Varjo’s Aero headset is the first from the company that’s meant to appeal to individual customers rather than large organizations… and it probably won’t be the last.
Bernard Kress, principal optical architect on Microsoft’s HoloLens team, has left the company to take on the role of Director of XR Engineering at the recently formed Google Labs. A report by The Verge maintains Google is also now gearing up to produce an AR headset that could directly compete with similar offerings from the likes of Apple and Meta.
Meta is rolling out update v37 for Oculus Quest and Quest 2 bringing quality-of-life improvements like interface tweaks and tracking support for the Apple Magic Keyboard. A new link sharing feature promises to finally make it easy to send links from your phone to your headset, making it much easier for WebXR applications to proliferate through sharing.
It’s been a while since we last wrote about Julius Horsthuis, a visual effects artist who authored a series of fractal 360 videos for VR which are simply mind-blowing—both now and back in the good ol’ days of the Oculus Rift DK2 when we first experienced them. Now the Dutch artist announced a new album is coming to VR headsets sometime this year that’s slated to throw us head-first back into his contemplative fractal worlds.
Varjo, makers of high-end XR headsets, today announced it is introducing an XR cloud streaming service for enterprise customers. The streaming solution leverages the headset’s foveated rendering to deliver high quality XR experiences on less powerful machines. The company plans to eventually allow other headsets to make use of the service as well.
Microsoft announced it’s planning to acquire Activision Blizzard for $68.7 billion, making it the largest gaming acquisition to date. Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella says the studio will play a key role in the development of its future metaverse platforms.
nDreams, the veteran VR developer and publisher behind Phantom: Covert Ops (2020), announced it’s creating a new studio dedicated to AAA VR games, dubbed nDreams Studio Elevation.
While Oculus doesn’t offer much publicly in the way of understanding how well individual apps are performing across its VR storefronts, it’s possible to glean some insight by looking at apps relative to each other. Here’s a snapshot of the top 20 Oculus Quest games and apps as of January 2022.
Acclaimed VR flight sim VTOL VR got a major update this month adding co-op and PVP multiplayer modes alongside a paid DLC featuring a co-pilotable helicopter for the first time.
Apple’s upcoming VR headset was purportedly slated to arrive sometime this year. Now according to a recent Bloombergreport, those launch plans may be delayed by a few months, potentially pushing release to 2023.
Since 2019 Epic Games (well known as the creators of Unreal Engine & Fortnite) has run the Epic MegaGrants program, a $100 million fund to financially support projects built with Unreal Engine. In 2021 the program awarded grants to 31 XR projects.
Valheim, the popular Viking-themed survival game for PC, doesn’t natively support virtual reality, but thankfully there’s a full-featured mod out there that lets you play via PC VR headsets and Oculus Quest via Link or Air Link. The unofficial VR mod has gotten some pretty substantial updates for the new year that have really rounded out the game to feel more like a built-for-VR experience.
Since we last checked in with VHVR, a number of quality of life features have been added which aim to make it feel much more like a VR-native.
Here’s a look at some of the most important features to come to the mod recently, now bringing the mod to its 0.8.1 version:
Massive update to HUD to make it more VR friendly:
Healthbar, Minimap, and Stamina Bar can now be independently moved between three locations: Left or Right hand, and a Camera locked position
Camera Locked UI elements can be moved up, downl, left, or right as well as scaled
UI elements attached to the hand can be freely moved around using a custom config menu option
Check the “VRHUD” tab of the VHVH menu options to see all the ways it can be configured
Options to move the UI elements to the original UI panel if desired (legacy mode)
Hid the hotbar
Lock the main UI panel in place when the Map or Inventory is open
More to come in the future
Updates to minimap (in addition to the VR Hud Updates above):
Important: When using the new VRHUD map, the map toggle button now toggles the minimap off and on. To toggle the main big map, you must instead use the “Quick Action” menu on the left hand.
Oculus Touch users can now zoom the map in and out by holding the right grip button and using the right joystick up/down
Map Pins can now be added by holding the “Click Modifier” (left controller trigger) and “left”-clicking on the map (right controller trigger)
Players can now ping the Minimap by holding the “Click Modifier” and “right”-clicking on the map (B button on right controller)
Fixed compatibility problem with Jotunn mod that resulted in log spamming “Unmapped ZInput” warnings and caused massive performance problems.
Fixed Bloom graphical effect, this can now be safely used without graphical artifacts on screen.
Tweak to arrow rest position on bow
Disabled roomscale movement when attached to things
Added option to avoid rotating view with lox when lox turns
Added option for “ExclusiveRoomscaleSneak” to force players to physically crouch if they want to sneak (default allows both crouching and joystick when using roomscale sneak feature).
Fixed a problem with KB&M controls where users would have to look slightly off-angle to hover over an object to use it.
Added option to disable the “Recenter Pose” where holding the controllers in front of the face for 3 seconds caused a tracking reset
You can find VHVR over at NexusMods, where you’ll also find a handy step-by-step guide on how to install. The original article detailing VHVR follows below:
Two updates released this month (versions 0.6 and 0.7) include substantial gains for users looking for a more VR-native experience. Now Valheim VR has included some of the important things mentioned above, but has also fixed things like anti-aliasing, arms not properly syncing in multiplayer, and Vive wand bindings.
Another nice touch: crouching is configurable for room-scale sneaking and a few mechanics were included such as shield parrying, stabbing, and improved fishing. You can check out the full change log here.
The original article detailing the inclusion of motion controller support follows below:
Original Article (June 21st, 2021): Initially released in February by Brandon Mousseau, not only does the mod let you play in VR in the first-person, but also now includes inverse kinematics for articulated upper body and finger animations, and a full assortment of things you can do with motion controllers. You can now do things like engage in melee combat via swinging and punching, naturally shoot a bow and arrow, hold up your shield, and fish.
There are some things that haven’t changed because of the obstinately flatscreen nature of the game, such as some point-and-click interactions like building, gathering supplies, and interacting with menus. The mod however does now include custom controls for switching and equipping items via a more accessible quick menu, and holstering and unholstering weapons, which is a big step in making it feel more like a VR native.
Check out this video from YouTuber ‘Gamertag VR’ to see the mod in action:
There are still a few caveats to the Valheim VR mod. At the time of this writing, all multiplayer users must have the mod installed, otherwise those non-VR player may see some odd behavior such as missing upper-body and hand animations. Mod developer Brandon Mousseau also says full room-scale tracking is still in the works, as all locomotion is still based on joystick movement only (see updates).
If you want to play Valheim in VR, you’ll need a few things outside of a SteamVR-compatible VR headset, VR-ready PC, and a legit copy of the game. You’ll also need to download the BepInExPack installer to inject custom code, and the VHVR mod hosted over at NexusMods.
If you’ve never installed a mod for Valheim, Mousseau also created a handy step-by-step installation guide. You’ll find everything you need there.
Thanks goes out to Twitter user OXIOXI for the tip.
Oculus Air Link is an integrated way to play PC VR games (on Oculus PC or SteamVR) wirelessly on Quest or Quest 2. This guide will show you how to activate the Air Link feature on both your headset and your desktop software.
IO Interactive revealed in November that Hitman 3 (2021) would finally be getting PC VR support, coming just in time for the game’s one-year anniversary. The studio today announced it’s launching the whole trilogy with PC VR support on January 20th.
Ramen VR, the team behind Zenith: The Last City, revealed that launch of the long-awaited VR MMO is set for January 27th, arriving on Quest, SteamVR and PSVR.
