Lytro, the once consumer-facing light field camera company which has recently pivoted to create high-end production tools, has announced a light field rendering software for VR that essentially aims to free developers from the current limitations of real-time rendering. The company calls it ‘Volume Tracer’.
Popular American cable TV channel AMC has launched the AMC VR app for Gear VR and Daydream featuring 360 video content, movie trailers, and more.
The Immersive Technology Conference (ITC), soon to be hosted at the University of Houston on November 6th & 7th, is an event built around a paradox. Its focus—VR and AR in business and industry—is both decades old and still in its infancy. Inexpensive, high-quality consumer VR headsets are rapidly consigning the room-sized CAVEs and expensive, custom headsets of decades past to the dustbin of history, and with them, the assumed limits of what VR and AR can accomplish.
Earlier this year, Valve confirmed that LG was developing a VR headset utilizing SteamVR Tracking, making it one of the first headsets to do so outside of HTC Vive and the upcoming Pimax “8K” VR headset. While still unnamed when we first demoed the headset at GDC in March, a recent trademark filing with the European Union Intellectual Property Office (EUIPO) now suggests the headset will be dubbed ‘UltraGear’.
It looks like Fujitsu is adding its name to the list of OEMs producing Windows “Mixed Reality” VR headsets, which currently include the likes of Acer, Asus, Dell, HP, Lenovo, and Samsung.
SteamVR’s latest update to its beta branch is bringing along with it a Media Player that allows users to browse, preview and view a number of local media files directly in VR, including traditional video/photo formats as well as 180/360 degree content.
Echo Arena (2017), the futuristic multiplayer sports game from Ready at Dawn and Oculus Studios, is getting into the holiday spirit with an upcoming seasonal Halloween Bash that looks to be a devilishly fun time—a great incentive to get more people to download the game for free before the free download window expires on All Saints’ Day (Nov. 1st).
Left-Hand Path is a Dark Souls-inspired single-player VR adventure developed by Strange Company. The studio recently announced that the spell-casting RPG, which promises 15+ hours of content, is heading out of Early Access November 10th.
The Gallery – Episode 2: Heart of the Emberstone (2017) comes a year and a half after Call of the Starseed (2016), episode one in the narrative-based adventure puzzle game series. As a successor to one of the first room-scale games in existence, the second episode takes you deeper into the ’80s fiction-inspired universe and flushes out what proves to be a story as rich as the cinematic direction teased in the first. Far from being a one hit wonder, the second episode improves on the experience of the first in almost every way.
New SteamVR optical technologies now available to VR hardware manufacturers includes the use of both LCD and OLED custom panels. According to the press release provided to Road to VR, Valve’s work with display manufacturers and recent advancements in LCD technology combined with VR-specific calibration “now make it a viable technology choice for high end VR systems.”
Microsoft’s ‘Windows Mixed Reality’ platform has finally landed and the first batch of supported VR headsets are hitting the streets. I toured around the new Windows Fall Creators Update—which builds AR and VR support deep into the OS—with the Acer Mixed Reality Headset.
The Gallery – Episode 2: Heart of the Emberstone is the anticipated followup to one of VR’s first room-scale experiences, Episode 1: Call of the Starseed, and promises to be considerably larger than its predecessor. Heart of the Emberstone today launched on Steam & Oculus for the Vive & Rift, including a 10% discount bundle with the first Episode.
Felix & Paul Studios, the Emmy award-winning VR film producers, and the Just For Laughs comedy festival have launched the first episode of a new VR video project called The Confessional, a seven-episode comedy series available on Daydream and YouTube.
Adobe’s VR editing interface for Premiere Pro is now available as part of this week’s Creative Cloud release. Project CloverVR is optimised for editing immersive media within Premiere while wearing a VR headset.
With high-end VR systems priced at hundreds of dollars, it can be difficult to make the plunge before knowing what the experience is actually like. Luckily, it’s easy to find yourself a free demo of any VR major system out there. Here’s where you can try VR for yourself.
