Oculus’ 2nd developer conference ‘Connect’ is almost here, starting on the 22nd September running for three days. For this year’s event, Road to VR are taking to the social virtual reality social platform AltspaceVR to bring you the chance to enjoy a daily virtual reality recap of everything that happened during the event, hosted by our very own Executive Editor, Ben Lang.
Himanshu Chaturvedi wanted to investigate the impact of the uncanny valley within training simulations that include interactions with virtual humans. The specific training scenario was a simulation for nurses to help them identify the signs of rapid deterioration. They investigated different avatar styles that ranged from realistic to stylized to black and white sketches. They did find that the stylized and sketches were more effective in demonstrating the signs of rapid deterioration.
Late Night Shop is a first person ‘mannequin evader’ built by Plymouth, England based studio Total Monkery. The game, which is currently in pre-alpha, is excruciatingly close to a personal nightmare of store mannequins come to life.
The virtual theater in Convrge, a VR social platform known for their characteristic low-poly style, is holding another communal livestream viewing, this time featuring the Oculus Connect 2 keynote adresses.
We’ve already seen a fair few fan-made virtual reality recreations of popular sci-fi franchise, but this latest recreation of Star Trek: The Next Generation‘s Enterprise-D starship will redefine your expectations from future efforts.
OSVR (Open Source Virtual Reality) aims to create an open and universal standard for the discovery, configuration, and operation of VR/AR devices. Created by Sensics and Razer, OSVR includes two independent components: 1) the OSVR software platform and 2) the open-source Hacker Development Kit VR headset.
Johanna Latt was at IEEE VR talking about the impact of avatar anthropomorphism on the Virtual Body Ownership Illusion effect. She found that there was some uncanny effects when the avatar looked more like a human than a more stylized robot or block humanoid.
Having been involved with Oculus from early on, Epic Games, the company behind the popular Unreal Engine, continues to expand its scope and interest in the burgeoning VR industry. Today the company has revealed the first episode in what they’re calling a “documentary series,” exploring the disruption that VR is creating in the gaming industry.
Jaunt, the company who has blazed an early trail in the capture and distribution of cinematic 360 videos, has announced yet another injection of funds, this a $65M round lead by entertainment giant Disney.
Elite: Dangerous is getting support for Valve’s flagship VR headset the HTC Vive later this year. What’s more, if you’re in the UK and heading to this week’s EGX 2015 show, you’ll have a chance to try it out.
The reasons behind the success of the ‘beach volleyball’ franchise, spawned from the hugely successful beat-em-up Dead or Alive, may always have been somewhat dubious, but Dead or Alive Xtreme is a big deal, at least in its home country of Japan. Now comes word that the latest iteration of the title will incorporate support for Sony’s forthcoming virtual reality platform, PlayStation VR – formerly Project Morpheus.
This impressive virtual reality recreation of Mad Max: Fury Road is extrapolated entirely from frames on a Blu-Ray disc, opening up the possibility for a new sub genre of homebrew VR experiences.
The HTC Vive, despite its levels of public exposure in recent months, still has an air of mystery surrounding it and in particular certain demo’s used to impress those who’ve tried it. 2 of the most anticipated (and least seen outside the demo booths) are the DOTA 2 Secret Shop and ‘Aperture Science’ Robot Repair. Developers NODE, behind the forthcoming VR title Hover Junkers, have no released the most detailed gameplay videos yet of both experiences in action, filmed using their HTC Vive developer kit.
In this, the latest in the semi-regular feature, Kevin Williams explores the wider aspect of the re-emergence of virtual reality development. In this article, he explores a resilient segment of the VR industry, Visuals and Simulations.
