Michael Antonov, Chief Software Architect at Oculus, is due to speak at Facebook’s F8 Developer Conference on April 18th about React VR, a framework that builds on Facebook’s React JavaScript library. This web-based framework allows easier creation of VR content that can run on VR headsets from the browser.
The F8 developer conference is Facebook’s annual event to discuss future technology related to the company and its various platforms; virtual reality is one of the key topics, with 7 sessions dedicated to VR content creation, social experiences, and WebVR.
This includes a session with Oculus Chief Software Architect Michael Antonov, along with Product Manager Andrew Mo, who will discuss the React VR framework. React VR builds on the well-established React JavaScript library, an open-source project from Facebook, used by many websites to build user interfaces. Working with React VR is designed to be comfortable and familiar territory for web developers, and in most cases does not require adjusting the low level WebVR layer. (WebVR is an API pioneered by Mozilla and Google that enables a VR experience to be embedded into a normal webpage.)
The April 18th F8 session will expand on their WebVR presentation at Oculus Connect 3 last year (where React VR was first announced), “[showcasing] the potential of React VR across verticals such as travel, news, commerce, and more.” On the 19th, software engineers Andrew Imm and Mike Armstrong will present another React VR session, showing, “how React VR builds upon React Native, and how the supporting layers and libraries interact.”
CCP Games are updating the sci-fi dogfighting EVE: Valkyrie today with a brand new game mode, a league system, and a number of fixes and improvements. The ‘Wormhole’ mode creates new combat scenarios, as travelling into an anomaly changes the rules, visuals and other gameplay modifiers.
EVE: Valkyrie was a key feature of the Oculus Rift launch bundle in March last year, followed by hitting the launch of PlayStation VR in October, and finally coming to the HTC Vive in November. Along the way, CCP Newcastle has supported the title with several patches, and three major updates: Carrier Assault, where you can breach and attack a carrier, one of the larger ship types in EVE;Joint Strike, adding cross-platform multiplayer and a new co-op mode; and Gatecrash, adding a new map, pilot customisation and PS4 Pro optimisations.
Today, EVE: Valkyrie receives its fourth major update, Wormholes. This introduces a brand new ‘Wormhole’ game mode, a league system, HOTAS support for the PS4, and several feature improvements and balance adjustments. The video above highlights the most prominent changes, and a more detailed breakdown can be found in CCP’s detailed blog post. The update is due today, but precisely what time it will launch on each platform is not yet known, though we’ve reached out to CCP to confirm.
The Wormhole game mode allows the player to fly into the anomaly, resulting in significant distortions of both visuals and game rules. This is designed to generate new combat scenarios, with ‘unusual environments’ and ‘special upgrades’. Each Wormhole also comes with preselected ship loadouts, meaning that players might be trying hardware they don’t normally have access to. Each Wormhole anomaly will last a few days, and the Valkyrie dev team plans to launch a new Wormhole event every weekend. Further information can be found here, but it seems CCP doesn’t want to reveal all the secrets just yet.
This intriguing update should tempt lapsed pilots back to the game, and attract some new players too. For the Valkyrie enthusiasts, perhaps the most significant part of the fourth update is the new leagues, designed to encourage competitive multiplayer, giving Valkyrie a more obvious ‘esports’ angle. The full details on the Valkyrie League are found here.
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg | Photo courtesy Facebook
Facebook’s 2017 F8 developer conference has seven scheduled sessions dedicated to VR. The company’s annual two-day event is dedicated to exploring the future of Facebook’s family of apps and services (including Oculus), and how businesses and developers can leverage them.
With sessions covering topics such as research, analytics and artificial intelligence, as well as their major acquisitions Instagram and WhatsApp, Facebook has scheduled seven sessions relating to Virtual Reality. Since their purchase of Oculus in 2014, Facebook has attempted to methodically ease itself into the space, with the ultimate vision of social networking in VR. In the last 12 months, the Facebook brand has become increasingly visible and involved with the Oculus subsidiary.
Although CEO Mark Zuckerberg recently posted pictures of himself testing new hardware technologies in the Oculus Research lab, which highlights their long-term commitment to the medium, the essential focus in the short term is content. Looking through the list of VR-related sessions at F8, it is clear that Facebook is encouraging creativity, and ensuring developers are hitting the right notes for social features, intelligent narrative design, and building cross-platform content for the web.
F8 takes place at the San Jose McEnery Convention Center, starting April 18th. Oculus and virtual reality are expected to be key part of the conference’s keynotes, and the further VR session schedule follows:
Tuesday, April 18
Crafting Compelling Narratives in VR
Sit down with best-in-class VR filmmakers to learn what it takes to create amazing VR experiences. Whether you’re working on a 360 video or real-time rendered content, these tips will help you to understand best practices from the cutting edge of VR.
WebVR: Enabling Developers to Build Engaging Cross-Platform VR Content
Web-based frameworks such as React VR are making it easier than ever to create VR content that can be distributed across VR, mobile, and web. Join us as we showcase the potential of React VR across verticals such as travel, news, commerce, and more.
Bringing VR Experiences to Everyone: Scripting, Producing and Planning
Learn how to develop a VR experience, and take a project from creative idea to a piece ready for prime time. Gain best practices and tips and tricks for producing experiences, how to approach acting and directing in VR, and distribution.
VR Together: Adding Social Components to Your VR Apps
Interactive and fun social experiences foster greater consumer engagement in VR. This talk will focus on the APIs and features that Oculus provides to add a social layer to your app, including the Avatar SDK, VoIP, Invites, and Oculus Rooms.
Wednesday, April 19
Creating Social Presence in VR
Achieving social presence in VR presents a host of fascinating challenges, from designing avatars that avoid the “uncanny valley” to determining what kind of tools and spaces best facilitate interaction.
VR 201: Lessons from the Frontlines of VR Gaming
We will share some of the roadblocks that engineers will encounter as they ramp up in VR development with practical lessons and case studies to overcome them. Attendees can expect insights on everything from code samples to tools to design tips.
React VR: Build amazing VR experiences using React
Learn how React VR builds upon React Native, and how the supporting layers and libraries interact. We will take you through a sample VR web app built with React VR, and show how easy it is to create immersive experiences across VR, mobile, and web.
Apple CEO Tim Cook has once again affirmed his belief in the significance of augmented reality technology. Interviewed during a recent trip to Europe, he spoke broadly about how AR could benefit everyone’s lives in the future, highlighting the way it allows users to remain ‘present’ in the real world. Underscored by years of relevant hiring and R&D, Cook’s words appear to further set the stage for the company’s rumored foray into the AR space.
Despite many of the company’s biggest rivals and allies showing active development in the AR/VR space, Apple has yet to make a firm commitment toward or away from these immersive technologies, but there’s no doubt that the company has major research and development going on behind the scenes. The Cupertino HQ has been acquiring talent in this field for several years, filing patents at least as far back as 2007 for HMDs, and new patents for AR. Having hired top VR/AR researcher Doug Bowman a year ago, many suspect it’s only a matter of time before Apple shows their AR/VR hand.
Apple CEO Tim Cook | Photo courtesy Apple
In an interview by The Independent during a recent European tour, CEO Tim Cook reaffirmed his enthusiasm for AR, positioning it as an antithesis of VR in the way that it allows the user to remain ‘present in the world’, rather than closing the world out.
“I’m excited about augmented reality because unlike virtual reality which closes the world out, AR allows individuals to be present in the world but hopefully allows an improvement on what’s happening presently,” Cook said. “Most people don’t want to lock themselves out from the world for a long period of time and today you can’t do that because you get sick from it. With AR you can, not be engrossed in something, but have it be a part of your world, of your conversation. That has resonance.”
While we don’t agree with Cook’s assessment of AR and VR being necessarily opposite technologies (or that VR makes people sick in competently designed experiences), we can understand his view that AR’s focus on what’s already around us means the tech has the potential to integrate well with user’s daily lives (which is surely the realm where Apple likes its products to play).
Cook went on to describe AR’s potential to be as significant as the smartphone, a technology that could improve everyone’s lives.
“I regard [AR] as a big idea like the smartphone. The smartphone is for everyone, we don’t have to think the iPhone is about a certain demographic, or country or vertical market: it’s for everyone. I think AR is that big, it’s huge,” Cook told The Independent. “I get excited because of the things that could be done that could improve a lot of lives. And be entertaining. I view AR like I view the silicon here in my iPhone, it’s not a product per se, it’s a core technology. But there are things to discover before that technology is good enough for the mainstream. I do think there can be a lot of things that really help people out in daily life, real-life things, that’s why I get so excited about it.”
This isn’t the first time that Apple has appeared to show more interest in augmented reality than virtual reality, although given the challenges still facing AR, it could be argued that it would be easier for Apple to launch a VR-ready product first, perhaps a feature we’ll see promoted with the next generation of iPhone, which is expected to use an OLED panel.
Industrial Training International is readying their VR Mobile Crane Simulator for the March ConExpo Event in Las Vegas. The simulator uses an Oculus Rift headset in combination with a modular rig, in order to significantly reduce the costs of training, compared to both real-world and older VR solutions.
Last September, Industrial Training International (ITI) announced the development of a ‘VR Mobile Crane Simulator’ (in this case, the term ‘mobile’ refers to the type of crane, rather than VR optimised for a smartphone). Created in partnership with Canadian developer Serious Labs Inc, the system is on schedule for a March launch, having run a beta program since October.
The simulator, which uses an Oculus Rift headset, comes in two forms – ‘Desktop’ and ‘Motion Base’. They use the same modular control system, including five joystick modules for the user to swap out to match the model of crane they are operating. The layout is mapped accurately to the real crane ergonomics to retain immersion, with foot pedals coming soon. The modular design allows for custom features to be added (such as force-feedback joysticks) if required. The Motion Base version uses the same joystick layout, but instead of being clamped to a table, it is a standalone unit, adding a chair with four actuators in the base, creating a convincing sense of movement. The development models are seen in ITI’s ‘First Look’ video (above) – the Xbox One controller shown was a temporary option while the desktop hardware was being fabricated.
ITI VR Product Manager Caleb Steinborn explains the effectiveness of the Motion Base, which is also used for their Aerial Work Platform simulator – another VR development from Serious Labs with equipment rental giant, United Rentals. “I have seen many people experience fairly extreme fear of heights while being hoisted into the air with the AWP simulator, all the while having never left the ground. The realism is truly an experience unlike anything else.”
There is also a small training benefit from sensing some of the forces acting on the crane, and in the case of the Aerial Work Platform, the vestibular feedback created by the actuators minimises simulator sickness. For the crane sim, the accelerations are lower, so nausea isn’t an issue, but it can reproduce an “extremely powerful” feeling of tipping a 100-tonne crane.
The Oculus Rift headset was selected by Serious Labs as they believe it to be the more comfortable and portable solution at this stage, however the sim supports OpenVR, and therefore could work on the HTC Vive, and other headsets. “Currently we use the Oculus Rift simply because at the time the developers felt like it was the stronger headset of the two. As the technology emerges, we will keep up with latest and greatest.”
Founded in 1986, ITI is a world leader in crane and rigging training and consulting; they are relied on by multiple industries such as mining, construction, and energy. Having dismissed older simulator options due to their high costs, impracticality, lack of depth perception and realism, ITI is now introducing a new generation of simulators that utilize VR headsets to create a far more compact, affordable option. Legacy solutions typically cost well over $100,000 – ITI’s simulator will be a fraction of the price.
The sheer scale of a legacy crane sim (ranging from the size of an actual crane cab to a semi-truck trailer) is the other major hurdle, with the shipping, setup and commissioning alone typically costing more than the entire purchase price of the ITI desktop sim. Having trained operators for three decades, ITI has received plenty of feedback from the industry, lamenting the high cost and low portability of legacy solutions, according to Caleb. “Most operators are not physically close to a simulator installation, so even when simulators are owned by the companies in question they are often underused.”
Offering the hardware at cost and charging a subscription for the software means that, in addition to the low cost of entry, subscribers gain access to the full training ecosystem as it becomes available, which will include new content (such as new crane models/types and new environments), new features (such as training events, networked “multiplayer,” enabling multi-crane lifts as well as multi-user lifts performing different functions), as well as future courses utilizing hand controls to train riggers, signal persons, crane assembly/disassembly, and more.
ITI provides real-world training courses at seven training centres in the United States and Canada – the mobile crane operator courses are capped at 12 students to ensure decent seat time in the crane for each trainee, and attention from the instructor. While real-world training is high quality, there are limitations in terms of seat time, available lift scenarios, and possible external conditions. The new VR solution can provide practically unlimited seat time, and can cover topics and events that aren’t easily reproduced (such as dealing with inclement weather) in real life. The cost benefits can be enormous, particularly when you consider the equivalent real-world worksite preparation and dealing with potential damages. It’s possible for a job that involves a single critical lift to be billed at a million dollars or more.
The simulation is realistic enough to provide all the operational practice needed to pass a practical exam from the NCCCO, but real-world training still has its place. “Our goal is to provide every possible training solution option to those who are in need”, says Caleb. “Sometimes that training solution will be a live, instructor-led course, and sometimes it is going to be a VR Simulator. It is our job to ensure that the quality of every option is of the highest caliber, and our VR Mobile Crane simulator is only just beginning.”
Steam Direct, a new sign-up system for launching games on the store, is due to replace Greenlight in Spring 2017. Currently, any developer or publisher new to Steam is required to submit their game for approval through Greenlight, which involves a small fee and community voting; the new system may have different implications for VR developers.
In an announcement on the Steam Blog, Valve UI designer Alden Kroll explained that Greenlight, the current submission system for developers and publishers new to Steam, will be phased out in the spring, replaced by ‘Steam Direct’. This new sign-up system removes community voting entirely, simplifying the process to a recoupable application fee for each new title. This figure has yet to be decided, but it could be significantly higher than the current $100 Greenlight fee. “We talked to several developers and studios about an appropriate fee, and they gave us a range of responses from as low as $100 to as high as $5,000. There are pros and cons at either end of the spectrum, so we’d like to gather more feedback before settling on a number.”
This is already causing much debate among the indie developer community. Too high and you risk shutting out the small developers; too low and you open the floodgates to shovelware. But Greenlight itself has always been controversial, far from a perfect system. Talking to PC Gamer, Kroll said that Greenlight “inherently has a bunch of unpredictability in it,” making it difficult for developers to plan ahead due to the variable time frame for a title becoming ‘greenlit’.
In the case of VR titles, the process has been different, as Valve allow promising VR developers to bypass the Greenlight system by contacting them directly, accelerating the approval and encouraging the growth of the medium. Whether the move to Steam Direct will change their policy for VR submissions remains to be seen, but the end of Greenlight should ultimately result in a greater influx of VR content.
Slightly Mad Studios has begun the promotional campaign for Project CARS 2, revealing a new trailer and some new details. Now due ‘late 2017’, the game has confirmed VR support for PC, while PSVR support is in development but not yet promised.
The Project Cars 2 media blowout has begun, with an official ‘announce’ trailer, new screenshots and footage following the recent leaked trailer. Some of the clips remain, but the shots of Ferrari and Porsche models have disappeared—probably saved for a future ‘reveal’, as the inclusion of these legendary manufacturers is a huge deal for the title. Instead, we get a good look at some exciting new models, such as the Aston Martin Vulcan and Honda/Acura NSX road and race versions, along with some stunning footage of Fuji Speedway, a track that many Gran Turismo fans will be familiar with.
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The official website has been updated, restating some of the known features about the game, and clarifying a few other details. Virtual reality is, as expected, once again supported on PC, primarily for the Rift and Vive. In fact the developer states, “VR, 12K, 21:9, and triple-screen support built-in,” which will go down very well with enthusiasts; calling out all of these display options immediately ticks boxes that were missing in the first title.
By targeting console and PC racers, the original Project CARS had the incredibly difficult task of meeting the needs of a very wide audience; it worked for some, but never really hit the mark for many enthusiasts, and it struggled to appeal to the casual player with its confusing UI and menu presentation. With the sequel, Slightly Mad Studios have pushed hard in both directions, claiming to have ‘raised the bar’ on simulation, while improving the experience for the beginner too.
Speaking to Gamereactor, game director Stephen Viljoen describes how the free-form career mode of the first game was lost on many players, as they simply didn’t realise that you could start with any racing discipline, and that the progression through a season was unclear. Now that the sequel includes even more motorsport types, such as Rallycross and IndyCar, it has been essential to present the career paths and various options in a more logical manner, so we can expect to see major improvements to the UI.
In an ongoing Q&A on the GTPlanet forums, CEO Ian Bell has been answering some of the more specific concerns, such as the state of gamepad support, which was considered to be less intuitive than Forza and Gran Turismo.
“We’ve massively reworked our pad input filters to try to pre-empt what the user wants to happen, in coordination with what actually happens in game. It’s been rewritten from scratch and we’ve been influenced a lot by what our competitors do here… I think it’s a very affirming experience for pad users now”.
And addressing a PC-specific concern regarding the poor performance of the first game on AMD graphics cards, both in VR and otherwise, in comparison to Nvidia equipment, “we’re massively better on AMD cards now. Particularly on dual+ setups.”
PlayStation Access’summary video of the major features skilfully avoids the elephant in the room, PlayStation VR support. Project Cars on PS4 was once due to receive VR treatment, but it never happened, so the team is being more cautious about what they say this time. In an interview with Red Bull, creative director Andy Tudor reveals that they are actively trying.
“With PSVR we can’t confirm that it’s definitely coming, but our team are hard at work on it. The reason I can’t confirm that it’s definitely going to come out is because there’s a lot of work required to get the game running to our standards. Because of the two screens that you need, because of the frame rate that you need to keep up in order for the whole experience to be comfortable, and because of all the stuff we’re throwing into the game”.
With ‘over 170’ licensed cars and ‘the largest track roster of any console racing game’, Project Cars 2 will no doubt be an impressive collection of content, but more importantly, it appears to be addressing many of the criticisms of the first game. Simply by having more time to iterate on their existing technology such as the advanced tyre model and dynamic track system, the sequel is surely set to be a more mature, polished product.
Jason Rubin, Head of Content at Oculus, has recently teased ‘months of high-profile VR content’ for the hardware. In a recent tweet, he points towards the upcoming release of Rock Band VR, an exclusive title for Rift and Touch, as the starting point.
Launching March 23rd, Rock Band VR is a big deal for Harmonix and Oculus, having announced the title as exclusive to the Rift back in 2015. Some may feel that the plastic instrument craze peaked before 2010, but Oculus believe that VR has the potential to reinvigorate the rhythm game genre, giving players a genuine sensation of being a rock star, playing to a crowd. Oculus’ confidence in their investment is probably best illustrated by the Rock Band VR connector that is included with every Touch controller package.
In a recent tweet, Jason Rubin points to the Oculus blog announcement of the Rock Band VR preorders going live, teasing that it represents the start of “months of high profile rollouts” for the Rift. Rubin’s optimism is likely to be fuelled by the progress of some of the big-hitters we already know to feature on the 2017 roadmap…
Arktica.1
This sci-fi first-person shooter is developed by 4A Games, the Ukrainian team behind the acclaimed Metro FPS series, renowned for its stunning, atmospheric presentation. Arktica.1 continues the studio’s production quality with extreme attention to detail and customisation options on its wide array of futuristic weapons, and is expected to feature a lengthy campaign. Further details are available in our full preview.
Lone Echo
American studio Ready At Dawn make a huge departure from their last title, The Order 1886, with this zero-gravity action game where you assume the role of an advanced artificial intelligence robot transported to an advanced mining facility within the rings of Saturn. It uses the Touch controllers to great effect, allowing smooth movement through space as you pull and push on objects and interact with equipment in interesting ways. While not much is known about the single-player story, the multiplayer sports mode is very promising, as we detail here.
Wilson’s Heart
In Wilson’s Heart you assume the role of hospital patient Robert Wilson, voice acted by RoboCop’s (1987)Peter Weller, who wakes up to discover that his heart has been replaced with ‘a mysterious device’. With its unique black-and-white style, the character driven story looks to be ripped straight from an episode of The Twilight Zone (1959-1964) or Night of the Living Dead (1968).
Wilson’s Heart is an intriguing psychological VR thriller which has you exploring your haunted surroundings, utilising Oculus Touch motion controls to interact with your environment, and it’s the implementation of those ‘virtual hands on’ elements (some of which you may can to catch in the above trailer) which we think may set the game apart.
Robo Recall
As a result of the hugely positive reaction to early Oculus Touch slo-mo combat demo Bullet Train, Epic Games were able to expand the concept into a full game, at the request of Oculus, who will provide Robo Recall for free to all Touch owners. The game features a comedic style, promoting the action-packed virtual smashing of robots in countless ways, using virtually anything you can grab with your Touch controllers. The use of Epic’s new forward render means this is one of the most spectacular games we’ve seen in VR. See our preview for more info.
‘OpenVR Advanced Settings’ is a dashboard overlay that allows access to advanced functionality of any headset running SteamVR. The menu is accessible in VR, meaning you can easily adjust options such as supersampling without removing your headset.
Last year we explained how, if you’re computer has processing power to spare, supersampling could dramatically improve image quality in the HTC Vive headset, but the method involved a rather clunking adjustment of a SteamVR JSON config file with a text editor.
Since then, tools such as bilago’s ‘Chaperone Switcher’ began to include supersampling options, and, in September, user matzman666 released ‘OpenVR Advanced Settings‘, which eventually allowed both chaperone and supersampling adjustments from within VR across any headset running SteamVR (the Rift included). Now it’s easy to quickly adjust the amount of supersampling to get your VR headset looking as sharp as possible while maintaining the critical 90 FPS.
Now at version 2.2.2, the overlay is packed with useful features, such as creating and loading multiple chaperone profiles, an asynchronous reprojection toggle, a ‘Revive‘ settings menu, and, most recently, a slider to adjust the size of the desktop VR view.
The installation couldn’t be simpler: download the most recent installer here and follow the installation instructions. Once wearing the headset in SteamVR, you should find a new ‘advanced settings’ button near the bottom of the dashboard. There you can set separate supersampling settings for application and compositor, keeping in mind anything above the default 1.0 setting is considerably more demanding on your graphics hardware.
A bundle of nine VR indie games is coming soon to the PlayStation VR which includes Dreadhalls, a popular horror title for Gear VR and Oculus Rift. HeroCade takes a novel approach to the bundle’s presentation, combining all the games with a ‘metaverse quest’.
Undoubtedly the most-recognisable title in the HeroCade bundle, Dreadhalls is a first-person horror title has been terrifying gamers since its reveal in 2013, and is currently available for Gear VR and Oculus Rift, and now coming to PSVR via HeroCade. Developers White Door Games provided an update for Oculus Touch recently; the game now supports tracked controllers, so you can expect to see a similar system available for Sony’s Move controllers in the PSVR version.
Sisters, a game available for free on Gear VR and Cardboard, is a very short but chilling horror experience that reacts to head movement. Otherworld Interactive is due to bring the game to the HTC Vive, and the demo on Steam is a completely different, higher-fidelity experience with the same theme. Another game, Sisters: Faye & Elsa also launched on Daydream VR, which is completely different again; a longer experience that incorporates some puzzle-solving. Going by the footage seen of HeroCade so far, the PSVR version of Sisters appears to be the full version of the Vive demo.
The other seven titles included in the bundle are from HeroCade developers Lucid Sight themselves; Jurassic Survival, 405 Road Rage, Zombie Strike, PolyRunner VR, Alpha Turkey Hunt, Space Bit Attack and Gumi No Yumi. Six are previous projects, and free on Gear VR, aside from Space Bit Attack which is available for Vive, Rift and OSVR. Arguably the most interesting title here is Jurassic Survival, a dinosaur-themed endless shooter exclusive to HeroCade.
But the most novel aspect of HeroCade is the way the nine games are presented; Lucid Sight challenged themselves to add some cohesion to the bundle, building an ‘epic metaverse quest’ that involves mastering all nine titles, providing users “a new world to explore, objectives to conquer, and a mystery to unravel.” Expected to be priced around $15, the content alone seems to offer fair value, and the meta-game on top adds an extra slice of intrigue.
Expected to launch soon, the trailer HeroCade trailer recently popped up on the official PlayStation YouTube channel.
Michael Antonov, Chief Software Architect at Oculus, is due to speak at Facebook’s F8 Developer Conference on April 18th about React VR, a framework that builds on Facebook’s React JavaScript library. This web-based framework allows easier creation of VR content that can run on VR headsets from the browser.
