‘Project Nautilus VR’, a now cancelled Kickstarter campaign featuring an app and VR headset combo, wanted to take underwater VR experiences for Google Cardboard one step further: by actually putting you and your beloved smartphone head-first into a pool. And the thing is, it wasn’t even cancelled because of how horrifying all of that sounds.
CCP Games, developer of Eve Online, was one of the earliest big studios to jump into VR game development. After announcing Eve: Valkyrie, a made-for-VR space dogfighting game, the project has been running relatively silent. However there are strong signals that Valkyrie and VR will feature prominently at the company’s annual ‘Fanfest’ this week.
Steam VR, Valve’s platform for virtual reality applications using the Steam content portal, has been updated and brings with it support for their promising new tracking solution, Lighthouse as well as a demo application for you to try it out.
Going into last week’s GDC 2015, we knew VR would be a big deal. We knew we’d see the latest VR headsets, controllers, games, and software, but we didn’t expect to see Nintendo’s 1995 Virtual Boy headset, nor the cheeseburger-themed man toting it around the expo floor.
The Music video is a once trailblazing form of entertainment, borne in the 80s thanks primarily to the advent of ‘youth’ focussed television and of course MTV. Although the majority are merely literal, visual, commercially driven accompaniments to the music, there are countless examples which have pushed boundaries, stirred controversy and challenged audiences.
David Rosen, the award-winning composer behind a new clearly has his eye on those exceptions as he celebrates the launch of this VR Music ‘Video’, a mish-mash of anachronistic terms perhaps. Nevertheless, that’s the best way to describe ‘An Unseen Sky‘, the title given to this VR project, inspired by Rosen’s new album by the same name.
The ‘Video’ has the viewer soaring around a beautiful if bleak and empty landscape surrounded by atmospheric storms and striking vistas, of course accompanied by Rosen’s titular track.
Elemental Spark, is the developer behind the new VR experience built for the Oculus Rift, and plans to port the project to other VR platform such as Google Cardboard soon. The developer is also behind the VR sci-fi adventure Invasion 2012 which is available for download now.
Rosen’s Album meanwhile is out to buy on April 7th, you can find out more here. The VR Music Video itself, is up on Oculus Share to download and try now.
Road to VR’s VR Community Liaison, Chris Madsen, fills us in on the latest happenings in Convrge, an in-development multiplayer VR environment that’s been connecting VR denizens from around the world.
Convrge is an in-development Social VR platform that’s free and open to all. Events planned over the seven days include an EDM dance party, indie movie night, St. Patrick’s Day celebration, and the weekly Campfire Meetup. You are invited to take part in any of these events, accessible with or without a VR headset.
Two exciting non-game Kickstarters projects out of the VR community that we’ve been watching over the last few weeks have hit their goal.
In a Q&A session at Austin’s SXSW event, an Oculus panel including VP of Product Nate Mitchell and Oculus founder Palmer Luckey confirmed that their latest feature prototype, ‘Crescent Bay’ does indeed comprise two display panels.
Today YouTube announced that the video streaming service will now support 360 degree video that can be viewed in the browser or through the Android YouTube app. There’s no VR support yet, but I’ve got a feeling that we can count on it coming soon.
At GDC 2015, game developer and CryEngine creator Crytek was showing an impressive virtual reality experience on the Oculus Rift Crescent Bay prototype. But it would seem that the company has much more up their collective sleeve than a mere demo or Rift support for their engine.
After HTC’s surprise announcement at MWC and the subsequent VR frenzy of GDC, it became apparent some lucky developers had had their hands on early Steam VR hardware for some time. Two of them are Bossa Studios‘ (Surgeon Simulator) and Vertigo Games (Skyworld). The video for their recent EGX Rezzed discussion, as compared by Valve Writer Chet Faliszek, is now online.
VR is returning to this year’s South by Southwest (SXSW) festival in a big way, with sessions featuring familiar names from Oculus, and a number of key leadership from game studios and hardware companies currently developing for future VR devices.
After months of hearing about Oculus’ latest prototype VR headset, Crescent Bay, and pining after a session with the bleeding edge device for so long, I finally secured a demo with the Crescent Bay prototype at this year’s GDC. What I wasn’t counting on though, was that 24 hours later I would be thrown straight into the new HTC Vive.
Jaunt VR, a company specialising in 360 VR Video, has collaborated with outdoor apparel giant ‘The North Face‘, going out on into the wilderness to create a VR experience which captures the beauty of the great outdoors in 360 degree 3D glory.
