News Bits: New Valve VR Headset, Impressions from the Boston VR Bender

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Jun 3, 2014

The Gallery from Cloudhead Games, was an early entrant into the crowd funded, virtual reality focussed game pantheon. Cloudhead were adamant that The Gallery: Six Elements would not just promise to slap VR support on a title destined for standard desktop gameplay, this game would be built from the ground up with VR Headset and Motion control support. Clearly Cloudhead don’t believe in doing these things by halves.

E3 is on it’s way (we may have mentioned this once or twice) and Cloudhead have announced information about what we can expect from their attendance this year. First up, a very quick teaser featuring fire world to be featured in the final game (see above).

VR Comfort Mode and New Public Demo

As seen in a report for Road to VR by Cymatic Bruce, Cloudhead have been experimenting with ways to lessen and hopefully eliminate motion sickness for players using VR Headsets. Their methods revolve around lessening the severity of sudden changes in orientation that feel unnatural when you have your head in the game. Watch the below videos for Bruce’s thoughts after he tried their GDC build using what they call ‘VR Comfort’ mode and Cloudhead’s own explanation video on the subject.

The team intend to release a reworked version of the GDC demo to the public very soon. As they point out, as with most things VR related, it’s almost impossible to convey just what things feel like without trying it for yourself.

Finally, a neat graphical summary of the team’s progress – a comparison of your in game avatar model from the original demo versus this year’s new and improved version.

We hope to catch up with the Cloudhead team once again when our team attend E3 2014 in just over a weeks time. Stay tuned!

News Bits: YEI Announces PrioVR Shipping Delay, New Video of Alpha Demos

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Ben Lang

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Jun 3, 2014

July was going to be ‘the month of VR’, with the expected arrival of several major virtual reality accesories from previously successful Kickstarter campaigns, along with the Oculus Rift DK2. PrioVR, the motion capture suit for VR, is the latest to announce a delay in shipping. A new video shows briefly demos that will ship with PrioVR and serve as a starting point to familiarize developers with integrating the system into their games.

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Overview of Positional Tracking Technologies for Virtual Reality

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Road to VR

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Jun 2, 2014

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positional-tracking-technology-overview-virtual-reality — Photo credit: BagoGames

Positional tracking is very important towards achieving immersion and presence in virtual reality. There are many ways to achieve positional tracking, with pros and cons for each solution. This article presents an overview of positional tracking technologies which could be used for virtual reality.

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News Bits: New Valve VR Headset Makes an Appearance at Boston VR Bender

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Jun 2, 2014

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Prior to Valve’s developer expo Steam Dev Days earlier this year, little was known about the company’s hardware R&D in the VR space. However, the now famous Steam Dev Days demo room which housed Valve’s latest development prototype, was home to some pretty staggering virtual reality experiences according to the developers lucky enough to try it.

It was after this event that the term ‘presence’ really got a foothold amongst the community as a way to describe a virtual reality experience that was accepted by your mind as an alternate reality (within boundaries of course). The unit leveraged 2 x 1080p OLED panels in portrait mode that employed low persistence of vision at a reportedly high (90Hz+) refresh rate to achieve this state of presence. The VR Headset also used an onboard camera to track special QR Codes placed around the walls to provide reportedly excellent positional tracking. In fact, it was Valve who convinced Oculus that low persistence of vision was the answer to the issue of motion blur and stuttering they’d previously attacked by extremely high refresh LCD panels.

Now, a new version of the VR Headset has appeared at a recent Boston VR Bender where Valve demoed the unit to attendees. Subsequently, images of the new headset in use have sprung up on social networking sites that reveal what’s changed.

The unit has ditched the requirement for QR codes and a camera mounted on the HMD itself for a system more analogous to the system first revealed by Oculus VR at CES 2014 with the Crystal Cove prototype (and now employed in the company’s forthcoming Developer Kit 2 aka DK2). The HMD, previously uncovered with internal components on display now sports a new external casing, covered with what look to be trackable spots on all surfaces. In the pictures, a desk mounted camera can be seen that presumably tracks the spots and provides positional tracking information as input to the experience. It’s certainly not pretty but is does mean that the prototype HMD has become portable and no dedicated QR covered demo room is required.

It’s interesting that Valve clearly is continuing with the development of this prototype despite the exit of many of their VR R&D team’s members – chief among them being Michael Abrash who recently joined Oculus VR as Chief Scientist.

Were you at the Boston VR Bender? did you get time with Valve’s VR headset? What was the experience like? Drop your thoughts in the comments below or fire us an email at info@roadtovr.com – we’d love to hear from you.

Thanks to ‘MyNonpornOculusAccnt’ (probably of of my favourite usernames BTW) of the /r/oculus subreddit for the find. You can find more info on the Boston VR Meetup which continues today here.

News Bits: Lunar Flight Creator Releases E3 Trailer for ZVR: Apocalypse, a VR Zombie Shooter for the Oculus Rift

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Jun 2, 2014

There are a few titles in the public domain which exemplify what a virtual reality experience should feel like. Lunar flight by developer Shovsoft is one such title. It was released mid 2013 and has been a benchmark for early virtual reality demos ever since. Lunar Flight managed to create an excellent sense of VR presence whilst presenting a challenging, rewarding gameplay experience to boot – something not to be sniffed at this point in VR’s resurgence.

Now, the same developer has switched tracks and are developing a virtual reality, first person zombie shooter. With the developer’s pedigree, ZVR is likely to be highly anticipated and a new trailer, highlighting what we can expect from a new playable demo due to be released during the forthcoming E3 Expo certainly looks intriguing.

The demo looks to have your character marooned inside a crashlanded helicopter with just a pistol and monted machine gun and your fists for protection. Zombies charge towards your position and you have to mow them down before they’re upon you. Since ZVR’s initial reveal, it’s clear that the animation has come along leaps and bounds as has the dismemberment system used to realistically depict zombie destruction at the hands of your weapons. It’s the kind of experience that works very well in VR and we can’t wait to get our hands on it.

At this stage it’s not clear what the scope of the game will be. Will it be a series of static set pieces or will it be a free roaming zombie survival horror, similar to that seen in Survios’ excellent Zombies on the Holodeck? The Road to VR team will endeavour to find out more when they visit E3 in a couple of weeks, we’ll bring you more news as we find it.

Major Virtual Reality Game Announcements Expected at E3 2014 Next Week, Road to VR Will Be on the Scene

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Jun 1, 2014

John Carmack at E3 2012, now Oculus VR CTO

Two years ago, a legendary programmer occupied an unassuming booth at the world’s biggest gaming show. It was John Carmack from id Software telling anyone who’d listen that virtual reality was back and that the equally unassuming black box, an early prototype Oculus Rift, was the catalyst. As more and more journalists got wind of the duct tapped demo, news about Carmack’s ‘magic hat’ began to spread very fast indeed. By E3 2012’s close, the Oculus Rift was one of the biggest stories of the show.

Two Years is a Long Time in VR

Two years on, the rise of virtual reality has soared even faster than its supporters could have reasonably hoped. In the 24 months since that E3, a long dormant industry has been awakened, and with it, the desire to harness VR’s unique immersive qualities for games. Games, of course, is what E3 is all about, and this E3 we’re hoping to see big companies wake up to the potential of VR.

Several big games are in the works for the Oculus Rift, amid a sea of indie demos and early-release titles, but we haven’t yet seen direct commitments from the AAA developer tier. Fast approaching the expected launch for the consumer version of the Oculus Rift (also known as the CV1), and post-Facebook acquisition, we’re anticipating announcements from major developers professing support for the Oculus Rift. Some will announce that they’re beginning development, while others will likely be coming out of stealth after developing for virtual reality for some time.

This will be the first E3 since Sony, one of the biggest names in gaming, jumped into the virtual reality arena. Make no mistake, they’ll be pushing their Project Morpheus VR headset as a unique-selling point against Microsoft’s currently VR-less Xbox. With Sony’s array of renowned first-part studios, it’s very likely that we’ll be seeing some major announcements of support for Project Morpheus, if only to say that the developers will be ready for Morpheus when Sony heads to market.

Which leads us to another possibility… that Microsoft will have something to show for their supposed virtual reality R&D. So far we haven’t uncovered any concrete info on what Microsoft might have up its sleeve, but you can bet that they’ll need an equal offering to Sony and Oculus at some point—maybe next week’s E3 will mark the official beginning for Microsoft and Xbox virtual reality.

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Executive Editor Ben Lang and resident podcaster Reverend Kyle will be on the ground whilst yours truly will be working full time from the UK to make sure you have a front row seat to the most important virtual reality news to come out of the show.

If you’re working on something VR related and are heading to E3 this year please to get in touch with us at info@roadtovr.com or tweet us @rtovr.

News Bits: Loading Human Kickstarter Passes Goal, Announces Omni Support with 3 Days Left

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Jun 1, 2014

The darling of virtual reality enthusiasts right now, Untold Games’ Loading Human, is a first person adventure which is attempting to pave the way for compelling human interaction within virtual spaces. Its ambition we spoke about recently, as well as the game’s recent very attractive transition to Unreal Engine 4.

The Kickstarter campaign for the new title actually passed its $30k goal a couple of weeks back, but the team have just announced that, in addition to Oculus Rift, Sixense STEM and Razer Hydra support, backers of the game can also look forward to Virtuix Omni support too. It’s an enviable line up of supported hardware for sure, although I do worry that such a small team might struggle to find time to implement them all with the finesse demonstrated by their current user interfaces. We should find out for sure February 2015 when the early access backer tiers gain access to the game.

Focus on Storytelling

One of the problems with creating a setting for Loading Human is forming a believable universe in which to immerse the player. Countless games have hashed and re-hashed various Sci-Fi tropes over decades of gaming leaving a tough task for those wishing to be truly original in the space.

The Loading Human team are acutely aware of this and released a video to explain their approach to the storytelling challenge.

It’s a UNICs System!

As mentioned, Loading Human is positioning itself as somewhat of a game changer for virtual reality gaming. As we all know, human interaction with these virtual game worlds will be the key to user enjoyment. No matter how good your VR Headset might be at achieving a sense of presence, you still have to get things done in VR and a frustrating interface could be immersion breaking in the extreme.

To this end, Untold Games have released a short video describing their methodology behind their implementation of an ‘invisible’ interface. Using cues provided by the animation applied to your in-game hands, objects held and what you can do with them should be seamlessly and invisibly (i.e. no text required) communicated to the player. UNICS (Untold Natural Interaction & Communication System) is the cheeky monicker they’ve assigned this system, take a look at it in action.

We’ll keep you up to date on Loading Human’s progress and don’t forget, you still have 3 days left to back the project here.

News Bits: Virtuix Announce Omni Shipping Delay, Teases E3 News

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Jun 1, 2014

The fantastically successful Virtuix Omni Kickstarter, the omni-directional treadmill, was one of the earlier VR related crowd funding hits. They attracted over 3000 backers and finished with a cool $1.1M, their original goal was just $150k.

Original backers who pledged against an Omni unit were given an estimate of January 2014 until their units began shipping. It was an ambitious target given the complexity of the design and sure enough 11 months after the original Kickstarter completed, backers are still waiting for their units.

The troublesome height adjustment assembly.

Unfortunately for those backers (and those awaiting the chance to by this at retail), the company recently announced further delays. This time, the team report that the design of the support ring height adjustment mechanism has been found wanting and this has halted tooling for now. The good news is that the design team have made adjustments to address the issue and that design is ready for prime time. However, this pushed a likely ship date for the Omni back to Q3/Q4 2014.

It’s a painful blow for the Virtuix team, but they’re defiant in the face of such adversity, claiming they’d much rather suffer delays than cut corners on their inaugural device and the very first commercial omni-directional treadmill to be used by consumers.

SVVR a Success! Onwards to E3.

Say what you like about Virtuix and its founder Jan Goetgeluk, you could never accuse him and the team of standing idle. Over the last 18 months, Virtuix and its Omni has popped up at just about every major related trade fair and expo there is. So, when the SVVR team announced their intentions to hold the first commercial, consumer focussed virtual reality conference and expo, predictably Vituix signed up. The recent update takes time to praise SVVR Con’s organisers:

First and foremost, congratulations to the SVVR (“Silicon Valley Virtual Reality”) team for organizing a top-notch inaugural SVVR Conference. Every company in our emerging VR space was in attendance. Virtuix was a lead sponsor of the event, and Jan spoke on the panel regarding input and locomotion in VR.

E3 is inbound very soon and Virtuix will be present, this time showing off a new experience designed to showcase the Omni and virtual really. The new demo is called ‘Amsterdam by Night’ and seems to be a simple pitch at virtual tourism.

The Road to VR team will be reporting from the show floor at the 2014 E3 Expo, we’ll try to catch up with the Virtuix team then.

Palmer Luckey on Why Building the Virtual Reality Metaverse is a Moral Imperative (video)

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Ben Lang

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Jun 1, 2014

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During a panel that I was fortunate to moderate at last week’s SVVR Conference & Expo in Mountain View, California, EnterVR’s Cris Miranda offered up a question from the audience. He asked Palmer Luckey to elaborate on previous statements that building the virtual reality metaverse is a moral imperative.

Above you can see the relevant clip from the conference, and below is a transcript of Palmer Luckey’s answer.

“…this is one of those crazy-man topics. But… I guess it comes down to this… everybody wants to live a perfect life, everybody wants all of the things that make them happy and there’s only so much stuff in this world to go around and there’s more-and-more people to take out of those things and we only have so much to go around and it’s going to be impossible to give everyone everything that they want if you’re limited to what you can physically, actually build in the real world. I think that virtual reality has the potential to take a lot of things, especially luxury goods and other things that are not long term useful items but they’re pure waste items… if virtual reality was perfect, then it’d be easy to say, ‘oh well it’s absolutely perfect, identical to real life,’ then you’d be able to save a lot of these problems.

When you have that perspective, a lot of people say ‘well you know you’re not going to have perfect virtual reality for a very long time, so until it’s perfect, it’s useless,’ and I disagree with that perspective too because, for us, sitting here in the best country in the world, you know, in the best state in this country [laughs, applause, and cheers]… it’s easy for us to say, ‘ah, you know, virtual reality is not as good as the real world, so why would I want to spend my life in it?’ But there’s a lot of people around the world who don’t necessarily have lives that are as good as ours. I think that the bar for wanting to spend a huge amount of time in VR, to have a lot of value in your recreation in VR is much lower than it is for us.

And then there’s a bunch of others reasons: I think it’s going to be incredibly useful for training, I think it’s going to help revolutionize education… for all those reasons… I think there’s a lot of reasons that you can argue that it is a moral imperative that we create a perfect virtual reality.

Just to add one more thing to that: don’t take this to mean that in the next 5 or even 10 years we’re going to have perfect virtual reality. All of this morality stuff… it’s really getting into the sci-fi realm of you know ‘what will virtual reality eventually mean to society?’ and I think it’s really exciting to think about those things, but it’s also careful to not let it take up all of your everyday thinking because it’s so far off… it’s so easy to just spend your whole day day dreaming about what virtual reality is going to do and dream about all of these amazing societal impacts it has, but as it stands there’s just a lot of work that needs to be done… better to focus on that I think.”

I’ve often thought whether virtual reality will serve to increase or decrease the socio-economic gap. One one hand, I agree with Luckey that being limited to physical goods in the real world means that not everyone can have everything they might want, whereas if you’re in VR, it’s trivial to copy a digital product and give it to everyone (economists ~~are going to have~~ are already having lots of fun with how this impacts supply and demand). On the other hand, there could be a distant future where if you don’t have access to VR equipment, you’d be at a major disadvantage to everyone else. To put this into perspective, let’s consider a contemporary example: imagine looking for an IT job in today’s world without access to a computer or smartphone. It might just be impossible.

Sound off in the comments with your thoughts.

Exclusive: Meet Totoro and the Catbus in ‘My Neighbour Totoro VR – Bus Stop Scene’ Oculus Rift Demo (download)

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Ben Lang

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May 31, 2014

my neighbor totoro catbus — My Neighbor Totoro (film)

The mind behind the Spirited Away VR – Boiler Room Scene has been toiling away, recreating another scene from a beloved Studio Ghibli film. This time it’s the bus stop scene from My Neighbor Totoro (1988), and it’s ready to be experienced in virtual reality right now! Download My Neighbour Totoro VR – Bus Stop Scene here.

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News Bits: Oculus VR Hoover Up More Talent, Cass Everitt and Brian Hook Hired

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May 31, 2014

I was quoted recently as saying “Oculus are like some crazy, out of control talent hoover!”, in reference of course to their relentless drive to suck up the best and brightest in fields related (and in some cases, seemingly unrelated) to virtual reality. Clearly the draw of this ever strengthening resurgence in immersive entertainment is awakening something in these industry stalwarts, soon there won’t be anyone left worth hiring.

This time, Oculus have announced that Cass Everitt and Brian Hook, both programmers with specialties in computer graphics and both with an impressive CV in the games industry.

Cass Everitt

Everitt has had a career in computer graphics and programming spanning almost 25 year. He worked as an Open GL engineer at nVidia for 8 years later moving on to id software, where he worked on the company’s game engine id Tech 5 (Rage, Wolfenstein: The New Order). Most recently he’s had a hand in mobile technologies at Epic (Unreal Engine) and he leaves a job as an engineer looking at “forward looking GPU architectures”.

Brian Hook

Hook similarly has held numerous posts in low level programming and graphics technologies. Starting life as a programmer at formerly pioneering GPU manufacturer 3DFX his career highlights include a stint at id working on Quake 2 and 3, Sony Entertainment Online working on Everquest 2 and the ill fated 3D Realms as a project lead – the house behind the legendarily delayed Duke Nukem sequel.

As with other recent recruitment, Everitt and Hook have strong standings in computer graphics in the gaming industry and both have links to the now Zenimax Media owned id software, from where John Carmack famously jumped ship. Zenimax is of course currently undergoing legal action against Oculus VR for alleged theft of intellectual property.

Everitt, posting on the subreddit /r/oculus, had this to say about joining Oculus VR and his hopes for the future:

The opportunity to work with John, Jan Paul, Gloria, and the gang again was a big motivation. Working with folks like Abrash, Atman, Tom F, and many more (for the first time) is a double bonus. It’s not often you get to contribute to something that has the potential to fundamentally change the nature of human computer interaction. So I feel pretty lucky (no pun intended) to be a part of it!

Oculus CEO Brendan Iribe recently stated that he believed the company is undergoing the formation of the “final platform”, a bold statement for how significant virtual reality will be in the near future – but clearly a sentiment that has rung true with people across the industry.

News Bits: Among The Sleep Ships, Receives Favourable Reviews

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May 30, 2014

Among the Sleep is an ambitiously original game from Norwegian indie developer Krillbite Studio which walked very comfortably past it’s original Kickstarter goal of $200,000 back in May of last year – eventually netting $248,358 in funds and unlocking a few stretch goals along the way. One of which was the tantalisingly titles, “Proper Oculus Rift Support”. It was one of the earliest commercial titles to pledge support for Oculus’ virtual reality headset and remains one of the most anticipated and one of the first projects I backed.

The Krillbite Studio team enjoying their first Kickstarter Stretch Goal. Ice Cream.

One year later and the team have suffered some setbacks, the last of which being an issue with the distribution of digital copies of the game via digital delivery platform HumbleBundle. Kickstarter backers have been asked for their patience while the issue is resolved, but as of writing this I still haven’t received my key so it’s probably safe to assume there remind an issue. Frustrating, but as the studio states:

We’ve just spoken to HumbleBundle, and they say they are working on getting the digital keys out ASAP! It’s out of our hands, and we’re eagerly awaiting the keys as well.

We’re so sorry about the delay, and thanks for your patience!

We’ll be in touch shortly!
– Krillbite Studio

Elsewhere, the game has launched commercially and is available via Steam, GOG and HumbleBundle. It’s received fairly wide coverage for such a small title already and the reviews have generally been favourable to mixed. A common criticism seems to stem from shallow, repetitive puzzles and a somewhat wishy washy storyline, however the game’s unnerving tone and ability to truly unsettle is almost universally praised as is the original and striking production design.

Virtual reality support is included in the release and is apparently very good with an extremely positive review from The Rift Arcade, who were impressed – despite glitches:

Among The Sleep is an impressive achievement for a first-time developer. It’s cerebral, polished and fun to play, and through the Oculus Rift headset it’s an intense experience, even with the few niggling bugs it currently has. Should you buy it now for the DK1? Yes. It’s playable, even with the low resolution display. We can’t wait to experience the game all over again when the DK2 arrives.

Interestingly, the team recently also announced that they’d been courted by Sony and their title will indeed appear on the Playstation 4 with support for Project Morpheus. An interesting move by Sony, who’s really carved out quite the reputation this console generation for a company with it’s eye on up and coming game development talent, not to mention anticipating gaming trends (virtual reality in this case).

We’ll post an update should we hear more on the digital key debacle. You can also grab Among the Sleep on Steam here, GOG here and HumbleBundle here.

Are you a backer of Among the Sleep and are waiting for you key? Let us know if in fact you gave now received one and what you think of the game. Sling a comment below with your thoughts.

News Bits: Samsung Partners with Oculus on New ‘Media Focussed’ VR Headset?

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We reported recently they Gameface labs’ 4th mobile VR Headset prototype was sporting a 2560x1440p panel.

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May 30, 2014

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Rumours surrounding a new VR Headset from the electronics giant Samsung circulated recently, originally reported by Engadget. At the time, the angle was Samsung entering the market to compete with Oculus VR, makers of the Oculus Rift. Now, the rumour has switched tack, primarily to that of Oculus collaborating with Samsung on a device specifically focussed towards media consumption rather than gaming.

It’s no secret Oculus are investing R&D into a fully mobile, Android based version of the Oculus Rift along with a mobile focussed SDK. In fact, Palmer Lucky, the inventor if the Rift confirmed its continuing development in Reverend Kyle’s SVVR ‘Ubercast’ on this very site just recently. However, no hint that Oculus even had plans to fire up partnerships such as this has ever been forthcoming, which would usually make us rather suspicious of such rumours.

Except that, the partnership details actually make some compelling sense. Engadget states that the arrangement is ostensibly an exchange. Oculus is to give Samsung early access to its current mobile SDK (and presumably some help with implementation and integration, although this isn’t specifically mentioned) and in return, Samsung gives Oculus first dibs on its cutting-edge, high resolution mobile display panels plus UI/UX help, presumably for integration into Oculus’ own software offerings.

Gameface Labs' 4th Prototype with a 2.5k Samsung LCD Panel — Gameface Labs’ 4th Prototype with a 2.5k Samsung LCD Panel

It’s well known that one of the hurdles the consumer Rift faces is finding an OLED panel capable of low persistence of vision, a high refresh rate (90+Hz) and that’s also high enough in resolution to provide the consumer Rift with a pleasing image. Reducing screen door effect as far as possible whilst increasing available image detail puts Oculus at the very bleeding edge of display technology. A partnership with the leader in this field would be an incredibly smart proposition for both companies and could mean that Oculus can deliver on its hopes for a consumer edition hitting the market more speedily, post Oculus’ Facebook acquisition.

Meanwhile, Samsung’s VR Headset seems to be developing into more of an accessory for your existing Samsung mobile phone. i.e. The imaging and processing duties are handled by your phone with the headset attaching (presumably for feeding extra orientation information) to your phone via USB. Something that the chaps at Gameface might raise an eyebrow at, but I doubt something that would worry them in the long term. However, the Avegant team may well feel differently, given the media focus of their device.

If and when we find more concrete details on the story we’ll of course let you know. But for now, treat the story as an intriguing and plausible rumour.

News Bits: Elite: Dangerous Enters Premium Beta Phase, Adds 10,000 More Players to it’s Universe

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May 30, 2014