The first Cincinnati / Dayton Virtual Reality Meetup was held on February 28th at Miami University and was an amazing success. Loads of Oculus Rift demos, VR Chat, PrioVR, and a massive crowd made this an event to remember.
The Game Developer Conference hits San Francisco beginning March 17th. The VR Collective will be there to cover what promises to be a pivotal show in VR’s meteoric rise.
In this presentation, given at the recent LondonVR meet up, Cymatic Bruce distills his experiences from over 400 VR demos and games to share his thoughts on what challenges virtual reality poses to developer and what can be done to resolve them.
Developer Nick Pittom has spent the last few weeks recreating a small scene from Spirited Away, one of Japan’s most successful films. From the outset, Pittom wanted to produce a faithful recreation of this beloved film for enjoyment in the Oculus Rift. Road to VR is pleased to be the first to share this excellent demo.
Those who have been following along will remember Proton Pulse as one of the best early demos for the Oculus Rift. After being mysteriously shut down over what seemed like intellectual property concerns, the game may have a chance of being resuscitated.
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While playing Minecraft on the Metacraft server with a few VR enthusiasts, I decided to hit record and host this amazing podcast.
Road to VR speaks to Mike Nichols, Softkinetic’s VP of Content & Applications, about how they’re helping bridge the gap between virtual reality and human interaction.
Cymatic Bruce here with more videos from my ‘CES in VR’ series; side-by-side 3D videos meant to be viewed in VR using VR Player. These videos feature hands on impressions of two devices that recently concluded successful Kickstarters: the Avegant Glyph and CastAR!
Karl (founder of SVVR) and I got the chance to sit and talk with a few members of the Avegant team and try the Glyph prototype. I was pleasantly surprised by their outlook and intention for the product: a plug-and-play personal media player with an irresistibly attractive form factor. Some features will be borrowed from VR (like head tracking) but are not the core functionality.
When I looked into the unit, the picture blew me away. By far the picture quality was the most impressive feature of the Glyph. The colors were insanely rich and vibrant. The image was ridiculously clear, even with my glasses off. The light is natural—I felt no need to adjust brightness, contrast, or any other picture setting. I was unable to perceive any sort of screen door, as expected with projected light. They told me that the picture was 720p, but if you would have asked me to guess before hand I probably would have told you 1080p.
These early prototypes they were showing looked and felt great. The unit was a bit heavy, and had to be held in place to get the “sweet spot”, but the sweet spot is super sweet. The sound is incredible—high end earphones for sure. The unit has diopter and IPD adjustments that are easy to modify and melded into the design. Another big plus is that the unit does not blind you to the outside world. I was able to operate my phone, a laptop, and take a drink of coke without removing the device.
The Glyph is not for everyone. It is not immersive VR, but it is certainly a compelling media player experience. I would gladly get one to replace my TV. I don’t view the Glyph as an Oculus Rift competitor, I view it as a Sony HMZ competitor—and it blows that unit out of the freakin’ water.
The creators of CastAR were at CES giving private demos, and I was able to schedule an interview as well as a peek at the newest prototype that Jeri Ellsworth put together over Christmas: the HD prototype with 720p per eye! I talked with Rick Johnson, co-founder of Technical Illusions, and then went on to try their latest prototype.
The unit fit over my glasses and was comfortable to wear. There was no difficulty interacting with the environment while the unit was active, CastAR glasses do not interfere with your regular vision. The pico projector assembly attached to the glasses did get a little warm, but Rick assured me that they would be combining and shrinking components soon that would consume less power and emit less heat. A bit more than a square meter of reflective material was set up on the table in an “L” shape, along with an IR wand, Xbox controller, and IR tracker.
The picture was solid stereoscopic 3D, very clear, and the brightness levels were good! The experience is a bit hard to describe; the picture does not fill the material entirely, but rather its as if a rectangular view port follows where you look. The tracking was good, but did get a little bit wonky as I leveled my gaze with the table. I also occluded the tracking once or twice with my wild hand motions. The tracking is positional and rotational, it was great to lean in and examine character models up close!
An exciting feature of CastAR is the clip on accessory to transform the system into a VR headset. Unfortunately the VR component was not available to demo, as the new 720p prototype has a different form factor and aspect ratio. I am certainly curious how their VR solution will compare with the Rift and other VR HMDs.
CastAR is amazing tech, and it needs a killer app. The tabletop gaming/D&D crowd will definitely get excited, there are some very cool possibilities there. Also, Rick showed a desktop proof of concept demo that was very interesting. Imagine your entire desk covered with this stuff—much cheaper than a monitor, and the added bonus of feeling like Tony Stark. I will certainly be keeping a close eye on Technical Illusions and their progress.
You already know that you can play games with the Oculus Rift, but did you know it can also be used to treat eye conditions? The developers of Diplopia have found a way.
The Avegant Glyph Beta Kickstarter has ended with just over $1.5 million in funding. The company is now accepting pre-orders for the head mounted display with a release date expected in Q1 2015. Rap legend Snoop Dogg gives the Glyph a try for himself.
It seems the long rumoured Sony VR HMD is finally set to appear at this year’s Games Developer Conference in March. But will Sony now beat Oculus to the consumer marketplace?
Oculus VR Inc has announced that Oculus Rift developer kits (DK1) are in short supply, the company will suspend shipping due to shortage of components.
Have you ever played air hockey in a space bar? Have you ever played air hockey in a space bar… while wearing an Oculus Rift? I have, and it’s amazing. Join me for a look at the Oculus Rift demo version of Shufflepuck Cantina Deluxe.
The schedule for this year’s Game Developer Conference is online, and one talk scheduled to be given by Oculus VR may give attended a glimpse of what they can expect from the long awaited next-gen Oculus Rift Dev Kit (DK2).
