Road to VR

Epic Games’ Nick Whiting on Designing ‘Bullet Train’ for Interaction Fidelity

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Feb 9, 2016

BulletTrain — Bullet Train

Epic Games’ Nick Whiting paired up with Nick Donaldson again before Oculus Connect 2 to build the Bullet Train demo over the course of 10 weeks. They wanted to dogfood the Unreal Engine to optimize the rendering for VR, but also experiment with Oculus’ motion-tracked Touch controllers. They had the Toybox demo to use for inspiration, and so they set out to maximize the interaction fidelity for a game that had a lot of guns and explosions. I had a chance to catch up with Nick at the Seattle VR Expo where he told me about their design process as well as some of the technical limitations that drove some of their design decisions.

We Badly Need Episodic Narratives in VR

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Feb 9, 2016

The more I think about virtual reality, the more I start to address the reasons that I’m attracted to it in the first place. Having full interaction with a virtual environment—including virtual people—has been my goal since childhood, and we’re inching closer to a day when immersive fiction will be a reality. But while we’re bridging the gap between now and the future, where a ‘perfect hardware solution’ supposedly exists, we need to find a way for the casual, non-gaming new comer to strap on a VR headset and immediately say ‘hey. I get that!’

It’s Time We Started Talking Specifics About Virtual Reality’s Future In Education

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Feb 9, 2016

The race to explore the wide open frontier of virtual reality attracts all types. Game designers, filmmakers, and theatre artists are all trying their hands at crafting entertainment of all sorts. We’ve also seen journalists develop new ways of immersing audiences in true-life tales, and UX designers start to solve the puzzles of computing in VR. What I want to talk to you about today, however, is a part of the tech sector that isn’t as ‘sexy’ as those, but in the long run it can prove to be as important, if not more so. The subject at hand: educational technology.

‘Universe Sandbox 2’ to Get VR Support, “Grab the Moon and Hurl it Toward Earth”

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Feb 8, 2016

Universe Sandbox 2 is a physics-based space simulator from Giant Army that will soon be getting Oculus Rift and HTC Vive support, so you can build the Universe as you see fit in virtual reality—provided you adhere to the laws of classical mechanics.

Developing Coop VR Games with Remote Presence Using the HTC Vive and Kinect

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Feb 8, 2016

After featuring their new experiment which used the HTC Vive and Microsoft Kinect to the physical image of 2 players into virtual worlds remotely, we wanted to know more about how developers Jasper Brekelmans and Jeroen de Mooij had pulled it off. So, in an interview conducted by themselves, the duo share their development tips, woes and joy working in VR with the HTC Vive and Microsoft’s Kinect camera.

John Gaeta on ILMxLAB and Immersive Storytelling

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Feb 8, 2016

John Gaeta first got into virtual reality when he was approached by the Wachowski siblings to be the visual effects supervisor on The Matrix. Now he’s Executive Creative Director of Industrial Light & Magic’s Experience LAB (ILMxLAB) where he’s designing and enabling platforms that will lead to the Matrix — “minus the machine dominance” of course. ILMxLAB has a decade of story to explore within the Star Wars Universe using the latest virtual and augmented reality technologies. I had a chance to catch up with John at Sundance where he talked about collaborating with a dream team of storytellers, technologists, and theme park designers to create immersive entertainment experiences. We talk about the evolution of passive and interactive storytelling, crafting tribal social VR experiences, and the importance of including humanity and emotion within a medium that can otherwise feel isolating.

Crytek Releases First Video Dev Diary for ‘The Climb’

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Feb 8, 2016

Crytek has gone head-first into developing The Climb, the upcoming VR game featuring solo free rock climbing. The acrophobia – or fear of heights – from watching their first video developer diary is palpable to say the least.

Google’s Unannounced VR Headset Will Launch This Year, Report Suggests

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Feb 7, 2016

google-cardboard-design-lab-app — Image courtesy Google

Late last month we spotted Google job postings that heavily pointed toward the company developing its own high-end mobile VR headset. Now a new report from Financial Times indicates the company plans to launch the headset this year.

New Gear VR Games and Apps – February Week #1

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Feb 7, 2016

Got a Samsung Gear VR? Hungry for new games and experiences? We’re rounding up the week’s Oculus Store releases for fans of the mobile VR platform. This week: space combat action with Cosmos Warfare, explore the world in VR with StreetView VR, surf the web in VR with Sprawly Internet and hang out with your friends virtually with Altspace VR.

‘DCS World’ Flight Simulator Gets Improved Oculus Rift Support

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Feb 7, 2016

DCS World is one of the few remaining hardcore PC flight simulators with a major emphasis on attention to detail. I remember when a friend of mine announced excitedly that he had mastered the aircraft start-up procedure for the A10 Warthog—it took him about a week! DCS World recently received some big improvements for Rift support.

AI and the Future of Interactive Drama

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Feb 6, 2016

Andrew Stern doesn’t enjoy most AAA video games because he wants to be able to say anything at any moment within a social simulation and be a participant in an interesting story. About once week, he’d like to engage within a high agency, interactive drama with artificially intelligent NPCs. Rather than long and extended play sessions, he’d prefer a short 20-30 minute experience that he play over and over again trying different strategies with characters who feel real and plausible.

This isn’t just a pipe dream because in 2005 Andrew was a co-creator of Façade, which is one of the only interactive drama games that has natural language input and offers both local and global agency to the player. For the past couple of years, Andrew has been working with his Façade collaborator Michael Mateas as well as with Larry LeBron on a DARPA-funded AI program. IMMERSE is a gestural-based, virtual training simulation for soldiers to learn deescalation social skills in non-English speaking environments. I had a chance to catch up with Andrew and Larry to learn more about using AI to create plausible characters, IMMERSE, as well as their new company called Playabl where they’re continuing to develop their Unity AI toolkit for creating fully interactive dramas.

VRLO 3.0 Event Wrap-Up Features Autodesk, Bossa Studios, HammerheadVR and More

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Feb 6, 2016

VRLO is a London based VR event which celebrated its third outing in December, bigger and better than ever before. Road to VR‘s Jonathan Tustain was there to report from the show. Here’s a nifty wrap-up tour featuring a collection exhibitors at the event.

WEVR Unveils ‘Transport’ VR Content Network, Announces Over $25M Investment

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Feb 6, 2016

Wevr today unveiled Transport, a new VR content distribution platform that they hope will allow developers easier access to a broader market. To that, Wevr announced the results of an investment made by some big names in VR, amounting to the tune of $25M.

The HTC Vive Pre is Now Shipping to Developers

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Feb 6, 2016

The second generation SteamVR development kit, the HTC Vive Pre, was unveiled at CES in January and included numerous enhancements. Valve have now announced that the new Pre systems are on their way to developers.

WEARVR Weekly Top Ten VR Downloads – February #1

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Feb 5, 2016

Looking for something fun to play in VR? We’ve got the top 10 downloads from the last week on the WEARVR app marketplace, a cross-platform repository of virtual reality experiences.

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