Road to VR

For Google, the Future of VR Is on the Open Web with WebVR & WebAR

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May 23, 2017

Google’s mission is to organize the world’s information, and so they’ve been long-time advocates for the open web. At Google I/O last week, the company announced that they’ll soon be shipping Google Chrome for Android with WebVR, and that they’re going to start experimental builds for WebAR. During the WebVR talk at I/O, Google showed how to write a progressive web application with three.js that could be viewed on a desktop computer, mobile phone or tablet, or Google Cardboard or Daydream virtual reality headset. Google is pushing the hardest for platform-agnostic WebVR applications on the web as mental presence is their core strength.

Oculus Teams With Crytek to Share VR Locomotion Experiments

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Dominic Brennan

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May 23, 2017

Oculus recently published the first installment of their ‘Developer Perspectives’ video playlists, detailed on the developer blog. Crytek’s VR movement research is presented by Julius Carter, Game Designer at the studio behind award-winning VR games

‘SUPERHOT VR’ Launches on Vive This Thursday, But You Don’t Have to Wait

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May 23, 2017

superhot vr (4) — SUPERHOT VR | Courtesy SUPERHOT

SUPERHOT VR is surely one of the best pieces of VR content available today, but has remained exclusive to Oculus since launch. The developers have teased that the game is coming to the HTC Vive this Thursday, May 25th, but you can already play it today thanks to a free and easy to install hack.

‘Audio Factory’ is a Compelling Showcase of Google’s Spatial Audio Engine for VR

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Dominic Brennan

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May 23, 2017

audio factory — Photo courtesy Google

Google has released a Daydream VR app called Audio Factory, a polished and even entertaining demonstrating their Spatial Audio Engine for VR. Described as “VR’s second sense”, spatial audio is a key aspect of maintaining a high level of immersion, and all major VR platform providers offer their own solutions as part of their SDKs, including Google.

Now You Can Own a Fidget Spinner in VR, Because Why Not

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May 22, 2017

Fidget spinners—little spinning hand toys—are one of the latest fads to see explosive growth, rising rapidly in popularity faster than the most hopeful startup. With a seemingly endless number of spinners available to purchase, developer Vladimir Storm decided to make a virtual reality fidget spinner because… you know… why not?

New ‘Alien’ Multiplayer Free-Roaming VR Experience in Development by Fox

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May 21, 2017

20th Century Fox’s Interactive Entertainment and theme park arm FoxNext is building a 2000 sq. ft free-roaming multiplayer VR experience set in the world of the Alien movie franchise.

HelmetVR Combines an Oculus Rift with a Real Race Helmet

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Dominic Brennan

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May 21, 2017

Said to be the world’s first VR sim racing helmet, the HelmetVR is perhaps the ultimate in VR sim racing excess, combining a real Arai racing helmet with an Oculus Rift headset. The custom headset comes from FormulaVR, a Netherlands-based, high-end sim rig manufacturer.

Valve’s New ‘SteamVR Home’ Beta May Mean You Never Leave VR

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May 21, 2017

Valve’s new SteamVR Home Beta just launched and it represents a vast improvement on what has gone before with fully 3D, customisable environments, a glut of new social features and a fully featured Steam interface. Will you ever want to leave VR?

Watch: ‘TO THE TOP’ is an Exhilarating Climbing Game With Great VR Locomotion

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May 20, 2017

Electric Hat Games’ TO THE TOP is a vibrant, rapid-paced climbing game that demonstrates a brilliantly innovative locomotion technique that the development team claims results in “zero motion sickness”.

Watch: Sairento VR Now Lets You Brutally Dismember Your Foes

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May 20, 2017

Action shooter / slasher title Sairento VR just received a big update from developers Mixed Realms including new locations, a new enemy, AI tweaks and a much-requested feature – brutal, bloody enemy dismemberment.

Preview: ILM Uses ‘Star Wars’ Assets to Show Potential of Google’s ‘Seurat’ VR Rendering Technology

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May 19, 2017

Google’s newly announced Seurat rendering tech purportedly makes use of ‘surface light-fields’ to turn high-quality CGI film assets into detailed virtual environments that can run on mobile VR hardware. The company gave Seurat to ILMxLab, the immersive entertainment division of Industrial Light and Magic, to see what they could do with it using assets directly from Star Wars.

Oculus: Rift Won’t Be Superseded by New Version for ‘at least two years’

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Dominic Brennan

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May 19, 2017

Photo by Road to VR

During an interview at the Game Developers Conference at the end of March, head of Oculus’ PC VR division Brendan Iribe stated that the Rift will remain the company’s flagship VR headset for “at least the next two years”. The report by The Verge also discussed the company’s future direction for inside-out tracking and glove-free hand tracking.

Google Confirms Glass Team is Not Working With AR/VR Team

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May 19, 2017

Amidst a lot of exciting AR/VR news from Google this week during I/O 2017, a bit of sad news comes for any fans of the company’s ‘Project Glass’. The team within Google that worked on Glass is not collaborating with the Daydream/Tango VR/AR teams, a strong indication that there’s no plans to bring Glass forward into the fledgling era of immersive computing.

Google’s ‘Seurat’ Surface Light-field Tech Could Be a Graphical Breakthrough For Mobile VR

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May 18, 2017

google-seurat-rendeing — Image courtesy Oculus

Google has revealed a new ‘surface light-field’ rendering technology that it’s calling ‘Seurat’ (after the famous Pointillism painter). The company says that the tech will not only bring CGI quality visuals to mobile VR, but it will do so at a miniscule filesize—a hurdle that other light-field approaches have struggled to surmount.

Daydream 2.0 Platform Update to Bring Major Improvements to All Daydream Devices

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May 18, 2017

casting daydream vr — image courtesy Google

Daydream’s 2.0 software update, called Daydream Euphrates, is going to bring along with it some major changes that are set to reach down to the core of the upcoming Android ‘O’ operating system. In a AR/VR press briefing, Google told us there are a number of new systems the update will add across all Daydream headsets, regardless of whether they’re standalone or smartphone-based.

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