Back at the end of April, word got out that Second Life would be getting Oculus Rift support. In a new interview, Linden Labs (developer of Second Life) CEO, Rod Humble says that the company is working on making Second Life Oculus Rift support a “triple A experience…”
Hey VR Heads! I am back with more VR gameplay analysis, this time using the highly anticipated VorpX software to explore various titles. Let’s dig right in!
Using VorpX was awesomely simple. Double click on the shortcut, the program quietly runs in the background, boot up your game. That’s it! I am sure that the final program will have some config options, but so far things are delightfully easy.
One of the most impressive features of VorpX is the sheer number of games it works with. I opened Bastion (2011) with VorpX active on a whim, and to my great surprise, it worked — no 3D of course — but still very cool! That led me to trying almost every game in my Steam library just to see if they would work, and how well VorpX would handle it. Over half of the games I have ended up working to some degree on the Oculus Rift with VorpX, including Tera, AKA The Exiled Realm of Arborea (2011), XCOM: Enemy Unknown (2012), and Tomb Raider (2013). Awesome!
As with Vireio, pitch and yaw headtracking gets tied to the mouse. Roll seemed to be a little bit sluggish, but overall the head tracking experience was smooth and spot on. Even in racing games like Dirt 2 (2009) and Grid(2008), VorpX provided headtracking without using TrackIR!
Although the two circles on screen look rather small, my vision was completely filled. However, I normally use C lens cups, so I switched to A lenses for a quick check. I was pleased to see my vision still filled. I was able to see a tiny bit of the black edge on the bottom, but I am sure that is something that could be easily corrected with a setting change.
I was also really happy with the way the mouse cursor was handled by VorpX. In all titles that were listed as compatible, the program provided a mouse cursor that worked properly in stereoscopic vision.
VorpX apparently uses some interesting algorithms to get a stereoscopic 3D effect from games that were never intended to provide it. The sense of depth was not as pronounced as the games made from the ground up for VR, but it was still there. As I have stated before, depth isn’t everything for 3D; parallax, perspective, and overlap also contribute to fooling your brain. In games like Skyrim (2011) and BioShock Infinite (2013), I still felt a sense of scale and wonder as I explored the beautiful environments of each game. I certainly felt immersed and comfortable — no eye strain. I could easily play for hours using VorpX.
This program makes me incredibly excited! Even at this early stage of development, a respectable number of games are compatible and playable. It is easy to use, easy on the eyes, and led to hours of fun! There are some things out of VorpX’s control: computer controlled cut-scenes and UI/HUD elements that are positioned too far out prevent some games from being 100% enjoyable [see note on VorpX’s ‘Edge Peek’ feature below]. However, these titles are just a few mods away from being VR-ready. While we wait for the first “Killer App” designed specifically for VR, we will be able to dive into the worlds of old favorites!
Editor’s Note: At the time, Bruce was unaware of VorpX’s ‘Edge Peek’ mode. Pressing the middle-mouse button when playing a VorpX enhanced title will ‘unlock’ your viewpoint to allow you to glance around the entire game’s screen area. So, any hidden UI elements or menus are easily located. Pressing the middle-mouse button once again snaps your view back to center and you can carry on playing.
Until the Next VR Experiment,
As we reportedly recently, the Virtuix Omni VR treadmill is heading to Kickstarter on June 4th. Building up to the Kickstarter the company starts the Virtuix Omni contest to give away three Omni’s — don’t miss your chance to enter!
Outerra is the stunning, in-development, world rendering engine that we’ve had our eyes on lately. After teasing Oculus Rift Outerra support with a few videos, the developers have released the first build to enable Rift functionality.
Take a flight in a wing suit, ride in a formula one car, or go on a daring course in a stunt prop plane — all from the comfort of your home. Making View has adapted their 360 degree video experiences for the Oculus Rift.
On Tuesday this week, Inition, a UK-based company specializing in the development of real-time 3D graphics applications, held an event to showcase the latest in 3D AR and VR technology. Present at the showcase was Kevin Williams, who agreed to give us the inside scoop.
Kevin Williams is the founding chairman of the Digital Out-of-Home Entertainment Network Association (DNA); he is also founder of the digital out-of-home entertainment (DOE) consultancy KWP Limited, and is publisher of the well-respected industry news service, The Stinger Report. He has been involved in immersive entertainment simulation since the 1980’s – first with virtual reality (VR) technology since 1991, working in military simulation’s entrance into entertainment, as well as working for one of the first UK VR corporations; going on to be a Walt Disney Imagineer, developing one of the longest running VR attractions. A prolific writer on the DOE sector and its technology, he also presents at numerous conferences in the sector – consulting with many of the leaders across the industry. He has recently co-authored a book on the immersive out-of-home entertainment sector that will be published soon.
It has been some years since my colleagues and I, from the then-leading VR company (Division), appeared in the pages of EDGE Magazine sporting the latest in virtual reality head mounted rigs. Now it’s 2013 and VR is hot again — and once again appears on the cover of EDGE.
I have had the honor to be one of a select few that have been linked to the development of an affordable mass-market VR platform. Since 1968, when Ivan Sutherland and his team implemented the first virtual reality system — using wire-frame graphics and the first head-mounted display — the technology industry has been drawn to develop to a system for detailed representation of virtual worlds. But it would not be until VPL Research was founded in 1984 by Jaron Lanier, and he would coin the phrase Virtual Reality (VR), that the true drive for VR would begin.
I have charted the latest emergence of interest in VR, first with a number of consultancy projects to evaluate the opportunity to drop VR back into the public space – and then with the momentum of the successful Kickstarter and initial release of the Oculus Rift.
This momentum reached a high-point this month for me, with a personal invitation to attend Inition’s ‘AV versus VR’, a special presentation for press and VIP’s of VR technology.
The two-day event was held in London, during the Digital Shoreditch festival organized to promote the innovation of the ‘silicon roundabout’ (as the local area has been dubbed in response to California’s Silicon Valley). The event organized by Inition – a self-styled multidisciplinary creative studio creating exhibitions, live events, interactive experiences, promotions and retail installations for a wide and varied clients base (the company is based in the heart of Shoreditch).
Held in Inition’s dedicated Demo Studio – ‘AR versus VR’ gathered a number of Oculus Rift dev kits in one place, and offered a chance for invited guests to appraise the system, as well as a number of other immersive platforms. Inition had managed to present innovative technology demonstrations running across the slew of systems.
A brief overview of these attending: Wizdish showed their omni-direction treadmill with Kinect tracking, Animazoo showed their new three gyro IGS Glove system with an impressively disturbing VR hand amputation experience. A flying demonstration was also presented using the Kinect to track the user’s body movement to fly round the virtual environment.
Pride of place given to a Inition’s demonstration of Vertigo – with a VR experience, using the Oculus Rift, that had users balance along a virtual ledge with wind effects. Next to this was Norwegian Making View (an early Oculus supporter), showing the Rift HMD running a selection of their impressive real world videos captured on their ViewCam system offering interactive 360 presentation in real-time, perceived by this author as turning the Rift into a modern day View-Master, and compelling representation on the early system.
Along with these VR experiences, there were a number of immersive display technologies including the impressive Dimenco 3D display – a 50’’ 4K LCD display, running a glasses free 3D presentation; along with the ImmersaVu – 160 degree display system with a 1920 x 1080 native resolution.
Inition also showed demonstrations of their recent work — a driving simulator representing the symptoms of hypoglycemia; also including the Nissan JUKE “Built to Thrill Wingsuit Experience” repurposed to use a Kinect to control the simulated wingsuit glider through a game scenario (based on their original motion base VR experience). There was also a Macallan Whiskey ‘Holographic’ Point of Sale (POS) display, and a suite of 3D printers displaying their capabilities.
To round this off Inition showed a number of Augmented Reality (AR) demonstrations using tablets to view virtual items, and a virtual mirror system representing AR connectivity on a large display.
All these demonstrations were impressive in their own right — and we could go into much more detail about each one – but space is limited and the focus of my report for Road to VR is to give impressions of the Oculus Rift, (if you would like to read a detailed report on the event, please check out our news service, The Stinger Report).
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We take an exclusive early look at VorpX, a new commercial 3D Driver from developer Ralf Ostertag which promises to graft Oculus Rift support onto existing games that were developed and released long before the Rift was even a twinkle in Palmer Luckey’s eye. How well can it work? Let’s find out.
VorpX is a new, commercial 3D driver which promises to unlock the virtual reality potential in your existing games library. We talk to its creator, Ralf Ostertag, to find out more.
As reported last week, the development of Oculus Rift support for Outerra, the ‘world rendering engine’, continues. A new video demonstrates the latest progress and sends you on a virtual reality flight in a Russian MiG 29 fighter.
The Virtuix Omni VR treadmill is headed to Kickstarter on June 4th. The company has released a new gameplay video showing the Omni in use with the Oculus Rift and Half-Life 2. Virtuix will be giving away a number of Omnis prior to the launch of the Kickstarter
Theme Park Studio lets you design your own amusement park and ride the roller coaster of your dreams; with a set of convenient editor tools for quick content creation and both Oculus Rift and Razer Hydra support, the program looks to be made for future Rift engineers. The Kickstarter goal has been reached, now Pantera Entertainment has extended funding for the ambitious project.
Fractals are intricate, infinite, and beautiful repeating patterns that are created from an equation. A fractal rendering program called Boxplorer2 recently added support for the Oculus Rift, allowing you to create mesmerizing 3D fractals which you can fall forever into.
Outerra is an in-development ‘world rendering engine’ which is literally capable of rendering a geographically detailed world on a 1:1 scale. The developers have shared with us a video showing initial Oculus Rift Outerra support and are expected to soon release support to the public.
Back at GDC 2013 I had a chance to speak with Unity’s Emil Johansen about the Oculus Rift.
