Felix & Paul Studios can be revealed as the creators of the Introduction to VR 3D 360° virtual reality cinematic experience commissioned by Samsung and Oculus to come bundled with the Samsung Gear VR.
Darkfield VR is one of the earliest members of a new resurgence in the Space Combat genre – seemingly brought back from the dead with the advent of the Oculus Rift. It’s a pure multiplayer dogfighting game which pitches you against electronic or human foes as you battle for supremacy among the stars. I caught up with the developers, VR Bits, at Gamescom in Cologne this year to have a look at the latest build and to find out more. Plus the Darkfield VR Kickstarter launches.
VRClay is a recently revealed piece of digital sculpting software which utilizes the Oculus Rift and Razer Hydra motion controller to create 3D models in no time at all.
At Oculus Connect last weekend I spoke with the company’s Head of Mobile, Max Cohen, who confirmed that Oculus plans to release its Android mobile SDK in early October. Gear VR, which runs virtual reality games and experienced built with the Oculus mobile SDK, will launch this fall, according to the Oculus website.
We recently went into detail in an interview with Striker VR, a company working on a powerful gun recoil technology for virtual reality. Not shown in that interview was the company’s pistol prototype which felt to have even more satisfying recoil by my testing than their rifle (which was already impressive). Rather than design a weapon from scratch, Striker VR grabbed a freely available digital model of Halo’s famous M6 Magnum to build out the prototype.
At Oculus Connect 2014 last weekend in Hollywood, CA, I spoke with Oculus VR’s Head of Mobile, Max Cohen, about his work on the Android SDK and Samsung’s Gear VR. Among other topics, Cohen noted that Gear VR is meant for shorter virtual reality experiences than we might find on desktop VR.
There are two sorts of people in this world: those that have listened to John Carmack talk and those who are unenlightened. One of the key minds behind Doom and Quake is a most unlikely orator, but one who has the ability to hold the attention of a room full of geeks like no other. Anyone who’s witnessed his unscripted, unprompted streams of consciousness from his legendary Quakecon keynotes will know this, and for his inaugural talk as CTO of Oculus at their first developer event, ‘Connect’, he pulled no punches.
A previously unknown virtual reality software title, Tilt Brush, went home with the Proto Award for Best GUI (graphical user interface) thanks to its innovative virtual reality interface. The software uses a gaze-based interface that allows users to paint in 3D and even use the Oculus Rift DK2’s positional tracking for brush input.
At the first ever Proto Awards last week, Zombies on the Holodeck, developed by Survios, took home three awards including Best Overall. The event was a resounding success, honoring innovative work happening in the young VR industry. Nvidia, one of the sponsor of the event, sent winners home with brand new GeForce GTX 980 graphics cards.
Having open-sourced the design and software that powered their first VR headset, Oculus shares 5 key ingredients that it believes are the baseline for achieving Presence in virtual reality.
After the success of the SVVR UBERCast, the folks who stayed at the VR Beach House decided that it was necessary to do it again, this time calling it the Oculus Connect ULTRACast. A great group of well-known developers and personalities in the VR community joined in and despite the ridiculous timing (Sunday at 2am), it turned out to be a great conversation.
At Oculus Connect, CEO Brendan Iribe took to the stage to talk about the company’s recent work, including their collaboration on Samsung’s Gear VR headset. During the presentation, Iribe showed photos of 8 previously unseen Gear VR prototypes.
Though Oculus didn’t initially allow photos or video to be taken of the new Crystal Bay prototype, the company has now released some images of the headset in use.
We’ve written about Striker VR and their electrically driven weapon recoil system previously, but it wasn’t until I met up with the company at Oculus Connect two days ago that I was able to try the system for myself. After 10 seconds of testing, I was sold.
During a session at Oculus Connect, the company released the totality of the Oculus Rift DK1 plans to the public. Under an open-source license, anyone can now freely download the blueprints of the company’s first VR headset and even manufacture their own.
