At NVIDIA’s GTC event earlier this month, NASA gave a talk which revealed just how important virtual reality has become to the organisation’s Astronaut training program. This talk includes video demonstrations of NASA’s advanced experiments designed to give workers in space realistic training simulations to prepare them for the difficulties of zero gravity working and space walks.
Nine different New Revolution Virtual Reality Coasters open to the general public at Six Flags theme parks around the country this Thursday, April 21st. A couple of roller coaster veterans Six Flags who had seen every roller coaster imaginable and had ceased to be impressed by new theme park rides saw a VR Coasters demo by Thomas Wagner on a pretty mild roller coaster at Orlando’s Fun Spot America while wearing a Gear VR, and it completely blew them away. It made such a bit impression that they made a quick decision to get the technology into 9 different theme parks as fast as they could.
Nick DiCarlo is the Vice President of Immersive Products & Virtual Reality at Samsung, and I caught up with him at SXSW to hear more about the VR Coaster technology syncs their VR experience to each roller coaster, how they’re managing the logistics of Gear VR headsets, and the future of using Gear VR headsets in theme park attractions.
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I was going to go try out one of the Six Flags VR roller coasters before GDC as part of a Samsung media event, but it was postponed due to bad weather in Dallas that week. I’m fairly sensitive to motion sickness caused by visual and vestibular disconnects, and so the jury is still out for me as to whether or not these VR coasters have good enough tracking and synchronization to not cause sim sickness for those who are already particularly sensitive. Leave a comment down below if you have a chance to try out any of these roller coasters and how sensitive you are to motion sickness from VR locomotion.
Here’s some game play footage from Theme Park Review of a roller coaster on the New Revolution Virtual Reality Coasters
Here’s a 30-second promo for the New Revolution Virtual Reality Coasters at Six Flags
And here’s a 7 and a half minute documentary about bringing these VR Roller Coasters to Six Flags
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Theme music: “Fatality” by Tigoolio
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If you’re tired of futzing around with 3rd-party screen recorders to capture your Gear VR play sessions, your long wait is over. Oculus has finally pushed an update to all Gear VR-compatible phones on Android 5.0 that will allow you to record video and capture screenshots natively. The new function isn’t without its issues however, so there’s a few things you need to know before you get started.
Marty O’Donnell, a composer most famous for his beloved work on Bungie’s Halo Series, talks to Ben Lang about his new developer start-up Highwire Games – whose first title Golem is coming this year for PlayStation VR.
Insomniac Games today revealed Feral Rights, a single-player VR adventure-brawler set on a mystical island that promises to let you explore your wild side.
Insomniac Games, the studio known for series such as Ratchet & Clank and Spyro the Dragon, today announced an Oculus Touch exclusive that promises to have you throwing fire balls and wielding magic of all sorts. It’s called The Unspoken.
I was invited to cover the VR Intelligence Conference that debuted in San Francisco in November last year. It was a smaller but very focused gathering of decision-makers from a wide range of different industries where I had a chance to catch up with conference organizer Pete Carkeek to hear about some of the industry analysis highlights from the panel discussions, how the VR Intelligence conference came about, and where they’re going in the future.
Voice calling and messaging comes to the HTC Vive VR system with HTC’s Voice Services. We show you how to set it up and tell you if it’s any good or not.
It’s been clear for some time that Google’s virtual reality ambitions extend beyond Cardboard and now we’re seeing the first hints that the company will be integrating VR functionality into Android N, the next major release of the company’s mobile operating system.
Want to see your favorite classic arcade game realized in virtual reality? The makers of a VR prototype of Duck Hunt for HTC Vive are taking suggestions from the community to do just that.
Consistently a firm favourite here at Road to VR, Sightline: The Chair is an award winning ‘greatest hits’ of VR vignettes that happen to be one of the best introductions to virtual reality. The developer just released the latest version for the recently released HTC Vive and Oculus Rift consumer edition (CV1).
Today we’re pleased to announce a partnership with Amazon, the world’s largest retailer, which leverages Road to VR’s expertise to educate and inform those buying VR systems for the first time.
Milica Zec grew up in war-torn Serbia, but this was a part of her life that she preferred to just forget about and leave behind. After telling screenwriter Lizzie Donahue her story, she was encouraged to tell her story in a short film. Milica initially resisted and was eventually compelled enough to consider it, but she wasn’t convinced that film was the right medium.
She realized that the immersion that’s possible with virtual reality would be so much more effective in telling her story, and so she created Giant, which puts you in a basement with a family as there are bombs dropping outside. I had a chance to talk to Milica at Sundance about her personal story of growing up with war, the power of empathy in VR, how Giant went from an idea to having over 40 people collaborate on it, and finally how they blended live action 2D footage within Unreal Engine to immerse you within the scene.
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Theme music: “Fatality” by Tigoolio
Intone is an interactive audio-visual experience built by indie dev Dan Scott (aka ‘wheatgrinder‘), and while the experiment may seem fairly simple in concept—control the blocks with the sound of your voice—the effects are everything but. Beware: everyone in your vicinity will think you’ve gone crazy.
