Various industries are regularly embracing VR’s potential to expand their business and film has been heavily active in a variety of ways. In addition to several tie-in VR experiences we’ve seen, the dawn of immersive VR ads are now a thing as well. Today, we’ve learned that Lionsgate is embracing that concept by partnering with Unity to promote a new entry in the Saw horror franchise.
Arriving in theaters on October 27th this year, Jigsaw is the 8th film in the Saw franchise which was born back in 2004. The Jigsaw VR ad experience, releasing before the film, will be in the form of a “Virtual Room” which is a new tool Unity wants to use to showcase VR’s growing potential for advertising. Within the Virtual Room, users will interact with objects, learn about the upcoming film, and then have to figure out how to save themselves in a “truly visceral and entertaining experience” as so put by Lionsgate’s SVP of Digital Marketing David Edwards in the announcement’s press release.
“At Unity, we want to redefine how people consume advertising,” says Agatha Bochenek, Head of Mobile and VR/AR Advertising at Unity Technologies. “To grow this emerging form of advertising entertainment, we are taking the guesswork out of the biggest hurdles in a new medium — production and distribution. Our goal is to enable advertisers to build high-quality, engaging content quickly which will create memorable experiences, and can seamlessly reach users across all VR platforms.”
With the nature of the Saw franchise revolving roughly around “escape room” horror scenarios, this partnership with Lionsgate for Jigsaw is a seemingly perfect launching point for Virtual Room considering there’s plenty of source material to provide unsettling and memorable set pieces and moments for Jigsaw VR.
When writing about the future of mixed reality in December, we highlighted WaveOptics‘ efforts to curve the scalability and quality issues that were plaguing MagicLeap at the time. The company’s patented waveguide provides a hologram-based alternative to conventional augmented reality projection and they’re taking the £12 million ($15.6 million) from a series B round of funding to expand into new markets.
Reported by Business Insider, the new round of funds involved previous contributors Octopus Ventures, Touchstone Innovations, and Robert Bosch Venture Capital along with newcomer Gobi Ventures. Gobi is based out of China and has a portfolio that contains Camera360, Gokuai, Madhouse, and many others.
There aren’t any details on exactly how WaveOptics plans to expand to new markets, but AR headset manufacturers all over could benefit greatly from their waveguide tech. Efficient tech is a must for AR as manufacturers work toward more comfortable designs for AR headsets and waveguide gives way to lightweight projection and power efficiency. Progress along those lines brings us closer and closer to AR spectacles that can serve as everyday wear.
Quality games throughout various genres are sprouting up all over VR’s ecosystem, but we’re only just on the verge of getting major multiplayer experiences. Echo Arena looks poised to find a foothold in the competitive sporting event genre and it looks like a highly regarded VR shooter is ready to make big splash for VR eSports. Realistic military shooter Onward is hosting a tournament this weekend with some exclusive, limited edition peripherals available as prizes.
Onward, sitting at a rating of “Very Positive” overall and with over 1500 reviews on Steam, is a military simulator built by a college dropout. The game’s community has continued to grow since its release August of last year and they’ve cultivated a league which will be holding its global championship series July 15th and 16th.
The tournament layout is as follows:
Group Stages – 8 teams (Round robin) (July 15th)
Semi-Final – 4 teams (Single Elimination, best of 3) (July 16th)
Final (Single Elimination, best of 5) (July 16th)
Newer players were able to participate in a wild card bracket back on July 8th so, if you haven’t established yourself within the community by the next time they have a tournament, there will be options for you.
The exclusive prizes for those that conquer the brackets are provided by ProTubeVR, a company that creates adaptable peripherals that enhance VR play and immersion. They’re specifically giving out their customizable rifle stocks that increase precision and are highly coveted by the Onward community, though they could certainly be used for other VR titles.
The Onward Master League will be streaming on Twitch and you can also keep track of the winners and losers on their web page throughout the weekend.
Welcome to a new week of HTC Vive releases, far removed from the storm that was the Steam summer sale. Things are somewhat back to normal and we have a couple highlights to check out. Balloon Chair Death Match is a unique deathmatch concept that takes really good advantage of VR’s immersion by having you up in the air trying to shoot down your enemy’s balloons while fearing it happening to yourself. Radioactive is an Early Access project that is hoping to provide a deep open-world survival title that is reminiscent of games like Day Z and H1Z1.
We also have a top list of the absolute best HTC Vive games — which is updated every few months with the latest and greatest options.
New HTC Vive Releases on Steam
Hover Bots VR, from Khizer Awan
Price: $4.74 (Currently Discounted)
In Hover Bots, you can experience the freedom of flying by hopping on your virtual hover board and chasing after robot birds around the city to capture them with your web gun.
Recommendation: Not much to it. Save that money to spend elsewhere.
Kart Racing Pro, from PiBoSo
Kart Racing Pro is a simulation experience intended to serve as a tool to train real drivers. The game’s physics system is built from scratch, hoping to accurately simulate kart dynamics.
Recommendation: This is a highly detailed simulation of kart racing. Not intended for casual gamers, but not bad for hardcore fans.
Price: $39.99
CloudCity VR, from Floating Point Interactive
Price: $10.55 (Currently Discounted)
CloudCity VR gives you a platform to build your dream metropolis up among the clouds. You’ll have to grow your economy and keep your citizens happy, able to view the denizens from the perspective of a giant overlord or close up as one among the people.
Recommendation: Definitely check this one out.
Balloon Chair Death Match, from Climax Studios Ltd
Price: $11.99 (Currently Discounted)
In a world where balloons are the premier way to get around, you must battle through dogfights where you shoot out your enemies balloons. There’s a single player campaign with 14 missions over two cities, a single player deathmatch, multiplayer deathmatch, and survival mode.
Recommendation: Definitely one of the best arcade shooters we’ve seen in a while.
Red Bull 360, from Red Bull Media House
Price: Free
Red Bull 360 gives you access to a collection of 360-degree videos for intense activities such as surfing huge wakes, drifting in a race car, doing a handstand atop a city bridge, and much more.
Recommendation: This is some free, intense action. Go for it.
Everyday Gold VR, from WISECAT
Price: $33.99 (Currently Discounted)
Everyday Golf is a VR golfing title where the developers have attempted to strike a perfect balance between fun and realism. The game includes 63 holes, a competitive mode for up to four players, and a tour mode where you can play for prizes once-a-day.
Recommendation: If you’re interested in golf, this could be a definitive entry for you.
Power Fist VR, from Applemint
Price: $11.99
In Power Fist, you must keep your city safe using a collection of special gear to take on various terrible creatures that have spawned from a lab’s secret experiment. There are seven missions to fight through and an included survival mode where you can compare scores with others.
Recommendation: Take a look but consider other similar options out there too.
VR SHOOT AROUND, from BoninblueDesignLab
Price: $4.49
In VR SHOOT AROUND you can spend some time on a realistically modeled court with true-to-life physics and a collection of customization tools for your experience. You can even throw up a video that plays while you shoot around, turning this into a chill and fun environment to experience your media in.
Recommendation: This could a great addition for anyone interested in some VR b-ball.
Late For Work, from Salmi Games
Price: $9.99
In Late For Work you play as a giant gorilla while wearing your VR headset and take on up to four puny human friends outside of VR on the PC screen as they drive around the city in vehicles. The fast rounds provide a party style game where everyone gets a turn.
Recommendation: This is a must-have for local VR multiplayer activities with only one VR headset on hand.
Survivor VR, from Lucid Dream Studio
Price: $6.79 (Currently Discounted)
Survivor VR drops you into a ramshackle building that is barely holding together during an earthquake. You must use the equipment around you to survive, avoid danger, and find your way out of the building safely.
Recommendation: This is a visually impressive survival experience worth considering for fans of the genre.
Radioactive, from Dissident Interactive
Price: $13.59 (Currently Discounted)
Radioactive is an open world zombie survival game where you must scavenge, hunt, and survive. This follows the model of popular survival titles where there’s no handholding as you figure out the mechanics as you progress through an unforgiving world with no save files or extra lives.
Recommendation: Definitely keep an eye on this during Early Access. There will be multiplayer added in the future.
Tunnel Runner VR, from Mocove Studio
Price: $1.79 (Currently Discounted)
In Tunnel Runner, you must run through infinite space filled with twisted tunnels in various fantasy-inspired environments. The game is a simple, casual experience with basic controls and some catchy music to keep you entertained and engaged as you play.
Recommendation: Pass, unless you love endless runners.
Recommendation: A bit of a wonky title that didn’t really need VR support. Skip this one.
GORN, from Free Lives
Price: $14.99
GORN is an incredibly violent gladiator simulator with physics-driven combat and extremely bloody collisions. You can use swords, maces, throwing knives, nunchucks, and more to take out your adversaries or just use your bare hands.
Muybridge Mausoleum blends shadow play, magic lanterns, and early film set designs for a unique art installation in VR. The experience is 10-20 minutes where you must activate 5 animal spirits as you journey through the vibrant set.
Recommendation: Check this one out if you’re into dynamic art.
Viral EX, from Fierce Kaiju Ltd
Price: $8.49 (Currently Discounted)
Playing as Ragnarok the anti-virus, Viral EX tasks you with cleaning up a supercomputer called E.V.E. You’ll use power-ups and different trick shots as you progress through 50 stages of enemies, traps, and puzzles.
Recommendation: It’s ultimately a port of a Gear VR game, but there is fun to be had here if you like arcade-style shooters.
New HTC Vive Releases on Viveport
No new releases on Viveport this week as of the time of writing.
VR headset manufacturers are likely hard at work finding ways to improve and update the design and components to provide an even better product in the future. Third-parties are also building different peripherals to improve the user experience, and bionik has set a date for the release of their integrated PS VR headphones: August 1st.
Called Mantis, bionik’s design is a lightweight effort to decrease ear fatigue without sacrificing high-quality sound. It also eliminates the clutter of using other wired headsets by clipping right onto the PS VR headset with a tangle free setup that is easy to flip on and off.
“Our goal with Mantis was to make the immersive PlayStation VR experience more visceral and profound by blocking out distractions and reducing the amount of gear you need to put on,” says bionik’s SVP Product Development Amir Navid in the press release for the announcement. “It…allows you to suspend disbelief and focus on the virtual environment created.”
Navid’s mention that it helps to “suspend disbelief” is crucial. Having uncomfortable headphones or additional wires you get tangled in can completely derail a VR experience. Mantis will be available on Amazon for the suggested price of $49.99 and will be coming to other retailers in the near future.
Oculus Medium is a creative platform that enables users to create amazingly detailed digital sculptures using the power of VR with their Oculus Rift and Touch controllers. It launched with the Touch controllers back in December of 2016 but the platform has since evolved and is now getting a big, new feature that lets you bring along a buddy for some creative expression: Studio Share.
The Oculus team took to their official blog to share the news that Studio Share is on the way and currently in beta. With Studio Share, you and a friend can share the same creative space in Oculus Medium. It offers an opportunity for creative collaboration, but that’s not all.
Studio Share can be used as a means to receive real-time feedback on your creation or exchange feedback as you and a friend work on two separate projects. That added friend gives an extra pair of eyes in a creative platform where you have to execute from every angle. Better yet, it can be used as a tool for efficient education as the teacher instructs the student on better practices during the creation process rather than after the fact.
The blog details a handful of other features introduced in the latest update such as a move tool that lets you maneuver the sculpture without messing up any features on it, a featured artist section that’s being added to the Oculus Medium homepage, and more tools to make the creation and export process easier.
Big name franchises with VR capabilities are something to be cherished as the platform continues to grow. As seen with Resident Evil 7 early this year, recognized names do wonders for exposure and inspire people to test VR out. The Gran Turismo series is a legendary series of racers and its next installment, along with its limited VR mode, has been revealed to have an October 17th, 2017 release date.
Revealed on the official PlayStation blog including a statement from Polyphony Digital’s president Kazunori Yamauchi, Gran Turismo Sport will be coming to PlayStation with limited and digital deluxe editions in addition to the standard edition. The limited edition ($69.99 MSRP, $89.99 CAN) will include a starter pack of 8 cars, $1 million in-game credit, a sticker pack, 30 GT sport avatars, a chrome helmet for your driver profile, and a steel book case. For those more inclined for digital purchases, the deluxe version ($79.99 MSRP, $99.99 CAN) will include 12 starter cars, double the in-game credit, 60 avatars, and the chrome helmet.
“We’ve strived to create something that delivers an unprecedented experience in terms of the graphics, sound, and physics simulation; an experience that can only be enjoyed on PlayStation,” Yamauchi says. He also expressed that more information about the game will be revealed between now and the release date, including a “full reveal on all the cars and tracks you can look forward to racing on launch day”.
Hopefully, with that news, we’ll get details on exactly what cars and tracks will be available for the game’s included limited PSVR mode. Read our impressions of GT Sport’s VR mode from E3 and get ready to hit the pavement on October 17th for PS4.
Vehicle concepts have flirted with augmented reality from windshield displays all the way to Panasonic’s recent concept for a completely decked out cockpit. Acura has decided to couple AR and their cars in a completely different way by having celebrities race real cars around a large empty parking lot while viewing AR tracks that can be manipulated by viewers of the live stream.
For Acura’s intriguing event, a few augmented reality tracks were created using satellite data to bring it to real world scale. The tracks have different themes to them like a lush jungle or frozen tundra and the drivers had to navigate a real car while only being to see the track through their headset. Viewers of the live stream were able to see clips of the track that the driver saw, which was fairly rough and jumpy, as well as footage of the real car making its way around the empty lot. While the view we had of the AR track was pretty jumpy, it’s not clear if the driver’s headset had as much lag.
An added layer to the viewer experience is that use of the various emojis during the individual races would clear obstacles like foliage for the drivers and make things easier for them. It was mentioned during one particular race that a driver must have a large fanbase because they were clearing her track pretty quickly.
The entire ordeal was an intriguing experiment that showed off how augmented reality could be utilized in an exciting environment with spectators and also how live broadcasts can further get audiences involved in what they’re watching. You can watch full, hour-plus stream on the official Acura Facebook account.
Back in May during Google I/O it was announced that the Galaxy S8 would be receiving support for Google’s Daydream platform. Samsung’s own Gear VR obviously has a head start on the S8, but welcoming another option for mobile VR fans is a smart move. There was no set date for the new update but it looks like a slip-up on T-Mobile’s support page hints at an update right around the corner.
Android Police originally reported that T-Mobile’s changelog listed Daydream support alongside a DIGITS update, Qualcomm update for microphone fix, Bixby enhancements, and various system improvements. With that bit of knowledge, the reporter attempted to update his device and test it out, but got an error that he was using an incompatible device for Daydream after the Daydream app didn’t show for him in the Play store and they attempted to side load it. The T-Mobile page was eventually updated to say that Daydream is “coming soon”.
With such as slip up, it stands to reason that the official update for Daydream on the S8 is coming and there are just a few things left to iron out.
The patent process is a lot like throwing a ton of things at a wall to see what sticks. In June alone, Apple secured 68 of them and many most likely will never be implemented in any significant way. One particular one, as reported on VC Daily, could add some new flavor to an iOS mainstay. Facetime, Apple’s proprietary video chat application, could potentially see some enhancements by way of augmented reality.
The granted patent involves Light Field Camera technology. The original implementation of this technology allowed the iPhone 7 Plus to create a crisp depth-of-field effect on a subject using images from two cameras. The patent protects the technology and gives Apple the opportunity to bring it to their other hardware, specifically for video calls. Light Field is a new form of augmented technology and Apple could push the capability of it by using the secondary camera to give a enhance view of a user’s background while still getting a close-up from the main camera or completely replace the background with a different space. An example given explained how you could be watching football and have the video conversation overlayed onto the game instead of confined to a chat window.
Snapchat has propelled itself to the top of the social application hierarchy with basic augmented reality support taking a front seat in its collection of features. If Apple could bring ideas like that of AR to their Facetime app, it could further stoke the flames for a company that is already is high demand.
