RAF Museum London to Launch a VR Experience Based on the Dambusters

Yesterday VRFocus reported on VR Education releasing a new virtual reality (VR) experience this month based on the Dambusters called Raid on the Ruhr. Now for WWII history buffs, the RAF Museum London has announced it’ll be hosting its own Dambusters VR Experience.

Dambusters

Developed by creative agency All Seeing Eye in collaboration with the Imperial War Museum and supported by Digital Catapult and Arts Council England as a part of CreativeXR. The original prototype was called Immersive Histories: Dam Busters, based around the Dambusters first raid of 1943.

An authentic, interactive recreation of the Dambusters first mission on 16th May attacking the Möhne dam, the experience surrounds the audience with a physical set, able to feel the window, fuselage and desk in conjunction with VR visuals, spatialised audio and haptic feedback to completely transport audiences to the skies above Germany aboard an Avro Lancaster bomber. The haptic feedback comes from Subpac vest fitted into an authentic ‘Mae West’ life preserver, enabling guests to feel the roar of the Lancaster’s engines and booms from the German flak.

With a total runtime of 10 minutes, to help create the experience All Seeing Eye had input from No. 617 Squadron’s official historian, Robert Owen.

The Dambusters VR Experience is due to officially launch soon at the RAF Museum London, located in the Dambusters area in Hangar 5. Grouped together, Hangers 3,4 and 5 feature a rich history of war in the air, with the Supermarine Spitfire Mk 1A, Hawker Hurricane Mk 1, Messerschmitt Bf109E-4/B ‘Emil’, and Fiat CR42 Falco (Falcon) all on display.

Don’t forget there’s always 1943 Berlin Blitz by the BBC and VR Education which arrived last year for Oculus Rift and HTC Vive. This VR experience also puts you in a Lancaster bomber, heading out on a deadly bombing run over the capital city. VRFocus will continue covering the latest educational VR experiences, reporting back with the latest updates.

VR Plant Breeding Title “Seed” Wins $150,000 Developing Beyond Competition

It’s fair to say that Epic Games does share plenty of support, financial or otherwise, when its comes to virtual reality (VR) development. Whether its through the Unreal Dev Grants, the Big Data VR Challenge, or more recently the Developing Beyond competition. This week has seen the winners revealed, with the grand prize finalist being All Seeing Eye with its VR experience Seed.

Seed Screenshot

Seed is a VR plant breeding videogame where players use some advanced genetic engineering skills to create new plant species. With the help of historian Dr. Helen Anne Curry, she shared her knowledge of plant breeding history with the development team to aid their ideas. The main point of the title is for players to take on missions in a virtual potting shed that can influence food production, reflect geo-politics or even create new poisons in an imaginary world.

All Seeing Eye won $150,000 USD for coming in first place, with second place and $50,000 going to Winter Hall by Lost Forest Games. In third place Terramars by Untold Games received $30,000.

“This caps an incredible year for us,” said Ollie Lindsey, founder of winning company, All Seeing Eye in a statement. “It’s been a once in a lifetime opportunity, and to actually win is a dream come true. It means we now have the opportunity to focus solely on a game that we’re incredibly passionate about.”

All Seeing Eye Developing Beyond

Epic Games launched the $500,000 Developing Beyond competition in January 2017 in collaboration with the Wellcome Trust. The brief prompted developers to create new videogames exploring the theme of ‘Transformations.’ The teams then took inspiration from scientific ideas and used Unreal Engine 4 to build their titles. Developers retain rights to the intellectual property they created over the course of the challenge. The aim of the competition is to prepare the teams to ship new commercial games with the help of investors, publishers or partners.

“The jury was unanimous in voting for Seed as the deserved winner of this year’s Developing Beyond. All Seeing Eye have created a beautiful place to explore and spend time in, as well as delivering great gameplay and hitting all the scientific beats on right on the mark,” said Mike Gamble, European Territory Manager at Epic.“The quality of all three games has been incredible and the decision to split second and third was agonising. All three games are more than good enough to be picked up, developed further and taken to market, where I’m sure they will all shine.”

As Epic and The Wellcome Trust continue to launch new videogame initiatives, VRFocus will keep you updated.