Epic Games has unveiled a new feature of its VR-native development platform Unreal Engine 4, the ability for VR developers to build their applications and games from within virtual reality. Here’s what it looks like.
For the past year, Devon Dolan has been trying to make sense of the interactive storytelling landscape that’s possible within virtual reality. He comes from a world of story where he’s currently an associate at Cinetic Media, which is a well-known and very respected strategic advisory company within the world of independent film. Cinetic has brokered distribution deals for Sundance hits ranging from Little Miss Sunshine to Napoleon Dynamite. Devon recently collaborated with Michael Parets on an essay that proposes a framework to categorize VR stories into four distinct categories. Their original Medium piece was recently expanded upon in Techcrunch, and I had a chance to catch up with Devon at Sundance where we further elucidated and simplified their 4-quadrant framework for VR storytelling.
Social VR platform AltspaceVR today announced the general release of their Gear VR app—now making their software cross-compatible with both Oculus Rift and HTC Vive.
It came as quite a surprise at Oculus’ developer conference back in September that Minecraft would come to support the Oculus Rift CV1 and Gear VR. And while that gives players something to look forward to as the Rift approaches its launch, the path that it took to get it there was full of twists and turns.
Microsoft has splashed out on a promotional video designed to demonstrate its vision of a Super Bowl future, augmented by its untethered, augmented reality headset HoloLens, demonstrating how it could used in the home to enhance the football viewing experience.
The works of Chinese contemporary artist Ai Weiwei have been featured in exhibitions all around the world, and now you can step into the mind of the man himself with the new Ai Weiwei 360 experience.
You only need 10 minutes with a keyboard and mouse set-up to find out that moving around in VR is completely different from anything else in gaming. Here we take a look at some of the techniques developers are using to put you into VR, not only so you can feel like you’re somewhere else, but so you won’t be nauseous when you start exploring.
We’ve seen VR live broadcasting company NextVR cover a range of sports and events, but its latest gig livestreaming a Premier Boxing Champions event was one of the best use-cases we’ve seen yet for the nascent technology.
Magic Leap today announced the closure of a massive $793.5 million Series C investment led by Alibaba. The company has kept their supposedly revolutionary AR tech under wraps to the public, but seem to have no trouble convincing investors to pour cash into the company.
Jessica Brillhart is the principle VR filmmaker at Google working with the Cardboard team to field test the latest 360-degree Jump camera technology. She was working at Google’s Creative Lab as a filmmaker when she was invited to start doing test shoots in VR. She quickly saw the power of the VR medium, and has continued to do experiments to learn the language of VR storytelling. She’s been sharing her insights through a series of essays on Medium, and I had a chance to catch up with her at Sundance to talk more about the language of cinematic VR & her thoughts on storytelling in VR.
The latest out of home, live VR attraction to hit the UK, Virtually Dead mixes free-roaming virtual reality with live theatrical performances to bring Zombies to life in a secret East London location.
Eric Darnell got into animation in the 1980s and eventually landed at Dreamworks Animation where he co-directed Antz (1998), and then co-directed and co-wrote four Madagascar movies. He’s a storyteller at heart, and now he’s diving deep into writing and creating short VR animated experiences in a start-up venture that he co-founded with Maureen Fan called Baobab Studios. I had a chance to catch up with Eric at Sundance to talk about his process of crafting a story, and why he’s so excited about the narrative potential of the medium of virtual reality.
The VOID, the virtual reality theme park experience, has caused quite a stir in the industry over the last 12 months. Now, the company are taking their free-roaming brand of mixed reality entertainment to TED2016 and Road to VR‘s Chris Madsen got a sneak peek at the new customer hardware attendees to the show will experience.
Adventure Time: Magic Man’s Head Games is a whimsical Gear VR 3D platformer featuring all of your favorite characters from the show. Fans of Adventure Time better keep their eyes peeled in the coming months though, as the game is ‘coming soon’ to Oculus Rift, HTC Vive, and PlayStation VR.
As with the HTC Vive in late December, the Oculus Rift VR system has now made its rounds through the FCC, the U.S. regulatory body that certifies devices for electromagnetic spectrum compatibility for consumer usage.
