Social virtual reality (VR) platform for immersive music and visual arts experiences TheWaveVR has teamed up with Warner Bros. and HTC Vive to bring to life the dance club scene from Ready Player One, being shown to visitors at the South by Southwest (SXSW) Conference and Festival starting this Friday.
Guests will be able to virtually step inside The Distracted Globe zero-gravity dance club and interact with specially designed avatars, iconic 80s visuals and music, plus the ability to fly to the music in zero-gravity. It’ll feature special live VR DJ guest performance by Tye Sheridan who will DJ his set virtually using the new Vive Pro headset.
“This is a big moment for VR. ‘Ready Player One’ is essentially taking VR performances and features we’ve been delivering to our community and propelling them into the mainstream for anyone to see just what VR is capable of,” said Adam Arrigo, TheWaveVR CEO and co-founder in a statement. “We were really inspired by the visuals of this scene, and wanted to let people experience this idea of a futuristic dance club first hand. It was such a natural fit, since we’ve been building the tech platform that already makes it possible.”
In addition to the SXSW announcement, TheWaveVR has launched a new update for its Wave Builder tool, which allows users to create their own VR venues, parties and shows. Using an ever expanding library of content from Google’s Poly API and custom visual tools from TheWaveVR, users can upload any 3D model of a scene or venue.
“The Wave Builder breaks down any barriers between audience member and artist,” said Adam Arrigo, TheWaveVR CEO and co-founder. “It provides meaningful context for VR created art, either spatially, by letting users arrange it, or socially, by letting users share their creations or scenes with other people in real time. This is a major step for us as we build the platform for artists to create and share this new type of content which is native to VR.”
TheWaveVR activation will be live at the Ready Player One Experience with VIVE VR at SXSW on Friday, 9th March, 2018 at 9:00 pm CT. The experience will be launching for anyone on TheWaveVR’s free app on Steam in the US beginning Thursday, 15th March, at 9:00 p.m. CT.
The platform launched via Steam Early Access in April 2017. Currently only HTC Vive users in North America can access the service. If and when TheWaveVR comes to more territories, VRFocus will let you know.