Now that the official website for the freshly announced HTC ‘Vive’ the new SteamVR based virtual reality headset built in partnership with Valve, we can dig a little into the onboard hardware. So far, it doesn’t disappoint.
The HYC ‘Vive’ VR headset which has just been announced at MWC a short while ago, will be available in developer kit form.
The previously shrouded image of the rumoured Steam VR headset has finally been revealed. Following the HTC World Mobile Conference press conference, the HTC ‘Vive’ looks to be SteamVR’s reference headset. This is what it looks like.
Hot on the heels of HTC’s suprise ‘Vive’ VR Headset announcement – a partnership with Valve, Owlchemy labs has teased it’s newest virtual reality IP, to debut on Valve’s Steam VR platform.
At HTC’s ‘Utopia’ event at the Mobile World Conference, the company just announced a partnership with gaming giant Valve, seemingly including the production of a new VR headset. We’re gathering info, but it seems the unit which comprises ’70 sensors’ can provide 360 degree positional tracking, it looks to include inside out tracking.
Featuring “the highest quality graphics”, the unit features a 90Hz refresh rate. No details on resolution as yet. Interestingly, the company is also promising a pair of wireless motion controllers designed to be used with the headset.
Here’s all our coverage of this new headset so far:
Unsurprisingly, the headset forms part of Valve’s new SteamVR platform, based around Steambox hardware – systems designed to bring high quality PC gaming to the living room. We’re due to find out much more about Valve’s plans for VR at GDC next week.
HTC also announced its lineup of partners which include Cloudhead Games, Owchemy Labs, Wemo Labs and Bossa Studios – all presumably working on VR experiences for the Vive.
This story is breaking, we’ll add more details as we get them.
Virtual Architectural Visualisation is one of many non-gaming applications for virtual reality, and one that’s seeing growth.
UE4Arch is a company dedicated to creating and selling hyper-realistic virtual creations that can be experienced in virtual reality. The company works in Unreal Engine 4, the cutting-edge 3D engine from Epic, which allows 3D artists to render with frightening precision and realism. The engine also provides ‘out of the box’ support for the Oculus Rift and Project Morpheus VR headsets.
See Also: Epic Games Offering up Cash from $5 Million Fund to ‘Anyone Making Cool Things with UE4′
The company just released a video and download for their latest project, a virtual re-creation of Venice in UE4 that is compatible with the Oculus Rift DK2 and it’s extremely impressive. One word of warning though, this is a demanding demo – so if you’re having trouble maintaining a good frame rate, consider grabbing the low poly version.
You can find both high and lower quality versions for download on UE4Arch’s blog here.
Cloudhead Games, one of the earliest VR studios to begin production on a project for the Oculus Rift, today announced that they’ve signed Jeremy Soule, the composer behind Skyrim (2011) and many others, to score the company’s forthcoming title, The Gallery: Six Elements.
Background artist Damien Labonte is excited about Valve’s forthcoming SteamVR reveal. So excited, in fact, that he spent his evenings over the last week creating five very impressive themed mockups of the unit. We have the entire series to share, and also heard from Labonte about his inspiration and thoughts on what the company will show next week.
One of the longest serving members at Oculus, Joe Chen will be a familar face to anyone who has followed that company’s meteoric rise over the last few years. But now, he’s moving to pastures new, jumping ship to VRSE.Works, an organisation specialising in short-form VR experiences.
Mastertronic have just released a ‘announce’ trailer for their Sigtrap developed, 6 degrees of freedom shooter Sublevel Zero, which looks to be heavily inspired by the classic PC shooter Descent.
Packing 3D pixel-art style visuals and Oculus Rift DK2 support, it looks like a blast and is sure to test your virtual reality ‘legs’ to the limit as you pitch and roll at subterranean depths blasting aliens.
The game will arrive this Summer on PC, Mac and Linux and seemingly ships with Oculus Rift support out of the box. Find out more at Sigtrap’s website here.
Is the future going to be filled with paper thin displays and touch interfaces abound? Microsoft thinks so, because they’ve been fleshing out their “productivity future vision” concept videos ever since 2009, underlining just that. But what could these omnipresent displays do that augmented reality can’t?
A new puzzler from developers Deco Digital has just hit Steam available for a limited time with 10% off.
The game has you playing the god ‘Pneuma’, traversing a beautiful, puzzling world rendered using the cutting-edge Unreal 4 engine accompanied by your own comedic narration. What’s more, it ships with full support for the Oculus Rift DK2 headset, allowing you to gaze upon the loveliness in virtual reality.
The game itself has garnered some critical success, be warned however that running the game at the DK2’s required 75FPS may prove challenging for many without high specification machines.
You can grab Pneuma: Breath of Life on Steam right here and check out the developer, Deco Digital‘s page right here.
The DAQRI Smart Helmet is a prototype in the works by a Los Angeles-based company who is approaching augmented reality from an industrial standpoint rather than a commercial one. It features thermal imaging, head tracking, motion sensing, pattern recognition, and much more.
I tried out this unique AR headset at the 4D Expo hosted by DAQRI in downtown LA that lasted two days. The relatively small conference included presentations from various industry leaders along with panel discussions and even a fireside chat with LA’s CIO, Peter Marx. Among the demonstrations, the DAQRI’s AR Smart Helmet was by far one of the most exciting technologies that the company had to offer.
On February 18th Intel held a developers lab in Rocklin, CA (north of Sacramento) in the new ‘Hacker Lab’ space at Sierra College. The event sought to teach devs the in’s and out’s of developing with Intel’s latest RealSense 3D Camera, which allows for interactive gesture input, thanks to a 1080p color camera and depth sensor. Road to VR worked with Intel to find a local VR enthusiast to report from the event.
