Outside of the more visible publicity surrounding announcements at Oculus Connect 2 in September, the event is of course primarily a developer focused event, designed to bring creators up to speed with the latest in virtual reality techniques and technology. As such, this year all developer sessions and talks were filmed and Oculus has just released those videos online for those not lucky enough to attend the event.
During today’s Facebook Q3 2015 earnings call, CEO Mark Zuckerberg set measured expectations for first year shipments of VR headsets.
YouTube today announced that on top of its support for monscopic 360 video that Google Cardboard owners will now be able to view stereoscopic 360-degree video as well any YouTube video in virtual reality just by toggling a built-in ‘theater mode’.
I had a chance to catch up with E McNeill at Oculus Connect about his design process for the Real-Time Strategy game called Tactera, which he developed for the Oculus Mobile Game Jam. He talks about some of the design constraints that he had by only having a single touch input, but he also wanted to simplify and streamline the gameplay mechanics in order to be better suited for virtual reality.
Lytro have today revealed plans which take the company’s expertise in ‘still’ light-field photography into the realm of VR film. The company have developed a scalable end-to-end solution for shooting, processing, editing and rendering next-generation 360 footage that allows a viewer to move around the captured scene in real time.
Linden Lab, the company behind Second Life (2003), has been cooking up their new VR-ready virtual world in stealth for some time now. The company has revealed two screenshots giving us the first glimpse of what that new world will look like.
The entertainment industry seem to be slowly realising that the next generation of fans may well prefer immersive viewing options to consume their favourite sports. According to a press release, the WWE will now bring wrestling fans closer to the action with 2 videos launching on Samsung’s own 360 video portal Milk VR.
It looks like backers of Sixense‘s successful STEM Kickstarter campaign may soon receive news of their long-awaited motion controllers. In the mean time, Sixense have released footage of the game that will ship to supporters of the campaign, an extremely cool looking in-house developed archery game which of course takes full advantage of STEM’s wireless positional input.
Blair Renaud is the creator of Technolust, and he talks about his strategy for creating different experiences out of the Technolust universe for the Vive, Playstation VR, Oculus Rift, and Gear VR. Technolust has been one of the early VR adventure games, and so Blair has been on the forefront of trying to find a good VR locomotion solution that is comfortable for the majority of users. He explains their flexible dungeon crawler locomotion scheme that they’re calling “Cloudstep”, as well as some of their strategies for overcoming the uncanny valley with realistic social behaviors.
Koreans like their horror it seems, which means that the release of this new teaser trailer for ROI Games developed title White Day will likely be welcome indeed. The title has is about to launch on IOS and PC in Korea and is now on the way for Sony’s PlayStation VR platform. What’s more, it looks mighty scary from the brief glimpses shown here.
Ever wondered why the law advises not to drive under the influence? A new virtual reality experience from the Virtual Dutchmen and JUNCTION lets you find out as it simulates what it’s like to drive a car whilst drunk, on Ecstasy, high on Cannabis and tripping on Magic Mushrooms!
Sundance Institute and Jaunt Studios announced recently a new collaborative cinematic virtual reality residency program that will allow story tellers to create unique VR-based works of art.
NullSpace VR are a startup formed from Rochester University Robotics Club who are building a haptic suit and gloves they claim will allow you to feel your virtual worlds.
We’ve seen some pretty crazy VR-focused motion controllers at Road to VR over the years, but this latest offering from UK based VRGO probably makes the top 5. A wireless motion controller using inertial input that you sit on. Their £20,000 Kickstarter campaign has just gone live, we take a closer look.
Social VR platform AltSpaceVR has announced that users can now communicate via emoji. The initial release includes six emoticons that “let you smile, frown, laugh, heart, high-five, and wave,” according to a press release announcing the new feature.
