You can now register to attend Oculus’ 3rd ‘Connect’ conference, an event dedicated to all things Oculus from Rift to Touch and is focused primarily on developers and VR development.
Held in San Jose, CA between October 5th and 7th, Oculus Connect returns once again and, as before, promises to become a Mecca for virtual reality developers around the world.
This year’s conference, held at the San Jose McEnery Convention Center, aims to gather together the worlds VR developers to share the latest technologies and techniques with them. Where the first Connect back in 2014 was all about introducing creators to early VR design and development concepts and pre-release hardware, this year’s conference looks to have gone and grown up, indicating the move from enthusiasts nice to a rapidly evolving industry.
The event is offering 5 tracks offering a wide range of topics from technical to the practicalities of VR as a business.
Design — Explore early lessons of VR game design with our Oculus Studios team and top developers such as High Voltage Software, Tripwire Interactive, OZWE Games, and more. Learn about breakthroughs for FPS in VR, how to design games with hand presence for Touch, and best practices for cross-platform compatibility.
Development — Get hands-on training for how to build the world’s best VR applications, from tutorials covering the latest Oculus Mobile and PC SDKs, to workshops on top game engines including Unity and Unreal.
Business — From ideation and raising funds, to launching your first experience on the Oculus Store, we’ll bring experts together from across the VR community to discuss how developers of all sizes can find success in the evolving VR ecosystem.
Experiences — Learn VR and 360 video production techniques from the teams that brought you Henry, Nomads: Maasai, LeBron James: Striving for Greatness, and more. Explore the endless possibilities for VR across 360 video, film, art, and education.
Social — From personalized avatars to connecting with real people in virtual worlds, learn how to add deeper levels of immersion to your VR experiences through memorable multiplayer interactions.
Passes for the show start at $199 for the early bird, available for those registering prior to September 9th, with regular passes prices at $299 from then on. There’s also a student/academic pass available at $99.
Although Connect’s focus is most definitely about arming Oculus developers with the tools they need to build good VR apps and games, it’s also traditionally played host to some significant announcements from the company.
Might we finally learn the precise launch date and price of Oculus’ Touch motion controllers? The launch window was narrowed ‘Q4’ 2016 by CEO Brendan Iribe recently, and with HTC’s Vive shipping with motion controllers from day one, the absence of an equivalent input device for Rift users has begun to look increasingly glaring.
From what we’ve seen so far though, it should be well worth the wait and with Oculus aiming to ship “well over 5,000” Touch development kits by the time the devices launch, you can be assured that much of Connect 3’s focus will be schooling developers in how to get the most out of Touch.