Microsoft’s after-holiday sale has one of the best HTC Vive deals we’ve seen yet, offering $100 off of the headset’s original price along with an additional $100 gift card to the Microsoft Store.
Various stores have been offering $100 off of the HTC Vive in sales sporadically throughout the holiday season, but now Microsoft is doubling down on the offer with a $100 discount and throwing in a $100 gift card.
The $100 HTC Vive discount brings the VR system down from $800 to $700. Your purchase will also come with a $100 gift card to the Microsoft Store, which sells a wide variety of electronics from the company and beyond, and you’ll get free shipping. The deal also the same game bundle that comes with most Vive purchases, which includes The Gallery – Episode 1: Call of the Starseed and Zombie Training Simulator.
VR is so new that one of the regular activities of VR headset owners is introducing other people to the technology. Usually that means putting one person in a headset and standing around while they take their turn. But a few great VR party games let people both inside and outside of VR participate in the fun, and you only need one headset!
In Keep Talking and Nobody Explodes, the player wearing the VR headset will find themselves sitting alone in a room with ticking time bomb in front of them. The bomb has a series of ‘modules’ which are miniature puzzles that must be solved in order to disarm it. The only problem is that the headset player doesn’t have the bomb defusal manual…. That’s where the other players come in: using a smartphone, computer, or even a printed copy, anyone not in the headset can access the 23 page bomb defusal document in order to aid in disarming the bomb.
The player in the VR headset has to relay information to those outside of the headset, and vice versa. The non-headset players will us the given information along with a series of increasingly complex instructions in the manual in an effort to guide the headset-wearer through the correct defusal procedure. Any incorrect moves mean a strike, and three strikes means you’re out (and by “out” I mean dead). There’s also that darn timer which doesn’t care how many strikes you have, it’ll blow the bomb once it hits 0:00.
The game is a blast (pun potentially intended, depending upon how good you are), and offers fun for a wide range of people, even those who are not experienced gamers or may not have any interest in putting on a VR headset. Because it has discrete levels (and failures), it creates a natural flow of passing the VR headset around; once a bomb is disarmed or blows up in someone’s face, that’s a good time to give the next person a turn with the headset. For adult gatherings, there’s also clear potential for a fun drinking game involving exploding bombs and shots.
Get a few friends with Xbox One gamepads, because this asymmetrical game lets a single VR player take on the role of the a giant-sized ‘seeker’ who must identify and hunt down up to four rogue androids – played by your friends of course.
While the seeker is sifting through the untold number of androids milling about the factory floor, rogue bots must try to blend in and scramble to switch off the control panels located around the factory and shut the facility down and win the match. Plenty of creative buffs help keep things interesting, so get ready for plenty of screaming.
Initially released back in May 2017, the developer Polymerse just completed an extensive overhaul of the game that’s improved match customizations, visuals and some of the sore spots related to the game’s AI and radar detection.
VR Pictionary with Tilt Brush or Quill
Available on: SteamVR (HTC Vive) or Oculus Home (Rift + Touch)
Pictionary is a classic board game where players receive a word and must draw a picture in order to get another player to correctly guess the word from the picture alone. Taking this concept and applying it to VR opens up a new realm of possibilities thanks to VR paint apps which let you draw in 3D with different colors, brushes, and effects. No matter which of the below platforms you’re playing on, you can play in teams (usually pairs) who compete for the high score, or a free-for-all, where everyone tries to guess at once and the correct guesser gets a point.
Tilt Brush (HTC Vive)
Tilt Brush, available for on SteamVR for the HTC Vive, has its own Pictionary functionality built-in (called Tiltasarus). Launch the game and rotate the Tools panel until you find the ‘experimental’ menu, then find the icon for Tiltasarus. Inside the headset you’ll be presented with a category and a word, but players outside the headset won’t be able to see it (even on the external screen). The player can then use Tilt Brush to draw the word and have everyone else look at the screen to guess what it is. You’ll want to set up your external screen (or maybe even connect to a big TV) in a central location to make it easy for non-VR players to gather around.
If you’ve got Oculus Touch you’ll also have free access to Quill on Oculus Home. Unlike Tilt Brush, Quill doesn’t have its own built-in word generator, so you’ll need to give the drawer a word before they put on the headset. The Game Gal has a handy free Pictionary word generator that also lets you configure difficulty or category.
Just like with Tilt Brush, you’ll want to make sure your external screen is set up somewhere that makes it easy for the guessers to gather around and see the drawing.
The Playroom VR
Available on: PlayStation VR
PlayStation VR comes free with the excellent Playroom VR, which includes a series of mini VR party games. For the most part you’ll need a few extra PS4 controllers on hand, but at least one of the games only requires one controller.
You’ll get to chase your friends as a giant monster, hide as mice from a vicious cat, go ghost busting, and more. Some of the games are cooperative and others are competitive, offering a great mix of teamwork and versus play. The Playroom VR is a no-brainer for VR party gaming on PSVR and as an introduction for new VR players.
A new update to popular Social VR app Rec Room adds a new invite-only space where friends can gather to play new activities in a private space. And now, players can host their own invite-only activities.
Normally, when you load into Rec Room, you’ll join a randomly selected lobby full of strangers. When you go to partake in one of the programs many activities—like paintball or frisbee golf—you’ll also be put into a game full of strangers. While meeting new people this way can be fun, one major draw of Rec Room is its ability to connect people who already know each other by other means. A new update to the game now makes that much easier.
New Invite-Only activities allow you to create a private instance of any one of the game’s activities and then invite people from your friends list. So now you can have a private game of paintball to settle that grudge between your friends.
Invite-Only activities are hosted easily using the game’s watch menu. Now, in the same place where you would normally join an activity, you’ll find a new ‘Create’ button to start a new private instance of that activity.
The Lounge
The Lounge goes hand-in-hand with the new Invite-Only system. This is an Invite-Only space that itself has a few mini games inside. Unlike Rec Room’s other activities, the Lounge can only be accessed as a private space.
Once you fire up the Lounge, you can invite friends to join. Inside you’ll find a deck of playing cards, a white board, a ping pong table, dart board, and a pile of word cards for pictionary using the game’s ‘3D Pen’, which lets you draw in the air like Tilt Brush. What you do with these tools us up to you and your compatriots.
After you get the obvious poker and hang-man out of your system, I’m sure there’s some inventive fun to be had by mixing it all together, and we’ll be excited to see what ‘home-made’ games the community comes up with.
VFX professional Kert Gartner has been pioneering new ways to make capturing virtual worlds as compelling as filming in the real world. His latest technique makes a real virtual camera out of an extra Vive controller and a smartphone.
To get the feel of ‘real world’ cinematography in VR, you need to be able to manipulate the virtual camera just like real world cinematographers manipulate real cameras. Often times that means handheld cameras that are up close to the action. Gartner has been emulating that handheld camera look by smartly using a third Vive controller to manipulate a virtual camera inside the virtual world. But filming this way is difficult because the controller doesn’t have a viewfinder, meaning that seeing what it’s pointed at requires looking at some distant monitor on the periphery of the of the action.
Now Gartner has solved that problem by using a smartphone to act as the viewfinder for the virtual camera, allowing him to see exactly what the virtual camera sees as he films:
The foundation of the technique requires a custom build of whatever VR experience is being filmed; one which is able to project multiple camera views in a single frame, including an angle which will be the view of a virtual camera which is “attached” to an extra Vive controller. Rendering out a 4k frame divided into multiple views means that each view can still be captured at a sharp 1920×1080 by cropping away the other views. Capturing all views at once gives the editor the ability to chose from multiple viewpoints of the same shot in post processing, without the cinematographer needing to do multiple takes from different angles.
The next step is to affix a smartphone to the Vive controller. In this case, Gartner whipped up a simple rig with a vertical grip for easy capturing, but I imagine it would be almost as easy to connect the smartphone directly to the Vive controller (just don’t block the tracking receivers!).
From there, Gartner employs the jsmpeg-vnc utility which allows him to stream a selectable crop of the monitor to a web server which allows it to be viewed easily by visiting a URL on the smartphone. This gives him a viewfinder which shows exactly what the virtual camera sees.
Altogether, the rig now works like a handheld camera, except instead of filming the real world, his viewfinder shows a portal into the virtual reality world. Even rendering multiple views at 4k and running the screen streaming and capturing software, Gartner says the whole system is still hitting the crucial 90 FPS figure (no doubt thanks to a powerful PC managing it all).
Praise to Gartner indeed for this smart solution, though many will know that technique isn’t brand new; the use of real-time digital visuals with a virtual camera and viewfinder has been seen in high-end film and game production, notably on Avatar (2009), Halo Reach (2010), and Uncharted 4 (2016) but Gartner’s system is tremendously less expensive, using just a PC, HTC Vive, extra Vive controller, and some streaming software; that puts it in the realm of practicality for many VR developers.
We expect to see this technique further developed for the production of high-end VR trailers, and even for big livestreaming VR shoots. Hooking the Vive controller and smartphone viewfinder up to a Steadicam rig could give a cool high-end film look. We can also imagine a more realistic virtual camera model offering complex adjustments like focal length, exposure, and manipulation of lens characteristics, all controllable in real time from the touchscreen of the smartphone viewfinder.
Giroptic, creator of the standalone ‘360cam’, today announced the launch of the iO 360 camera which attaches to any Lightning-enabled iPhone or iPad.
The Giroptic iO 360 camera for iPhone/iPad is available starting today for $250. With two counter-facing lenses, the camera enables Apple devices to capture full 360 degree photo and videospheres. The camera currently supports 360 degree livestreaming via YouTube, and support for 360 Facebook Live is planned (non-live 360 video from the camera can be shared to Facebook and elsewhere per usual).
Specs include two 195 degree lenses with an aperture of F/1.8, onboard stereo microphone and a rechargeable battery. Video is captured at 1920×960 resolution at 30 FPS (not ideal for VR viewing) though it is stitched in real time with no post-processing needed. Photos are shot at a higher 3840×1920 resolution.
While the dual cameras capture only a monoscopic sphere which lacks depth, the company says that the Giroptic iO is “fully VR compatible,” though it isn’t clear yet precisely what that means. Presumably you can use existing methods to view the captured 360 media through a headset, but it isn’t clear yet if the soon-to-launch accompanying app will have any VR-specific features for capture, playback, or sharing.
The Giroptic iO currently only supports Apple devices, but the company is considering the Android platform going forward. Giroptic’s standalone 360cam product sells for $500 and captures higher resolution 360 footage across three cameras, and is designed to be more rugged than the iO.
OSVR co-founder and long-time HMD maker Sensics is building a new ‘Goggles for Public VR’ headset which is designed for the unique needs of the Out-of-Home market.
While the same consumer-facing headsets that you’ll find on a shelf at Best Buy are popping up in VR arcades across China and elsewhere, Sensics is aiming to build a VR headset that’s optimized for the Out-of-Home market, consisting of businesses like theme parks, entertainment venues and arcades.
The Sensics ‘Goggles for Public VR‘ is said to be particularly durable, easy to clean, easy to maintain, made for quick swapping from one user to the next, and easy to integrate into other prop-headwear (like a racing or pilot helmet).
Pre-production models of the Sensics Goggles for Public VR use the familiar OSVR headstrap. Mass produced models will use a different strapping system.
Sensics, who is a co-founder of Razer’s OSVR initiative, has naturally used the foundation of the OSVR HDK2 headset in creating the Goggles for Public VR. It appears the headset uses the same 2160×1200@90Hz OLED display and optics which offer independent focal adjustment and a 100 degree field of view.
So what makes the headset uniquely suitable for the Out-of-Home sector? Sensics says it’s a combination of durability and features. Particularly, the company says the headset is built to withstand Out-of-Home use (though we haven’t seen a specific durability spec mentioned), easy to clean, modular, and easy to repair. There’s also a pair of fans to prevent fogging, and an optional integrated Leap Motion module built into the headset for hand interactions without the need for controllers.
That last part goes along with another important aspect of any VR headset specially made for the Out-of-Home sector: quick setup and teardown times from one user to the next. Controllerless hand-tracking could mean faster time-to-play by reducing the need for familiarizing new users with the inputs of controllers like those of the HTC Vive and Oculus Touch. It also means you don’t need to spend time handing the controllers to each user and then collecting them before taking the user out of VR—all important considerations for a business model which hinges on churning satisfied guests through each attraction.
Also speeding up the user-to-user experience is an interesting element of the headset which allows the ‘passive’ part (the parts that touch the user’s head and keeps the headset held in place) to detach from the ‘active’ part of the headset (the parts that contains all of the electronics. Sensics lists the following benefits to this approach:
• It allows guests to don the passive part while waiting in line. They can adjust the fit to their heads, and make sure the strap is comfortable. While doing so, the front part of the passive unit is completely open so guests can still see the real world, take a selfie with the strap. Only when the activity is about to begin does the operator attach the active part to the passive part. • It permits various cleaning strategies for the passive part – the part that touches the head. For instance, an attraction operator can have many more passive parts than active parts and then clean the passive parts in batch at the end of the day. • Separating the face mask from the active part of the goggles allows for multiple sizes of the face mask to fit kids, different facial structures and so forth.
Sensics recently began offering pre-production Goggles for Public VR units for testing for $2,160 each. The company plans to soon move into mass production of the device.
One of our favorite VR games, Fantastic Contraption, is heading PlayStation VR. The gameplay makes great use of motion controllers to allow you to craft solutions to puzzling platforming problems.
Fantastic Contraption released originally as one of the launch bundle titles for the HTC Vive. It’s since come to Oculus Touch and, in Spring 2017, will land on PSVR. The game tasks players with a seemingly simple objective: move the pink ball into the goal.
In order to do that, you’ll need to use rods, wheels, and more to build a machine to get the ball where it needs to go. It’ll be up to your imagination to solve each level, some of which will initially seem impossible until the lightbulb in your head goes off and you think of a workable solution. Part of the fun of Fantastic Contraption is that, while solving each level is the main objective, the number of solutions to each problem is limited only by your creativity. The obvious way to get from point A to B may not be the most fun way…
While the Vive version of Fantastic Contraption makes use of a standing, roomscale space, the PSVR version (which will require the PlayStation Move motion controller), shrinks the game down to a desk-sized building space, allowing you to craft easily without your hands or head moving outside of the PlayStation camera’s tracking bounds. As we’ve had some issues with the fidelity of PSVR’s hand tracking, we wonder if jitter could impact building at this scale. While the trailer doesn’t appear to exhibit any shakiness at that scale, it seems the creators used an interesting trick to use the HTC Vive to film what appears to be the PlayStation Move controllers, so we’ll have to wait to try it ourselves to see how well it works on PSVR.
NBC’s popular late night talk show The Tonight Show with host Jimmy Fallon has debuted a new segment called Virtual Reality Pictionary which uses the HTC Vive and Google’s Tilt Brush VR paint app.
Embracing the HTC Vive, The Tonight Show has debuted a new segment (which seems to be designed for recurring use) called Virtual Reality Pictionary, employing the headset and Google’s Tilt Brush VR paint app to play—you guessed it—pictionary. The the entire segment in the video at the top of the article.
In pictionary, pairs of players take turns drawing and guessing. The drawer is shown a word that the guesser doesn’t know, and the drawer must draw the word in a way that the guesser can guess the word correctly from the picture alone. One point for a correct guess within the time limit.
Fallon, Tonight Show announcer Steve Higgins, and guests took turns playing Virtual Reality Pictionary; the audience chose from a number of cards on the set which determined the word that would need to be drawn.
The set appeared purpose-built for the HTC Vive; there are two couches to either side—leaving a large space in the center for the VR user—and a huge screen in the back projecting the VR view. The Vive’s Lighthouse base stations were set up in relatively unintrusive locations. More than once, Fallon told guests during the segment that the setup ‘cost a million dollars’, suggesting that the show spent quite a bit of time and money for the set. That makes us think the segment could be recurring, and that the headset may see regular use on the show.
Tilt Brush actually got its own experimental pictionary game (which the creators call ‘Tiltasaurus’) back in September. It lets the VR-user see a word inside the headset that the non-VR users can’t see (you can even add your own words to the inbuilt dictionary). While the VR user draws, those outside the headset can look at the computer monitor to guess the word. It’s a fun time (and a great drinking game).
Meta made sizeable waves in the AR space in early 2016 with the announcement, demonstration, and pre-order launch of their Meta 2 development kit. The company has published an unboxing video of the system, but with just over two weeks until 2017, it doesn’t appear the company will hit its 2016 delivery goal.
Meta opened pre-orders for the Meta 2 development kit back in Q1 of 2016 for $949, saying that orders would be filled in 2016. A new video this week from the company (seen at the top of this article) shows an unboxing of the system and makes a direct pitch interested developers to lock in the $949 price before it goes up at the end of 2016.
The video doesn’t make any mention of a release date for the Meta 2 development kit, but the company’s website reads the same as it has since pre-orders opened, “The product is available for preorder now and will ship later this year. We will be in communication with preorder customers on timing.”
The unboxing video shows everything that comes with the kit, which includes a soft sleeve-case and a helpful resting stand for the headset to prevent its lenses from being scratched when not on your head. At the end we see a brief moment of a welcome sequence which shows a worrying amount of tracking jitter, even with minimal movement of the headset.
Back in March, we went hands-on with an earlier prototype of the Meta 2 at the company’s office and concluded that the promising headset could be an eye-opening AR platform for developers, with potential to “do for augmented reality what Rift DK1 did for virtual reality.” Since October, Road to VR has reached out to Meta on multiple occasions (to multiple points of contact) for an update on the release status of the Meta 2, but hasn’t received any response.
Meta told us previously that they expected to be able to supply “tens of thousands of units” in 2016, though the company hasn’t said how many pre-orders have been received.
With just over two weeks remaining in 2016, the chances of any substantial number of Meta 2 dev kits being delivered by the end of the year seems unlikely, but hopefully it won’t be too far into the New Year before devs start receiving headsets en masse.
Ticket marketplace StubHub has launched a new ‘Virtual View’ feature which will let users know exactly what the view from their seats will look like before buying tickets.
If you’ve ever gone through the process of buying tickets to a sports or concert venue, you’ll know how frustrating it can be to look at a top-down diagram of the seating layout as you’re asked to pick your seat. Often times the diagram isn’t to scale, and it’s rarely clear why the price of one section is significantly different than another (though it almost always has to do with the view).
Now, before you drop big bucks on the front-row seat, or think the nosebleeds can’t be that bad for what you’re saving, StubHub’s Virtual View feature will let you see exactly what the view is like from your soon-to-be seat.
StubHub’s virtual view is available through Cardboard devices via the company’s Android and iOS app; there’s not official Daydream support yet, but it’s possible to use your Daydream View headset to see the scene as a Cardboard headset. Those without a headset can look at the view in a simple 360 format right on their screen.
360 viewing appears to be the primary use-case, with VR as somewhat of an afterthought; the virtual images are relatively low fidelity, not 3D, and somewhat off-horizon when seen through the Cardboard view. We hope to see StubHub improve the VR end of this experience; something like NVIDIA’s Iray VR for ray-traced rendering might do the trick (and don’t forget to keep the horizon level!)
The company has rolled out Virtual View for a few stadiums across the U.S., including fans headed to Philadelphia Flyers games at Wells Fargo Center this season and NHL games at the Staples Center in Los Angeles, Joe Louis Arena in Detroit, United Center in Chicago, and TD Garden in Boston. The company says more hockey arenas will be announced soon, and that the feature is also available for “various MLB, NFL, NBA and college football venues around the country.”
This seems like a natural first step into VR for a company like StubHub. In the future, it’s conceivable that you might simply be able to buy a ‘virtual seat’ through the same service to watch the game from home thanks to VR live broadcasters like NextVR.
Microsoft’s after-holiday sale has one of the best HTC Vive deals we’ve seen yet, offering $100 off of the headset’s original price along with an additional $100 gift card to the Microsoft Store.
