Road to VR

‘Mythica VR’: VR LARP With D&D-style World Building Hits Kickstarter

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Aug 27, 2016

Arrowstorm Entertainment is what you might call ‘serial Kickstarters’, as they’ve successfully completed 13 different campaigns on the crowdfunding site—mostly focusing on small budget sword and sorcery flicks starring the likes of Kevin Sorbo from Hercules (1995) and Kristian Nairn (aka Hodor) from Game of Thrones (2011). Now looking to VR for their next project, Arrowstorm is putting together a live-action role playing game with the level-building capabilities of Dungeons and Dragons. The game is called Mythica VR.

Sketchfab: Largest Social Media Site for 3D Objects Adds VR Navigation

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Aug 27, 2016

Originally launched in 2012, Sketchfab has grown to be the largest social media website for sharing 3D objects and scenes with over 500,000 members and close to 1 million experiences. At SIGGRAPH, Sketchfab launched their VR browser to be able to navigate between many different 3D objects without having to leave virtual reality. Once inside an Sketchfab experience, then you can teleport around and change the scale. Sketchfab can import over 30 different types of 3D file formats, and is currently working with the Tiltbrush team to be able to have direct support for exporting and sharing your 3D creations on the web.

I had a chance to catch up with Sketchfab co-founder Alban Denoyel at SIGGRAPH to talk about the evolution of Sketchfab over the years, and their two big bets that there are going to be more and more 3D content creators and consumers as virtual and augmented reality technologies become more mainstream.

Survey: 78% of AR/VR Developers Not Planning Platform-exclusive Content

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Aug 26, 2016

In a survey published by VRDC, AR and VR developers are largely leaning toward platform agnostic development for their next projects.

PlayStation VR Pre-Orders Had “Quickest Sellout in GameStop’s History”

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Aug 26, 2016

GameStop executives have revealed that the last pre-order event for the soon-to-be-released PlayStation VR was the “Quickest Sellout” in the company’s history.

President Obama Makes His 360 Video Debut

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Aug 26, 2016

Felix & Paul Studios got together with Oculus Studios and National Geographic to shoot 360 video footage of President Barack Obama’s recent Father’s Day trip to Yosemite National Park, becoming the first official appearance by Obama in a VR presentation.

Oculus is Working on a ‘Chaperone’-like Boundary System for Touch

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Aug 26, 2016

valve-chaperone — Valve's 'Chaperone' system displays a virtual wall inside the headset | Photo courtesy Valve

Physically moving your body around to move through the virtual world is a great way to enhance immersion, but it can be potentially dangerous if users lose a sense of their real world surroundings. To keep users safe, Valve introduced what they call the ‘Chaperone’ for the HTC Vive headset, a virtual wall which appears when needed to keep users from exiting a safe playspace. Oculus is working on their own version of such a system which will be especially important for the upcoming launch of their Touch VR controllers.

Highlights from the SIGGRAPH 2016 VR Village with Denise Quesnel

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Aug 26, 2016

There was a VR Village again this year at the SIGGRAPH 2016 conference where a lot of experimental interactive technologies were on display. I had a chance to talk to the program chair Denise Quesnel about some of the content themes and technologies this year at the SIGGRAPH VR Village as well as the different technology trends that were emerging.

‘Obduction’ Oculus Rift Support Coming “in a few weeks,” Included With All Copies of the Game

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Aug 25, 2016

Obduction, the hotly anticipated adventure puzzle game from the creators of Myst (1993), launched on PC on August 24th, but did so before the Oculus Rift version of the game was ready for release. Now the creators say it will be a little bit longer, but eventually anyone with the game will get access to the Rift version.

‘Rick and Morty’ Co-creator & Former Epic Games Exec. Producer Form New VR Studio, Squanchtendo

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Aug 25, 2016

With a name that could only have come from the mind of Rick and Morty co-creator Justin Roiland, Squanchtendo is a VR game studio founded by Roiland and former Epic Games producer Tanya Watson to “[combine] edgy, mature comedy with refined, high-end gameplay mechanics and stories.”

Uncorporeal Claims They Can Create 3D VR Scenes from Your Photos

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Aug 25, 2016

Uncorporeal are unveiling what it terms as it’s “Holographic Photography Technology” which the team claim will allow anyone with a smartphone to create 360 VR viewable scenes with 3D parallax from a few dozen photos.

Amazon’s VR-capable Lumberyard Game Engine Sustained by AWS Cloud Services

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Aug 25, 2016

Back in February, Amazon announced that they had purchased and forked Crytek’s CryEngine and made the full source code available in a free AAA VRgame engine offering called Lumberyard. The only catch is that if you want to use any public cloud service, then you have to use Amazon Web Service offerings.

This Live Mixed Reality Solution Uses Kinect to Eliminate Green Screen

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Aug 24, 2016

This project uses Kinect depth cameras to the fuse virtual and the real to produce real-time mixed reality footage with no green screens required, all using Microsoft’s depth camera Kinect.

Free Shipping on Oculus Rift Through August 31st

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Aug 23, 2016

According to the official Oculus product page, the company is offering free shipping on Rift orders through the end of the month.

‘PlayStation VR Worlds’ Gets New Features to Improve Casual and Competitive Play

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Aug 23, 2016

PlayStation VR Worlds is a collection of VR mini-games created by Sony’s talented London Studio. The studio has detailed new features designed to improve first-time VR experiences for those showing VR to their friends and family, and competitive features to keep gamers coming back for more.

Sos Sosowski’s ‘Mosh Pit Simulator’ is Disturbing, Funny, and Unapologetically Terrible

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Aug 23, 2016

A video game is a reflection of its maker, and usually the smaller the developer team, the more clear it is to see something of its creator within. I think I caught a glimpse of project creator Sos Sosowski somewhere in Mosh Pit Simulator, a game currently in development that according to him is supposed to “bring mayhem upon a crazy world of weird humans in virtual reality.” It was bright, insane, and off-putting, and held together with spit and glue, but deeply and undeniably interesting.

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