

was connected with on LinkedIn someone that I had met a couple times at a ATD networking event and You know that particular company was an elevator company. They had a position open for VR development within their training team, but Anyways, that seems like really that position was open. I put all my energy into Kind of getting that job because I thought it would be an interesting Opportunity to keep doing the things that was doing to learn development

but also find new approaches and ways to do that. yeah, that's, said it was an, an elevator company. How are they using the technology? Yeah. So you can imagine, so, so we were training elevator, technicians and you'd imagine when you're training somebody on a physical piece of hardware, something with moving parts and then, you know, lots of components, it's much easier to teach somebody that, by showing them and see how everything kind of fits together spatially.

So you don't want just a flat 2D image showing all the parts. You'd rather be able to show them kind of in a spatial environment, show them the different components. it seems like a little less dangerous to have them testing it out in that realm as opposed to on an actual machine in a building. That is correct. And they get plenty of training on an actual elevator. But yes, it's great. There's some things you can learn in a classroom and not have to be

you know, doing risky things on an actual elevator. Definitely. And can we dig in just a little bit about the differences between AR and VR and not necessarily like the tech and the hardware side of things, but how learners react to the different types of mediums? Yeah, absolutely. You know, I'm going to start with VR and we'll talk a little about the hardware. Sure. Virtual reality, you put on a headset.

and you're fully immersed in some virtual world. So you're no longer seeing the room you're in. Instead, you're now in whatever simulation or game or entertainment experience that you're trying to be in. That's a great way to try different environments and see different things that maybe you don't have access to in real life. Many of the early headsets you see here, this is the Oculus Quest.

Now it doesn't have any lenses in the front. There are some small cameras that help you set up your boundary, but for the most part, you're totally immersed in that virtual world. So there's virtual reality. Augmented reality allows you to see the room that you're in, the environment that you're in, but you're seeing digital objects through a webcam or a pair of glasses or a smartphone or a tablet.

So that makes it great to show the context, show the room you're in, but see all this digital objects around as well to give context and explanation to whatever it is you're learning. So as far as the learning perspective, VR is great for training. It's fantastic to develop a simulation for an elevator technician to practice how to troubleshoot an elevator. So that's great with VR.

With AR, it's great not just for learning, but actually when you're actually doing the work. When you want to repair something and you come up upon that whatever component you're looking at and you open up your phone and all of a sudden you can see a 3D model, you can pull up documents and have that all arranged. That's really awesome. There's another term, mixed reality. Okay. world's virtual reality and augmented reality are starting to blend.

And now you've got all the newer headsets, all that have some type of lenses. So this is the Quest Pro for Meta. I have the Quest 3. It's got three slits in it where the cameras and sensors are. But here you can see the real environment or you can start to see the room you're in and still see these 3D objects in that room. So it's kind of

A blending of the two. that's mixed reality. yeah, so it's a great, then there was a term, extended reality that just encompasses all. So right, my title is XR, I'm training lead at the company I work for. XR is just a term, extended reality where the X replaces the V, the A, or the in virtual augmented mixed reality. Gotcha. So it could be anything.

Any mix of the three, all of them at once. That is right. That is right. And how does one get into this type of training development? Let's say somebody is just getting the bug kind of like you did, and they've been doing e -learning for a long time. They want to move on from that. Is there like a starting place for folks? there a relatively cheap option for them to just kind of jump into the deep end of this? Or is it?

Is it kind of a tough way to get into? Yeah, no, it's actually very easy to get into. A lot of the software that we use in the XR field is actually free for, you know, personal use or hobbyists or even small companies. So the first thing you have to kind of decide is which gaming engine you want to use. So that's the main tool we develop our apps in. And so the two big ones out there are Unity.

and Unreal Engine, and they're both fantastic. You can't choose wrong. In my experience, seems like a lot more corporations are using Unity, but that's just my observation. don't know if that's true. Unity is the right... You think there's a potential reason for that? Well, why they... I don't know as far as why corporations picked that. Epic, who owns Unreal Engine, you see a lot of games coming out of...

There's some really remarkable add -ins and they've made some great acquisitions with Unreal Engine. It's a great option as well. could use either to build all the apps that we look at. Those are generally free to download and then start learning. There lots of courses available. There's also Blender, it's a 3D modeling software, and that is free as

And you can find lots of courses on how to do Blender Unity Unreal Engine. If you're going to learn Unity, there's a scripting language you should learn, C -Sharp, that allows you to give a little more power to the apps you're developing. So that's where I would start. Pick one game engine, it's associated scripting, and then some basic modeling. Is there a particular program that you like to use?

Certainly blender and then you know, dear are the ones. Yeah. Awesome. And for clients that how would you showcase the benefits of building a program with this type of tech? I'm sure a lot of companies look into this type of thing. They're very excited about it. It is very flashy. It's really cool. But then they look at the sticker price and they go, hold on just a second. How can we how can

get folks to maybe green light this type of a program because I think it can be incredibly useful like you've said. Right. You know, rather than trying to sell the benefits, I think where I would start was is identifying a proof of concept and going out doing something on the smaller side. That might be a simple AR app. Something you do with your phone. For example, if you have onboarding of new hires.

you might place markers around the office and have wayfinding tools on a phone that guide new hires to different locations and learn more about different rooms or different people through the app. So that's one way to start is looking small and see how it goes, get feedback from your lawyers, and then showcase the benefits from that and then move on to bigger and better projects. Baby steps here.

You know, whatever thing to consider is at the first company I worked for doing this, the elevator company I mentioned, we decided to take the approach that we wanted to build, develop those skills in -house. And so none of us on the team previously had experience in that. But with some training and jumping in and getting our hands dirty, we developed the skills we needed to develop what we did.

And that was one approach. The opposite approach is to go out and hire a company to come in and develop this training. And that's a great approach as well. In our case, we decided we wanted those skills in -house. We didn't want to hire for them. We wanted to learn and develop them. It was certainly slow going. it was a great experience. And in the end, I think it was better for the team to have those skills.

What was maybe some of the, I hate to say trouble spots, but maybe just moments of pause where you guys were just learning this type of gear, where you had to jump over some hurdles. know, initially we went in with the premise that, for example, any coding that we needed, that we could find it online and find little snippets and use it and make little changes to it. There were times where

we realized we were maybe a little, you know, in over our heads and we didn't have to reach out to third party consultants, but they came in and just helped us with, you know, those little parts that they did come to project. So that's how we have a little bit. There certainly were plenty of points like that where we found we did have to reach outside and get some additional help. feel like it would be a little bit easier of a process today with how open everything is and how

how this tech has progressed over time. So you've been following this tech for quite a while now. How far do you think that it's come and where do you think it's going? You know, there's still a bit of lot of advances when you think about the early VR headsets, the Oculus Rift and the HTC Vive. know, initially they had to have either be tethered to a computer. Sometimes they'd have sensors that you'd have to mount in your room and that meant you kind of had to use

It wasn't the most mobile of, we just set it up. was kind of set up and it wanted to go move it to another place. So that's come a long way where now everything is kind of contained in the headset. Certainly when, you know, there was a lot of hype around the meta -vose a couple of years ago. had Facebook changing the name to Meta. And a lot of things that promoted the field, but

I think there's lots of disillusionment when it didn't take hold and didn't initially achieve the success that it would. It didn't catch on. People didn't adopt it as quickly as a lot of us wanted it to. I think their approach may have been more... It seemed like when they were releasing it that their approach was

of like, use this for, you know, we've got a lot of virtual workers now. So use this to build, you know, meeting rooms and stuff like that. Whereas I think the better use case for this technology is actually within training, like either onboarding or actually using it on the job. So that's right. I think that may be where they kind of met a wall there. Absolutely. No pun intended. Yep. But yeah, you know, I worked on.

So, previous I worked at the elevator company. Now I work at a commercial real estate company and we use this technology with a lot of our technicians. And whereas you think about the metaverse as being a place for general consumers to hang out and play games and interact in. There's a new term called the industrial metaverse. It's not that new, it's including the metaverse in a industrial environment. And

I think has a lot more chance of being successful than the metaverse as it was sold to us by so many companies in the past. So the idea that I can walk up to a piece of equipment and pull up a 3D model and pull up manuals and that type of thing and use it in the course of my work, not just for training, but actually doing my work. I mean, it takes that just -in -time training idea and puts it right in your hands. And I think that that's one, I think it's

It's a way to make sure that everyone's quite a bit safer when working on new gear or gear that they've only had maybe a month or two that they've worked with or something that they've worked with in the past that they're just getting back into so that you can immediately go, yeah, what lever do I pull? What button do I push here? And how do I make sure that my hands don't get crushed in this machine or something like that? That's right. And, I think it's exciting. I will show you, this is the tool that we use in my current company.

This is the Microsoft follow lens. Very cool. What you'll notice by this is that you can totally see through these lens. So you're not obscured. You're not things aren't hidden. So I can put this on, do my work and pull up videos and guides and user manuals and checklists. can have a team's call. I can pull up a call subject matter expert. They can see everything I'm seeing.

crazy. In fact, not only can they see what I'm seeing, but they can ploy to a particular valve and tell me to open it or ploy toward a wire and tell me to disconnect. You know, when you think about, you can kind of do that with a cell phone. I can put on a FaceTime call or some other type of thing. you know, I can hold it up as I'm trying to work. you know, I've occupy in one hand with my phone. I'm trying to do the repair with the other.

You know, and this works for about five minutes, but what if I have a 30 minute repair, an hour repair? What if it's going to take hours and hours to do? I want to be able to work hands free. And that's where technology like the HoloLens comes in. So it's a fantastic tool. with that in mind, what's the weight on that thing? Is it, is it fairly easy to keep that on your head for several hours? Yeah, I have it all put it on. It's very comfortable. Now, you

No one is wearing these all day long. you're gonna do your 20, 30 minute call and no point have I ever thought, oh, this is getting too heavy on my head. So yeah, it's great for that. The other thing I wanna mention is that I showed you devices like, again, this is a VR headset that is now achieving lix -tra -ality by putting these cameras in here. it allows me to see the room, but...

I'm seeing it through a camera and a screen. So I'm not really seeing it with my own eyes. You can imagine if I have this on, I don't have any peripheral vision, right? Right, camera range. But with this, I can still have my peripheral vision. I can see there were my men. I've seen it with my own eyes. So in our case, when we're working on pieces of equipment,

We want to see with our own eyes. We don't want to see it through a digital gap. and what would happen if the camera fails or something? Or even just glitches for a moment. And so we call this theme through technology. And this other one we call pass through technology. So it's pass through video. And I got to ask as a fellow glasses wearer, how is it wearing?

the holo lens with glasses. That was one of the benefits. With this, can wear my glasses, I can put it on, I can take it off, it to you, you can put it on. that's awesome. It works. I don't have to switch out lenses or have prescription lenses like I do with some other types of devices out there. In our case, we often share headsets between little bit of technicians. And so we have that ability to transfer it easily and not...

have to have people pull out lenses and pop them in and use them. That's incredible. And before I get you out of here today, going back just a little bit to freelancing, how has leaving that world changed the way that you focus on a project? as a freelancer, a lot of times folks are jumping from project to project, maybe lines of business to line of business, different industries.

What is being able to be immersed in one client allowed you to do when it comes to developing training versus your freelancing days? You know, I don't know if it might process is different, but I do get to see a project finish and then see how well it's accepted by the organization and learn from that and then make changes the next time I develop something. And so, half of it is a freelancer. You jump in, you do a project and then you're off the project and onto the next.

and you never see how it's implemented. Somebody is there to see that, but it's not you, the freelancer. So by being at a company, working on the training, you do have the opportunity to see how well it's adopted, how successful it is, and then learn what might make it better. So that's the biggest thing. Awesome. And I lied. I have one more question for you. What's the next phase

Pass through technology is there anybody else that's working on things besides you know Microsoft and their hollow yeah, Microsoft you've got meta They've got their VR headsets with the pastor video in my mind It is this great battle between the see -through and the pastor and in fact all the hype right now is with the Apple vision Pro There's a lot of excitement with Apple's coming on board It's It's flashy. It's like it's got great branding and I put it on

I tried it out. was a great experience. But again, you're seeing the world through a camera and that's not the future that I want to win out or not the equipment that I want to win out. I'd much rather prefer one of these pass through device. I'm sorry, see through device. See through, My bad. I misspoke earlier. That's incredible. So I just want to thank you for jumping on the pod with me today. I think this is such an exciting

that is just keeping, you know, just cameras keeping tabs on you so that your little character was moving just like you. Now we're in a totally different world and I think it's just a really, really exciting time. And I hope to see more companies toss this technology into the mix because I think it's incredibly helpful. So thanks for telling our audience all about this and really appreciate you coming on. Well, I've appreciated the opportunity to be here. Thank you very much.

Thanks so much for joining us this week. And as always, don't forget to like and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts and also sign up for our newsletter, the buzz to keep up with all things learning and development. See you next time.