Reported by various news outlets and later confirmed in the latest Oculus Kickstarter update, it seems Oculus have received a substantial financial shot in the arm from two Venture Capitalist firms.
Virtual Reality promises to pull us into digital worlds and convince our brain we’re elsewhere, even if those places are dangerous. We look at Inition’s ingenious interactive VR experiment designed expressly to terrify you.
Amidst the raucous pantomime of the big-ticket Next Generation console releases from Sony and Microsoft, a quieter glimpse of the future of gaming was being enjoyed. We take a look at the reaction to what many have dubbed this year’s real next gen experience.
Blackspace is an in-development Oculus Rift game by developer Pixel Foundry that ran an unfortunately unsuccessful Kickstarter back in September 2012, long before the Oculus Rift was in the hands of developers. Fresh activity on the game’s developer blog shows initial Oculus Rift support in Blackspace — will this great looking game make a comeback?
Looking for a summary of all Oculus Rift E3 news so far? Road to VR has got you covered!
Earlier this week, the Oculus Rift 1080p prototype was shown at E3. Oculus says that they can’t reveal the name of the panel manufacturer, but we think we may have tracked it down to a 5.5-inch LG display.
Today at E3, the massive annual gaming convention, a new Oculus Rift 1080p prototype is being shown running with Unreal Engine 4. Here’s all the info we gathered so far.
Two weeks prior to their now-successful Kickstarter, Virtuix brought the Omni VR treadmill to LA to show to a room full of VR enthusiasts. The full session has been posted online. In addition to seeing the Omni in action, you’ll see Virtuix CEO Jan Goetgeluk and the venerable Simon Solotko answer questions about the omnidirectional treadmill and philosophize about VR.
Above you can see a summary video of the event. Below you can find the full event (1 hour and 23 minutes). I actually watched the whole thing — well worth it for the interesting Q&A.
Those following along in the VR space will recognize James Iliff and Nathan Burba, Producer and Director, respectively, of Project Holodeck. They stopped by the Virtuix Omni Live event to see it in person. I asked Iliff what he thought.
“The Omni is pretty cool! We are on the other side of the camp regarding the VR locomotion problem, but as far as omni-directional treadmills are concerned I think its a breakthrough solution. We built Project Holodeck based around the idea that two or more players can intimately share a space together and physically / virtually interact with each other’s avatars. Locomotion devices are inevitably isolating – which is why we haven’t favored it on our own game development. But if you want to walk / run long distances in VR by yourself, the Omni is great for that,” Iliff told me.
He told me that the Omni is a breakthrough for omnidirectional treadmills, even outside of gaming.
“Outside games or entertainment, the Omni is an a big step forward in terms of omni-directional treadmills themselves – this is something scientists and engineers have been trying to work out for decades, and this new passive inexpensive solution should work great for many researchers as well.”
Project Holodeck was originally going to use a multi-Kinect system (four, to be exact) to track player movement in their platform, but found that the Kinect wasn’t suitable for their purpose; it works well for the Omni’s purpose though.
“The use of the Kinect (or an IR camera) with the Omni is a great example for what the Kinect is good for – being a gestural interface. The Kinect isn’t animating the players’ avatar in real time, that would require much more precise tracking. The Kinect is reading broad leg gestures and translating them into keyboard strokes, which is more like what the Kinect is designed to do.”
Titans of Space is a must-try Oculus Rift demo. I just got back from a trek that I didn’t expect to be able to take in the year 2013. I visited every planet in the solar system, and then some. Titans of Space provides a sense of scale that instills wonder.
ARAIG (which stands for As Real As It Gets) is a gaming impact vest designed to immerse you in games with haptic feedback. The unit, which recently took to Kickstarter for funding, could be an excellent addition to any virtual reality setup.
Fireball Jam is a new Oculus Rift and Razer Hydra demo by Dave Buchhofer, developer of the Oculus Rift VR Playground. In this simple demo, you can toss fireballs from your hands like Mario after eating a Fire Flower.
I’ve got two Oculus Rift demos to share with you today; both funny in their own regard. First is City Quest, a 2D point-and-click adventure which may embody the most pointless use of virtual reality yet. Then there’s TATS, better known as Totally Accurate Toilet Simulator, which could benefit from a scent simulator — for immersion, if not pleasure.
A few weeks ago we showed you a mesmerizing program called Boxplorer2; a fractal exploration program which recently gained Oculus Rift support. The developer has just shared with us six fractal scenes, ready for viewing with the Oculus Rift.
New Virtuix Omni gameplay videos have popped up, but first, a big congratulations to Virtuix who’s Omni Kickstarter blasted out of the gate yesterday morning and crushed its goal shortly thereafter. Now the only question left is: how high will it go?
The Virtuix Omni Kickstarter is now live. The Omni is an omnidirectional treadmill for virtual reality which promises to let you walk, run, and jump inside of your favorite games. Prices start at $249 for a DIY kit and go up from there — quite a bit cheaper than we had previously expected.
