As we reported back in January, Oculus are working hard on making sure what you hear in virtual reality is great. Their VR Audio initiative was one of the focusses of Oculus’ CES 2015 presence, where they demo’d updated applications for both Gear VR and their Crescent Bay prototype using spacialised audio, powered by licensed Realspace Audio tech.
Valve is revealing the evolutionary steps its developer edition Steam VR headset the HTC Vive took before reaching GDC 2015.
At GDC 2015, Valve and HTC are demo’ing their new virtual reality system which utilises a laser-based tracking system. We’ve got high-res images of those base stations for you now.
What happens when you take an iconic movie franchise and combine it with UE4, latest Oculus Rift prototype, and the most advanced GPU that Nvidia has ever released? Well, it turns out this combination can transport you to the halls of Erebor in Middle Earth, staring down one of the most menacing characters to grace the silver screen.
Representatives from Sony confirmed at their GDC 2015 media event that owners of company’s VR headset dev kit, Project Morpheus, will be receiving an upgrade to the new and improved 2015 prototype, a device that has made a big impression with us at this year’s GDC in San Francisco.
“Valve has been creating advanced prototype VR HMD’s since mid-2013 that are more advanced than other developers currently have access to, and this head start has allowed us to gain a ton of VR-specific rendering knowledge that we’d like to share with developers who are actively working on VR or plan to in the near future.
This talk will start with the base requirements of VR rendering, and it will progress into advanced rendering topics focusing on both performance and visual quality. First generation consumer HMD’s are expected to require renderers to shade over 4 million pixels per frame at a minimum of 90 fps. Due to the wide FOV of these HMD’s, each pixel ends up feeling lower resolution than viewing the same image on a monitor and requires better shading algorithms than rendering in non-VR.
Higher resolution rendering and higher quality pixels at much higher frame rates than games traditionally target is cause for taking a step back and rethinking many aspects of rendering. Some topics that will be covered include: efficient stereo rendering, reducing rendering latency, saturating the GPU despite synchronization points, reducing pixel cost for low-priority pixels, specular antialiasing, constrained anisotropic lighting, and other tips and tricks relating directly to VR rendering performance and quality.”
Speaker:
Ben Lang and Scott Hayden are Live Blogging this event which starts at 5pm PST. Updates should appear automatically below, no need to refresh.
Just like we did with CES 2015, I will be joined by members of the Road to VR team each night for a recap of the days events at GDC 2015. In this first recap episode, I am joined by Ben Lang and Scott Hayden to talk about their experiences and findings.
“In this intermediate to advanced session, Weta Digital and Epic discuss the state of using VR to tell rich, authentic stories through the lens of VFX”
Speakers:
Ben Lang and Scott Hayden are Live Blogging this event which starts at 3:30pm PST. Updates should appear automatically below, no need to refresh.
“This talk will provide a detailed explanation of several mechanisms by which graphics engine developers can dramatically reduce both actual and perceived latency and “stuttering” in graphics and virtual reality applications running on modern GPUs such as those powered by the AMD Graphics Core Next (GCN) architecture. Real world examples of optimized AAA content will be discussed and explained, complete with before and after performance metrics.”
Speaker:
Ben Lang and Scott Hayden are Live Blogging this event which starts at 3:30pm PST. Updates should appear automatically below, no need to refresh.
“Virtual reality is the next frontier of gaming, and NVIDIA is leading the way by introducing VR Direct, a set of hardware and software technologies designed to cut down graphics latency and accelerate stereo rendering performance. In this talk, we’ll show how developers can use NVIDIA GPUs and VR Direct to improve the gaming experience on the Oculus Rift and other VR headsets.”
Speakers:
Ben Lang and Scott Hayden are Live Blogging this event which starts at 2pm PST. Updates should appear automatically below, no need to refresh.
At his GDC 2015 session, ‘The Dawn of Mobile VR’ John Carmack, CTO at Oculus, included lots of information on Gear VR, his primary project at the virtual reality firm. He’s also now said with confidence that Gear VR will “go wide” with a full consumer launch during Samsung’s next product cycle.
As hinted at during HTC’s reveal on Sunday of it’s Valve collaboration in VR, the Vive virtual reality headset, Steam VR does indeed have it’s own specially designed controllers. This is what they look like.
“Project Morpheus not only aims to bring Virtual Reality to PlayStation, but more importantly brings PlayStation to Virtual Reality. This session will focus on updates since last year’s Project Morpheus GDC presentation, and will give developers new information about creative opportunities when designing VR experiences for PlayStation 4. Topics covered will include updated game design information, the use of PlayStation peripherals in VR, and the unique social experiences possible only with Project Morpheus.”
See Also: Anyone Who Says ‘You Can’t Do VR on Console’ Hasn’t Tried Sony’s 2015 Morpheus Prototype
Chris Norden – Senior Staff Engineer, SCEI, Sony Computer Entertainment America
Nicolas Doucet – Senior Producer, Japan Studio, Sony Computer Entertainment
David Ranyard – Studio Director, London Studio, Sony Computer Entertainment
Ben Lang and Scott Hayden will Live Blog this event from 12:30 PST. Posts will appear automatically below, no need to refresh.
A surprise entrance by nVidia’s CEO Jen-Hsun Huang, has revealed a new graphics card is on it’s way from the electronics giant. The Titan X.
On the one year anniversary of the device’s unveiling, Sony has revealed a substantial upgrade to the Morpheus PS4 VR headset, a version which they say has nearly reached its final form for a launch by Q2 2016.
