bullet train – Augmented & Virtual Reality Confabulation

February 27, 2018

VR vs. The Room

Everybody stop what you are doing! Yup, you. You reading this. Stop what you’re doing as well. Cancel all the plans you have. I don’t care if you’re getting married in the morning, if you’re currently in an argument with a foreign power, if you’re about to win a contest, or even having lunch. Stop the nuptials, hold fire with the end of the world and seriously, for heaven’s sake put that sandwich down.

I have hot breaking news. Well, maybe not breaking and maybe not hot. I have lukewarm news you might not have heard about. It involves Oculus and no it’s not about the issue they had over the weekend with the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in America.

If you’re not familiar with that story, which we reported on Sunday, there was the usual Oculus demo booth at the conference showing off virtual reality (VR) to attendees.

There was just one problem with them doing so, the shadow hanging over CPAC was what was going to happen or be said in the aftermath of the tragedy that occurred in Florida. The current President of the United States has pretty much blamed everyone and anything at this time and yes, the spectre of “it’s the videogames I tells ya!” has descended once again having long since supplanted the idea of the ‘video nasty’ being responsible for every horrendous thing in the eighties and early nineties.

Oculus turned up of course, with their usual array of videogames demos. Unfortunately, that included Bullet Train. Which quickly became the face of ‘violent videogames’ at the event, with people upset that with all this going on guns were ‘being used to sell products’ and in the face of much criticism, the title and others (apparently) had to be withdrawn. Now I’m reliably informed by comments in response to our reporting on it that it is a “non-story”; I would say in response tell that to Oculus. Because by the time we reported on it a heck of a lot of national and international outlets including the USA Today and the BBC already had.

Ironically, what’s perhaps more awkward for Oculus was it wasn’t them expressly that the scorn fell on. Barra apologised on behalf of the company, but the headlines all were to do with Facebook. It was Facebook‘s mistake. It was Facebook who didn’t think. Oh dear… More bad publicity for the parent company.

I don’t blame Oculus for touring with Bullet Train. After all, the demo has been a part of their booths since “the year dot” (as my Mum would say), and it’s likely not something they even consider anymore. Bullet Train remains one of the best introductions to VR for gamers that you could ask for. That said, whilst there is a bit of a difference between the VR demo (why hasn’t it been replaced with Robo Recall, incidentally?) and what happened in Florida, Oculus did fail in this instance to do what you should always do – read the room. I’ve always felt that to be something of an American phrase. Reading the room. It is a good one though.

It shouldn’t be that much of a surprise that Oculus were a little bit slow on the uptake. Considering which, that brings me back to the amazing news that I wanted to share with you. Don’t look now everyone, but the Oculus Store on the web actually has a search function at last! Holy crap! I don’t know exactly when it happened, but damn if it isn’t progress. Actual, honest to God progress. I know the addition of a search function to a website is hardly going to set the world on fire, but damnit I’ve been banging on about their web store – their OFFICIAL online store – not having such a fundamental aspect of online retail for well over six months, and it had been like that for a long time prior to me talking about it.

[Insert Hallelujah chorus from Handel’s Messiah here]

Look! Look at it! I even like the section dropdown now. Very useful. That’s all it needed. A little bit of forethought. Unfortunately, it seems, Oculus are still in afterthought mode at the moment. Hopefully though they’ll learn from these. Both of these. Because each situation in its own way showcases Oculus’ awkward ability of being its own worst enemy.

And if your biggest problem is yourselves, that makes it so much easier for your rivals.

February 26, 2018

Facebook Pulls Bullet Train VR Demo From Conservative Conference Following Backlash

Facebook’s booth at the Conservative Political Action Conference last week drew attention for the wrong reasons.

The company’s booth at the show, which included talks from Donald Trump and the National Rifle Association, featured several Oculus Rift demo kiosks with a selection of experiences on offer. Among these was Bullet Train, a short demo from Robo Recall developer Epic Games in which players engage in a cinematic shootout with an army of soldiers inside a train station. The piece has made regular appearances at events over the past few years.

However, given that the show was taking place just a week after the tragic mass shooting at the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, many deemed Bullet Train’s presence as inappropriate and backlash quickly followed on social media platforms.

Zuckerberg: “We want to give people the power to build community and bring the world closer together.”

Facebook marketing: “Okay, let’s sponsor the hateful kooks at CPAC, put our logo next to the NRA’s and install an Oculus shoot’em up in our booth.”

pic.twitter.com/qUXcDWPzJc

— Justin Hendrix (@justinhendrix) February 23, 2018

As a result, Facebook pulled the demo from the show and VP of VR Hugo Barra issued the following statement:

There is a standard set of experiences included in the Oculus demos we feature at public events. A few of the action games can include violence. In light of the recent events in Florida and out of respect for the victims and their families, we have removed them from this demo. We regret that we failed to do so in the first place.

Late last year UploadVR’s senior editor, Ian Hamilton, wrote about the dangers of VR games in which you shoot virtual humans.

Tagged with: Bullet Train, facebook

February 24, 2018

Facebook Removes Violent Videogames from CPAC Booth After Public Criticism

With the recent shootings at a high school in Parkland, Florida, the issue of gun ownership and gun violence has once again dominated the news in both the US and abroad. With such a sensitive issue, Facebook and its virtual reality (VR) subsidiary Oculus have been unwittingly drawn into the furore due to a selection of titles being shown at the annual Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC).

When Oculus takes a demo booth to an event it’ll have a standard set of experiences for attendees to play, showcasing the range of gameplay available for Oculus Rift. One of those was Epic Games tech demo Bullet Train, where players have to move around a fictional train station taking out enemies with an assortment of weaponry, in addition to several other violent experiences.

Due to the fact that during CPAC there were several talks on the issue of guns – National Rifle Association (NRA) head Wayne LaPierre, spoke on Thursday with President Trump speaking Friday – Facebook was publicly criticised for demoing the violent videogame and others so soon after the shootings at the conference.

In a statement to USA TODAY, Facebook’s vice president of VR, Hugo Barra said: “There is a standard set of experiences included in the Oculus demos we feature at public events. A few of the action games can include violence. In light of the recent events in Florida and out of respect for the victims and their families, we have removed them from this demo. We regret that we failed to do so in the first place.”

Barra also took to Twitter to apologise further: “We removed the demo & regret failing to do so at the start. We got this wrong. Our demos come w a [sic] standard set of content, some are action games w [sic] violence. These shouldn’t have been present, especially in light of recent events & out of respect for the victims & their families.”

While Bullet Train wasn’t the only title to be removed, shooting videogames in general are popular in VR thanks to motion controllers and the general popularity of the genre among gamers. It’s not been made clear which other titles were included in the demo. Oculus Rift has a wide selection of experiences available, both educational and interactive, whether users are looking to explore the world with Google Earth VR or the solar system in Discovering Space 2, to cute titles like Tethered and puzzle experiences such as XING: The Land Beyond. There are plenty to choose from when considering a demo selection for particular events so hopefully Facebook/Oculus will be more mindful in the future.

VRFocus will continue its coverage of Facebook/Oculus, especially with F8 on the horizon as well as GDC.

February 1, 2017

Watch: Epic’s Robo Recall is Coming, New Developer Diary Charts its Evolution

This latest video developer diary from Epic gives a very brief, but insightful overview of how Oculus Touch and Rift tech demo Bullet Train became fully fledged release Robo Recall, and what the developers learned along the way.

Epic‘s Robo Recall is heading to Oculus Rift in Q1 of this year for free, but how did the title evolve from tech demo, Bullet Train, designed to show off Oculus’ long awaited Touch motion controllers to the wonderfully frantic arcade shooter we’ll play soon (Q1 2017 in fact)?

This new developer diary walks you through key lessons learned by the team. The evolution of the teleportation mechanic for example, which began life as a restrictive form of locomotion in Bullet Train but in Robo Recall allows a free choice of destination and orientation all with the minimum of input effort on behalf of the player. They also share an interesting tidbit about the rendering choices made for Robo Recall, specifically aiming for the sharpest, cleanest visuals possible by using a “simplified forward renderer” to apply MSAA (Multisample Anti-Aliasing).

Here’s a snippet from what Ben Lang had to say about his time with Robo Recall after he went hands on with it at last year’s Oculus Connect conference:

With Touch, guns are a natural gameplay mechanic, and Robo Recall is full of them. With Epic’s characteristically impressive design, the weapons you’ll wield in the game are satisfying from their look to their sound, right down to the way they blow enemies to pieces. Waves of killer robots will be on the receiving end of your firepower, but this isn’t the gritty serious action of Call of Duty, it’s an arcade slugfest where a high score underlines the action.

Epic’s New Robo Recall Dev Diary Details The Game’s Evolution From Bullet Train

Robo Recall is easily one of the most exciting VR experience coming in 2017, but its roots actually trace back to a relatively simple tech demo from 2015.

Fans of the Rift will remember when developer Epic Games took to the stage of the Oculus Connect 2 keynote that year to announce a tech demo for the then-unreleased Oculus Touch controllers, called Bullet Train. The demo was a first glimpse into what Touch could do for VR shooters and served as the foundation for Epic’s first larger VR game, Robo Recall. In this new dev diary, the first in a new series, focuses on the upcoming game. We can see the developer talk in more detail about how the two are linked, something Nick Whiting, Technical Director at Epic Games, alluded to in our interview from October.

Members of the Epic team are on-hand here to discuss how Robo Recall builds upon what the studio learned in Bullet Train. Teleporting, for example, is no longer assigned to specific spots in a level, but instead allows you to move to any position, much like other modern VR shooters.

Most importantly, though, you’re getting lots of new footage of the game here. There’s no two ways about it; Robo Recall is looking gorgeous, no doubt thanks to the intimate knowledge the developer has with its popular development toolkit, Unreal Engine. In the game, you’re tasked with taking down hordes of malfunctioning robots and encouraged to get inventive with creative kills, not too dissimilar to Epic’s own Bulletstorm, only with a much more comic-book, cartoonish style. We cam away very impressed from our time with the game at OC3 last year.

Bullet Train, meanwhile, can now be downloaded on Rift for free. Epic will also release Robo Recall for free, exclusively on Oculus Rift with Touch, and it’s easy to see why: this is as good an advertisement you’ll see for the engine as you’ll see.

There isn’t much longer to go until Robo Recall hits; it’s due in Q1 2017 and we’re already a month through that window. Expect a few more entries in this diary series before it launches.

Tagged with: Bullet Train, Epic Games, FPS, oculus rift, robo recall, touch, Unreal engine

December 6, 2016

Epic Games Release Tech Demo Bullet Train for Free on Oculus Touch

The day has finally arrived and Oculus Rift owners can now start enjoying motion control gameplay with Oculus Touch. The controllers should’ve started landing with pre-order customers today, with several free titles available to download, including The Unspoken, VR Sports Challenge, Dead and Buried, Medium and Quill. For today’s launch Unreal Engine creator Epic Games has announced that its tech demo for Oculus Touch, Bullet Train, will be freely available to download for users.

Bullet Train made its first appearance during Oculus Connect 2 in September 2015, with visitors to the event getting their hands on the hectic first-person shooter (FPS). Since that first showing, Bullet Train made several appearances at events across the world, being one of the standout demonstrations for Oculus Touch. But until now Epic Games never mentioned whether it would release the videogame to a wider audience.

As we now know, Bullet Train was actually a precursor to Robo Recall, which Epic debuted at the most recent Oculus Connect 3 event in October. Features such as grabbing bullets in mid air to throw back at enemies have been transferred to the upcoming Robo Recall, due for release early 2017, and for free as well.

Recently Epic Games released the first part of a behind-the-scenes documentary series on the creation of Robo Recall, featuring interviews with the team and new gameplay footage. VRFocus interviewed some of the team working on the new title, explaining what the developer had learned from making the previous demo.

VRFocus will continue its coverage of Epic Games and its VR developments, reporting back with any further announcements.

October 20, 2016

Epic Games Technical Director: We Want ‘Robo Recall’ To Be The ‘Ultimate Tech Demo’ For Unreal Engine

Robo Recall was easily one of the most exciting games we got our hands on at Oculus Connect 3 earlier this month. Epic Games turned their popular Bullet Train tech demo into a full game that’s not only coming to Oculus Rift with Touch next year after the controllers release this December, but it will also be available for free when it arrives.

In Robo Recall, you’ll spend your time unloading bullets into hundreds of robots as they descend upon you from all angles. Using the Touch controllers, you can spin around and blast them away, teleport around the environment for movement, and even reach out and rip them into dozens of pieces with your bare hands. It’s a bit of a power fantasy, with a dash of humor, and the visceral gameplay does a great job of keeping your mind focused on your virtual surroundings.

“When making Robo Recall, we started with the base of Bullet Train as it stood,” said Nick Whiting, Technical Director at Epic Games during a phone interview. “There was a lot in there that people liked, such as the action, the feel, the not too serious tone, it was very over-the-top like a comic book movie. We wanted to incorporate grabbing and punching, but we just didn’t have time to do that before.”

The team at Epic locked onto that mechanic as a big part of Robo Recall and for good reason. It’s super satisfying to watch the sparks fly and metal peel off when I rip an arm or leg away from a robotic torso. It makes me feel like a hero from one of The Terminator films.

“Bullet Train was made on a short timeframe with a small group,” said Whiting. “In fact, focused work was only around 6 weeks long and about 10 weeks overall total. We learned a lot about pushing the rendering technology with it, but because of the constraints there was just a lot that we wanted to get done that we couldn’t get done. We asked what we could do if we cranked everything up to 11, and that’s sort of how we got Robo Recall. We wanted to make the ultimate tech demo.”

Based on what we’ve seen, they’ve more than succeeded. There’s still no word on exactly when the game releases or how long it will be, but you can’t argue with free. Visually, it’s a treat, and has enough action to keep you busy. Replaying levels to get higher scores and challenging friends will be a go-to option at future gatherings and demo environments.

However, you probably shouldn’t expect official support for Robo Recall to come to other VR platforms, like the HTC Vive or PlayStation VR — at least not any time soon.

“After Bullet Train, Oculus basically asked us if we wanted to turn that into a full game. So, right now it’s an Oculus exclusive piece of content because they funded it,” explained Whiting. “But even though Oculus funded the title, they gave us a lot of freedom. That’s what enables us to to give it away for free and grow the VR market.”

You can read more about Robo Recall in our full hands-on and expect to play the game when it arrives on Oculus Rift with Touch in early 2017.

October 11, 2016

Robo Recall Design Insights from Developers Epic Games

Epic Games has had a long history of releasing new demo content at big gaming and developer conferences to showcase the latest Oculus hardware, and this year was no different. Oculus Studios provided funding to further develop the Bullet Train demo from last year into a fully-fledged FPS game called Robo Recall. This demo had one of the most polished and mature game mechanics expanding upon the Bullet Train bullet capture-and-throw mechanic into new weapons and upclose hand-to-hand combat with stylized arcade AI robots gone rouge.

I had a chance to talk with Epic Games VR lead Nick Whiting and artist Jerome Platteaux about their design process, deeper intentions, and overall art style and direction of the game. They debuted a new locomotion technique that was designed to help subtly guide players to facing the true north of the front-facing cameras, and Nick admitted that there are some design constraints to creating a game with the Oculus’ recommended front-facing camera arrangement. Jerome also said that there are new gameplay options that open up with a potential third tracking camera, but they didn’t give any more specifics as to whether Robo Recall intends on supporting the optional room-scale type of gameplay.

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The post Robo Recall Design Insights from Developers Epic Games appeared first on Road to VR.

October 6, 2016

Preview: Robo Recall – The Reason You Bought Into VR

Showdown, Bullet Train, Robo Recall. For the already initiated there’s a clear path that has been followed to bring Robo Recall – Epic Games’ newly announced virtual reality (VR) exclusive videogame – to a consumer audience. For many however, the route that has been taken is inconsequential and the final product will be presented on its individual merits alone. Thankfully, Robo Recall stands on its own bi-pedal robotic feet as the VR videogame you need.

Contrary to Epic Games’ work in VR thus far, Robo Recall has a story. It also has a progression system, scoring mechanic, deep combat mechanics and a boss fight. Put simply, Robo Recall is a videogame, and not a technical demonstration. Furthermore, the studio will launch Robo Recall exclusively for Oculus Rift with Oculus Touch later this year, free of charge.

The videogame casts the player as a recall expert on the hunt of AI that has gone rogue. Essentially, robots built to perform menial tasks got bored, started spending too much time on the internet and learned about their own history. They became self-aware. And they’re not happy about their position in the evolutionary ladder. Now, they’re heavily armed and roaming the streets looking for trouble, so it’s up to you to take them out in the most efficient manner possible: blasting them to robo hell.

The videogame begins with the player being taught the basics in their office. A short elevator ride explaining the situation sees you arrive in a rather shabby looking venue, littered with paperwork and other random detritus. Here the player can learn the first lesson of interaction simply through exploration: any object that has a white circle appear on it when in close proximity can be grabbed. To move the player uses a teleportation mechanic that has evolved out of the aforementioned Bullet Train: moving the analogue stick on the left Oculus Touch controller will slow time and launch a beam which can be aimed to the position you wish to move to, and moving the analogue stick will determine the direction you’ll be facing upon arrival. It’s a simple and intuitive variation of the current trend for teleportation movement in VR, and it checks all of the boxes it needs to.

Infinitely more impressive however, is the combat. Robo Recall is undoubtedly the most fun first-person shooter (FPS) videogame in VR. The player is at first equipped with just pistols: two, located on each hip. The player can draw and fire at will, and just as with Bullet Train dispose of once ammunition has been depleted. Weapons take a few seconds to recharge (indicated by an icon within the player’s relative view related to the weapon’s holster location on your body) before they can be drawn again, but there’s also the opportunity to grab weapons from your foes. Furthermore, there’s the opportunity to grab enemies themselves, too.

Those white circle indicators on interactive items mentioned above? They’re not just for idle object examination; they’re for further brutality. The player can grab bi-pedal robots and rip them apart – literally – using their heads of limbs as weapons against other robots. Smaller spider-like robots become active grenades when grabbed, allowing you to throw them at other robots and take out numerous enemies in one blast. This close combat mechanic is practically guaranteed to bring a smile to your face – slowly pulling apart an enemy and watching the immense detail in its construction dissembled by force – even if it’ll be underused at times of high action.

Throughout all of this Robo Recall gives the player a high-score system earned through successful kills. Kill streaks, juggle combos, headshots and more all reward the player with bigger scores. It’s a system that’s reminiscent of Bulletstorm to a degree, and the cartoonish text with which the score is displayed coupled with the speed of the action give Robo Recall a genuine arcade adrenaline-rush feel to its gameplay.

Easily one of the best looking videogames yet seen in the new modern medium of VR, the demonstration version of Robo Recall culminates in a boss fight that varies up the gameplay significantly. Traditionally obvious weakpoints make for an easy win, but there’s much more this boss can offer beyond defeat. This in essence is exactly what Robo Recall’s first demonstration presents: a highly polished, hugely enjoyable hint at much more to come.

October 6, 2016

Epic’s New Action-packed ‘Robo Recall’ FPS is Beautiful, Brutal Arcade Fun

It was back at the end of 2015 that Epic Games Founder Tim Sweeney teased “something much bigger” than the VR tech demos the company has done in the past. Now the company plans to launch Robo Recall, the evolution of their critically acclaimed Bullet Train tech demo. We’ve played it and it’s awesome (and beautiful).

Last year at Oculus Connect 2015, Epic revealed the Bullet Train tech demo for Oculus Touch. Now at Connect 2016, the company has revealed Robo Recall, an Oculus Touch exclusive arcade FPS and spiritual successor to that tech demo. In Robo Recall, you’ll be blasting robots left and right right, tearing enemies limb from limb, and generally wreaking satisfying arcade FPS havoc.

Robo Recall is built entirely around Oculus Touch and will be exclusive to the platform; Oculus funded the title and plans to release it for free in Q1 2017.

With Touch, guns are a natural gameplay mechanic, and Robo Recall is full of them. With Epic’s characteristically impressive design, the weapons you’ll wield in the game are satisfying from their look to their sound, right down to the way they blow enemies to pieces. Waves of killer robots will be on the receiving end of your firepower, but this isn’t the gritty serious action of Call of Duty, it’s an arcade slugfest where a high score underlines the action.

To get a sense of the sort of arcade styling of the game here’s an example: You start with two basic pistols holstered at your hips; once their clips are spent, instead of reloading with a new magazine, you’re encouraged to simply throw them aside, as a new pair will simply be teleported to your holsters. It’s virtual, wasteful, debauchery of the best sort. Then there’s the flashy points that pop up over enemies’ heads when you blast them apart, and a narrator highlighting moves like “headshot!”.

And there’s more to do than just shoot. If a robot wanders close enough, you can reach out and grab it, then proceed to tear it limb from robotic limb.

Holding on to one part of the bot, you’ll see white dots appear on other vulnerable parts, with you off hand you can reach out and just shear the piece off, then of course use it to beat the rest of the thing to pieces. And when you’re all done, don’t forget to throw that sad, lonely limb at another robot for some juicy points. Developers behind Robo Recall told me that this feature came directly from people’s natural reaction to reach out to grab or punch enemy robots when they got near in Bullet Train.

Returning from Bullet Train is the bullet-dodging functionality where the world will go into slow motion when incoming bullets are about to hit you. And yes, you can still grab a bullet out of the air and launch it back at your assailant like a superhero.

In the Robo Recall demo I got to play with Oculus Touch at Connect, I tore through enemy robots with guns, fists, and even a giant mini-boss-bot that I was able to board and control, using it’s huge arms to grab and smash enemies and the laser cannon on its right arm. At one point I nabbed a robot who strolled too close, launched it into the air, and then proceeded to blast it out of the sky like laser skeet.

Navigation is handled with a teleportation mechanic where you point to where you want to move to and then use the Touch controller’s left stick to rotate the teleportation cursor to the direction you want to face when you move. When it works, it works well, but there’s stuff some user-control related issues that sometimes get you turned around away from the frontal tracking cameras. It’s something Epic says they’re still working to perfect.

There’s no denying Epic’s game development talent, and their work in VR is no different. Across the board, Robo Recall is visually and sonically polished to a sheen (just wait until you see those pretty reflections), and the game oozes with feedback that elevates it from what could be a generic VR FPS into something much more visceral.

The sum of the experience is satisfying action-packed fun. Grab a robot, rip the gun out of its hand, then blow its head off and use the corpse as a shield.

The game isn’t just fun, also impressively beautiful. That’s the norm for pretty much anything Epic has set their minds (and their impressive Unreal Engine) to, but Robo Recall in particular uses some new tech from Epic to look extra sharp in VR.

Epic Game’s Nick Whiting told me that the company wrote a new forward-renderer to eek out extra graphical detail in VR. Partly based on Oculus’ work, the renderer opens up the door to MSAA in VR which Whiting says really enhances the sharpness of geometry which is especially noticeable in VR thanks to stereoscopy.