Having been working with partners on both the hardware and software side of virtual reality (VR) NVIDIA is among the most aware of what needs to be done in order to push VR forward. It was NVIDIA last week that stated that GPU’s will need to be forty times more powerful than they are at present in order to generate photo realistic VR. It continues to work on the Holodeck platform they are developing, whilst NVIDIA Inventions, the Research and Development arm of the firm is currently looking into various ways of improving VR displays – as well as those for augmented reality (AR).
One of NVIDIA’s close partners is Epic Games (with whom they are developing an ‘Enterprise-grade’ platform for VR) and their Unreal Engine development software. Back in June the pair announced the Program’, a scheme designed to reward developers, VR and non-VR alike, who showing outstanding degrees of creativity. Providing them with the latest powerful NVIDIA hardware to continue to encourage their growth. With three winners being announced every month up until Summer 2018.
“It’s no secret that the Unreal Engine development community is capable of creating some of the most awe-inspiring real-time content with UE4.” Said Epic’s Chance Ivey at the time. “Time and time again, the team here at Epic Games is amazed by the talent displayed in projects we come across.”
September’s winners have now been announced via the Unreal Engine blog, with one in particular VR related. The project in question is called Wrench. Created by Alex Moody of indie studio Digital Mistake, Wrench is a videogame where you become a mechanic, putting together cars, preparing and modifying them to take part in various motorsports events. As you can see in the protoype trailer below it is highly technical, putting the vehicles together practically from scratch with only a floor full of parts and the relevant starting piece. It’s almost like it could exist as the videogame behind your favourite racing title.
Moody, as well as other winners Michael Banks, Tim Polyak, and Elizabeth Smith for architectural visualisation Armstrong Townhouse, and Sławek Krężel’s Dynamic Grass System which reacts realistically to an array of elements, will each be receiving a GTX 1080 Ti or GTX 1080. VRFocus will be following the further developments with Wrench, so be sure to follow VRFocus for more.