With only 4 days left until the official end of its crowdfunding campaign, Wearality Sky has passed its funding goal of $100,000. The company will be offering trials of their 150 degree field of view (FOV) lenses in San Francisco May 1st (today!) and in New York on March 2nd (tomorrow!).
Perception Neuron, a VR motion input suit by Beijing-based Noitom Technology, took to Kickstarter on August 8th and came to a very successful conclusion, reeling in nearly $572,000, more than twice the campaign’s $250,000 goal. Now, the first an unboxing by filmmaker and VFX artist BrandonJLa has appeared showing one of the first Perception Neuron sets in the wild – and the video demonstrates some impressive looking mo-cap accuracy.
The video shows Brandon putting the system through its paces in various poses, some more challengingly bizarre than others, and the motion capture system performs admirably throughout, judging by the on-screen avatar’s actions.
The system has the potential to disrupt the traditional motion capture industry, allowing artists to gain access to the techniques which have, up to now, been largely prohibitively expensive.
If you’re a Perception Neuron Kickstarter backer, waiting for your kit to be shipped, let us know what you think of the video in the comments below.
Steam VR and Valve’s accompanying VR hardware, the HTC Vive, is on its way and with release windows already confirmed, the question is what content will be available for early adopters of the virtual reality platform? These images, found in a live directory on Steam VR’s mini-site, may give us some clues.
Some enterprising fellow over at the Steam VR subreddit has managed to unearth some interesting assets from the official Steam VR website. These images are not publicly used, but seem to provide an indicator as to what software owners of an HTC Vive can expect to be playing on their new VR hardware.
The images are merely titles and developers, but some appear to confirm not only the names of software we know is being worked, and that Valve have already demo’d, but previously unannounced titles for the platform.
Among titles such as Skyworld by Vertigo Games, The Blu by Wemo Labs and The Gallery by Cloudhead Games – all of which have been demo’d previously by Valve – we also have new titles such as Company Heroes 2 from Relic, Quar VR from Steel Wool Games and Game of Thrones from HBO. Intriguingly, Alien: Isolation – which had its VR support for the Oculus Rift pulled on launch makes an appearance and we see two new titles from Valve, Longbow and Secret Shop – speculation on the latter title may point to a DOTA2 related title.
Below, a gallery of the images, and a list of the titles and the developers referenced in the images:
We must be clear however, these images don’t accompany any official information from Valve or any other company listed above. However, it wouldn’t be the first time Steam accidentally revealed forthcoming announcements via similar methods. Previously, the silhouette of what we now know to be the HTC Vive appeared for download just prior to its announcement at the Mobile World Congress in March.
We’ll keep you posted on any verification of the leak as and when we can.
EEVO, a New York based cinematic VR video platform, is preparing to launch into the world of made-for-VR video with its Netflix-style service. Their hopes: to establish a paid (and therefore instantly monetized) service to immediately attract the most compelling premium content from big studios and Indie producers alike.
Epic Games has today announced that the company will be releasing an Unreal Engine 4.8 preview build next week which will offer support for Valve’s highly anticipated SteamVR / HTC Vive. Epic says that even developers who don’t have access to the HTC Vive headset can start building supported VR experiences with Unreal Engine 4.8.
Unity has officially joined Microsoft in its quest to render the world around us with fantastical interactive 3D imagery, an endeavor made possible by HoloLens, Microsoft’s as yet unreleased augmented reality visor. The game engine will fully support HoloLens and just like the all good things in life, it’s free.
HoloLens, Microsoft’s forthcoming AR headset, was today revisited at the company’s ‘Build 2015’ developer conference. Along with a number of tantalizingly smooth on-stage demos, the company also released a video showing some early prototypes, as well as an exploded model of the ‘mixed reality’ device’s inner workings.
Microsoft’s biggest event of the year, Build 2015, started today and amidst all of the Windows 10 reveals, the company also revisited HoloLens, the augmented reality visor introduced by Microsoft earlier this year.
Valve Software Programmer Joe Ludwig, aka one of the brains behind Team Fortress 2’s ‘VR mode’ and SteamVR, will be giving a talk at this year’s SVVR Expo on the company’s SteamVR APIs, otherwise known as OpenVR.
While other companies are busy building 360 degree camera rigs and hoping for consumer adoption, VR startup LiveLike has a unique approach which uses existing broadcast camera tech in a surprisingly effective way to make you feel like you’re in a luxury box with friends at your favorite sporting event.
OTOY, the studio behind the made-for-VR rendering software OctaneVR, has announced a contest sponsored by Oculus that aims to get the community involved in generating immersive 360-degree panoramas using their software suite. Oculus CTO John Carmack is also signing on to judge the contest which will close 26th July 2015.
Microsoft biggest event of the year ‘Build 2015’ kicks off today and with it brings promise of more information for their intriguing augmented reality headset, Hololens.
According to Epic’s Unreal Engine roadmap, the company is soon to add support for Valve’s SteamVR / HTC Vive platform as well as new features for Sony’s Morpheus VR headset.
Jaunt VR have today announced they’re launching ‘Jaunt Studios’, a venture dedicated to producing immersive cinematic experiences for virtual reality. The new studio will comprise veteran movie makers from the likes of Lucasfilm, ILM and Digital Domain and it will be dedicated entirely to the production of VR related content.
UK code shop Codemasters have today released the latest instalment in their DiRT franchise named ‘Rally‘. The game is out to buy right now on Valve’s Steam Early Access program and it ‘ships’ with Oculus Rift support out of the box.
As a huge fan of the original Colin McRae Rally series by stalwart game developers Codemasters, I was somewhat dismayed to see the franchise ebb ever further away from it’s original rally driving roots. Well, McRae fans rejoice, because the rally is back, it’s on Steam Early Access and it may be Codemasters’ boldest gamble yet.
Continuing in the wake of the company’s previous experiments in VR support with last years release of GRID Autosport, DiRT Rally has shipped with Oculus Rift integration right out of the gate. It’s an extremely encouraging trend to see from such an established developer.
You can snag a copy right now as DiRT Rally represents the first title to be published by Codemasters under Steam’s Early Access program. It’s a bold move for an established company who’s survived countless generations of traditional computer gaming hardware. The team behind the game admit to some trepidation over the decision but that “…it’s really important to us that we make DiRT Rally the best game it can be and we can only do that with your help…”
The title currently offers 17 cars and 36 stages, more will be on the way though delivered (at least initially) for free. Make no mistake though, this is no Sega Rally in the handling department, DiRT Rally is about authenticity and is refreshingly unforgiving as a result.
Obviously we grabbed a copy as soon as I could so we’ll let you know how the VR support stacks up, but (ignoring the VR unfriendly menus) early impressions are good thus far.
