Oculus Video Hands-On: Twitch, Vimeo, and Movies Come to Gear VR
Oculus Video received an update today for Gear VR, which delivers the much awaited integration of streaming content from Twitch, Vimeo, and purchasable movies.
Immersing Yourself in Your Favorite Show with VR and Hulu
Alex Tenyotkin is a senior design lead at Hulu, and he talks about how virtual reality went from being a passion project to being announced as part of the keynote at Oculus Connect 2. Alex talks about some of the design challenges for designing a VR cinema application, and some of the research findings from Oculus around it. He also discusses some of the unique experiences that Hulu is providing by creating custom-branded VR environments that put you within your favorite show with one of the most popular experiences of being able to watch Seinfeld from the living room of Seinfeld recreated within VR. Alex said that the expected release date for the Hulu VR app is targeted for November.
REWIND Spins BBC ‘Strictly’ into 360 Degree Video
REWIND, the UK based VR digital production company, were commissioned by the BBC to record one of the UK’s biggest shows in immersive, VR friendly video, the first of its kind for a mainstream BBC show.
‘CDF Starfighter Alpha’ Releases First Gameplay Footage
CDF Starfighter Alpha, a VR sci-fi dogfighter that successfully completed its Steam Greenlight campaign last month, has today released their first gameplay footage showing off some of the game’s physics and weapons.
Preview: ‘Machine VR’ is an Awe-inspiring Trip Through a Crystalline Fractal Universe
Produced by Dutch visual effects artist Julius Horsthuis, Machine VR is the newest installment of a line of contemplative fractal 360 videos—this time taking you into an infinite world of crenelated metallic structures that is sure to ignite the imagination.
‘Arch Virtual’ Says VR Could Transform the Entire Architecture Industry
Jon Brouchoud is an architect at Arch Virtual who has been putting architectural projects within Unity since before the Oculus Rift came out. He’s been using virtual reality for architectural clients for over a year now, and says that VR has the potential to change every dimension of the architecture industry ranging from the design, pre-visualization, engineering, inspection, and even construction of new buildings.
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Two of the most important components of architecture is scale and proportion, and Jon says that immersive technologies like virtual reality can start to accurately represent scale and proportion like no other 2D medium. Any VR developer knows that there’s a world of difference between designing a VR environment on a 2D screen versus actually experiencing your virtual world within VR. Jon says that it’s no different for architecture, and that they’re constantly surprised as to what types of intuitive insights they’ll have for improvements on an architectural design even when they’ve thought that they’ve nailed it.
One of the big early VR clients that Arch Virtual had was with the Sacramento Kings basketball team who wanted to see what their stadium would look like for the owners, players, as well as fans.
Jon talks about how Arch Virtual has been using the multiplayer features within Unity in order to start to do design reviews with inspectors, engineers, construction crew, and the clients. He says that it feels like he’s living in the future by being able to have different team members spot potential construction issues before anything has even started to be build. “It’s a lot easier to move pixels than it is to move bricks” says Jon about the power of being able to spot issues before anything has started to be built.
Arch Virtual is also in the process of creating a platform and a toolset to be able to create buildings within a VR experience. When Jon was doing the Toy Box at Oculus Connect, he mind was racing with all of the possibilities that these controllers will open up for architects being able to design buildings within VR.
Jon says that he’s never shown a client or fellow architect who wasn’t completely blown away by virtual reality, and that he feels like he’s got one of the best jobs in the world to introduce VR to the architectural industry. It reminded me of this VR architectural visualization reaction anecdote that was posted on /r/oculus by an architectural intern /u/nielzz:
The architect sat down, I explained the 360 controls and what the camera did. After he put it over his head he tried to look up using the controller, and asked me if that was possible. I told him to just look up with his head, after that it was silent for a good two minutes. He carefully walked around, completely silent. Normally this man would talk a lot, constantly and really hard. My colleagues looked up with a weird expression, “I’ve never seen him quiet”.
Then a soft “unbelievable” came out of his mouth. “I didn’t expect this, not at all”. In the period of 15 minutes, he occasionally broke the silence with: “How is this already possible? I get it now. I’m so happy I didn’t put more bridges in the main hall. I can now finally see how important it is that this wall is yellow. I’ve got to change that. Amazing that I can finally see it. This opens so much to me”. And some more reactions like that.
He finally put the Rift off his head, his eyes were in a total state of blown away. He put the Rift away and just sat there, saying nothing. Some colleagues were giggling and I asked how he liked it. It looked like my question was just some noise to him, and he replied, “Sorry, it’s just so much information that I have to process.” After 5 minutes of staring he shook his head and stood up. “I would never expect this. The building isn’t finished, and I’ve already been there. As an architect, this is cheating, my god.”
Jon says that this VR technology can indeed be very intimidating to architects who may be afraid of adopting this new technology. But Jon says that applications of VR to architectural visualization are such a no-brainer that he feels pretty confident that it’s going to revolutionize every aspect of the architecture industry from design to engineering to construction.
Jon also provided one of the more profound insights that I’ve heard about the ultimate potential future of virtual reality. As VR gets more and more to the point of being indistinguishable from reality, Jon imagines a time when there are multiple people gathering within a virtual building environment in VR and then there’s a moment when they realize that they don’t need to actually build the building. The VR version may be good enough, and so the ultimate potential of VR is that it could lead to a more sustainable future.
Here’s some more projects that Arch Virtual has worked on in the past year:
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Theme music: “Fatality” by Tigoolio
John Carmack Now Working on Minecraft for Oculus Rift and Gear VR
One of the biggest moments at last month’s Oculus Connect developer conference was the revelation that Minecraft, the stratospherically successful retro-styled social title, is coming to the Oculus Rift and Samsung’s Gear VR. Now, Oculus CTO John Carmack has stated that he’s working hard himself on optimising the title for virtual reality.
AMD’s ‘Liquid VR’ Initiative Wins AIS Lumiere Award
AMD launched its bid for technical supremacy in the VR rendering race back at GDC earlier in the year. It’s called Liquid VR, and the folks over at the Advanced Imaging Society liked what the company’s virtual reality team has come up with as they’ve just awarded them a prestigious Lumiere Award “LiquidVR technology enabling the best and fastest VR experience”.
Both GPU players are racing to ensure that their graphics silicon is as well supported and as well placed as possible to take advantage of the virtual reality revolution coming early next year, once the first VR headsets land. AMD’s Liquid VR is a set of APIs to enhance virtual reality rendering, lower latency and generally make immersive entertainment better.
AMD have been extremely conspicuous on the virtual reality scene recently – you’ll doubtless have noticed their sponsorship presence at various events, most recently of the pre-Connect Proto Awards. Their assault on E3 was also impressive, with one of the highlights their launch of the inaugural ‘VR Advisory Council’, a gathering of industry heavyweights to discuss the challenges VR technology poses.
See Also: Tech Industry Heavyweights Debate the Future of VR at AMD ‘VR Advisory Council’
The AIS describes itself as a body that “recognizes outstanding international achievement in 3D & Advanced Imaging innovation”, with its Lumiere award. AMD’s VR Architect Layla Mah (pictured) accepted the award on behalf of the team.
It’s not clear how the AIS came to their decision, especially considering the lack of any final VR hardware with which to ascertain Liquid VR or NVIDIA’s equivalent Gameworks VR. What’s more, we won’t know for certain how either offering stacks up until headsets begin to ship in numbers early next year.
Nevertheless, you can’t doubt AMD’s commitment to the space over the last 12 months, and we look forward to having the opportunity to see what Liquid VR is capable of soon.
AMD Partners With Dell on Oculus Ready ‘Alienware’ PC’s
At Oculus Connect 2 last month, amongst the myriad announcements, an important initiative by the virtual reality company was revealed, affordable ‘Oculus Ready’ PCs that meet the minimum, recommended requirements of virtual reality. Now, AMD have announced a strategic hardware partnership with Dell to bring Oculus Ready Alienware PCs to consumers soon.
Facebook Founder Confirms Work on Augmented Reality
Faceboook’s move to position itself at the forefront of immersive technologies with the acquisition of Oculus VR last year, may have implications beyond Virtual Reality. During a talk at the Vanity Fair New Establishment Summit in San Francisco, Mark Zuckerberg positively confirmed that Augmented Reality will play a part in the social media giant’s future, adding “It’s a bit further out.”
At first glance, Augmented Reality is actually a more logical direction for an immersive social technology company to pursue, but AR’s level of technical progression now sits some way behind that of virtual reality. This is partly because VR has received the lion’s share of investment and attention over the last few years thanks to it’s initial positioning as a Gaming technology.
However, despite VR’s technical requirements which have been and remain extremely challenging, AR’s mixed reality of computer visualisation overlaid into our real world poses a host of new ones. For this reason, it makes sense for VR to be the first stop for Facebook on the road for the next step in social interaction via it’s software platforms.
Michael Abrash, Chief Scientist at Oculus and long time augmented reality evangelist, said on the subject “It’s kind of seamless. Maybe it’ll be contacts [or glasses]. You’ll have something on and it’ll be VR and AR as you choose,” but on those aforementioned technical hurdles “But right now the VR tech is past the knee of the curve. For AR, it’s harder. There are a whole host of challenges — how you do the optics and displays and get photos onto the eyes, how you have something that’s socially acceptable and comfortable all day. I think VR is here now, I think AR will be here, but it’s a long road to get there.”
Watch How Epic’s Oculus Touch Shooter ‘Bullet Train’ Was Made
Epic‘s Bullet Train was one of the highlights of last month’s Oculus Connect developer conference, being one of the first triple-A titles to demonstrate ground-up support for Oculus’ new VR controller, ‘Touch’. This short film charts the final stages of development preparation in the run up to Connect and features commentary from Epic’s Ray Davis and Nick Donaldson and an appearance from Tim Sweeney.
Jesse Schell on the VR Design Principles of ‘I Expect You to Die’
Jesse Schell has been involved in virtual reality for over 20 years, and he’s also the author of the popular The Art of Game Design: A Book of Lenses. He was able to combine his background in VR and game design at Schell Games to create the very popular I Expect You to Die, which has been the top-ranked experience at Oculus for the last three months. It also took home three Proto Awards including the top prize for Best Overall VR Experience, Best Gameplay and Best Interactive Design. I had a chance to catch up with Jesse at Oculus Connect to talk about some of VR design principles that has helped I Expect You to Die to do so well.
GameStop Bringing Valve’s Steam Hardware to Stores
Hot on the heels of US game retail giant GameStop’s CEO Paul Raines announcing that “We’re going to be the destination for VR”, come news that the company has also cut a deal with Valve to stock the forthcoming wave of new Steam hardware, probably to include SteamVR’s flagship VR headset, the HTC Vive.
