Augmented & Virtual Reality Confabulation
What Augmented Reality and Virtual Reality developers are talking about
Nintendo has unveiled the latest kit in its Nintendo Labo building series. The Vehicle Kit will launch this September, and it includes materials to control a car, submarine, and plane.
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Nintendo Labo is now available, giving players the chance to make their own creations for use with the Nintendo Switch. Almost immediately, we've seen some absolutely fantastic custom designs.
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Virtual reality has been a hotbed of artistic innovation ever since Google blew our collective minds with Tilt Brush. Since that award-winning product hit the market the field has grown to include Quill, Oculus Medium and a handful of other notable creation programs. Each of these has its own interesting mechanics and artistic sensibilities, and now one more player is entering the game.
Gravity Sketch is one of the newer VR art experiences, but it is already generating a good amount of buzz for the unique work it is able to produce. Tilt Brush, Medium and Quill are sometimes recognizable for their cartoonish graphics, but Gravity Sketch doubles down on realistic visuals and dynamic lighting effects.
Interest in Gravity Sketch may be high, but access so far has been very limited. The company has only made the program available to a very small group of early testers. Now, however, it is finally ready to expand that pool.
According to an email from Gravity Sketch:
“After extensive testing with a small group of amazing VR artists we are at a place where we feel comfortable opening access to the public. We are on-boarding a limited number of users but open to any one with a Vive or Oculus to join Steam. In an email, Gravity Sketch explained why it is keeping its beta so limited and why the Steam version is taking longer:
“We are a pretty user driven team, we put the UX as top priority. We got really close to launch and were about to go live on Steam Early Access but there are a few things we feel we just didn’t get right yet. This decision was made on the back of the months of learning we got from our Private beta guys.
We will get a few more people onboard from more of a diverse background to really bullet proof test some of the launch features we have been working to perfect. By staying beta we can regulate how many people we onboard and can have a much closer relationship with the community. We grow the beta team a bit more then close it and do another round of user testing and feedback before Early Access.”
Good luck and happy creating!
Tagged with: art, beta, creation, Gravity Sketch, rift, steam
Game creation has become a big topic for ease-of-use software applications in recent years. Game Maker is one of the most popular examples as it was used to create several hit indie games such as Hotline Miami, Undertale, and Spelunky.
RPG Maker also tops the list of simpler game creation tools, as well as Twine for interactive fiction, All of these programs are viewed as a more approachable way of getting into game development as opposed to the more complex programming required for engines such as Unity and Unreal.
SMILE GAME BUILDER, which can be found on Steam, isn’t as well known as any of the ones listed thus far, but it gets the job done for those that take the time to learn its very specific use cases. It empowers users to make their own RPGs, similar to RPG Maker, but can use 3D graphics when you’re exploring and boasts a much brighter and more stylized art style, as opposed to the pixel art of the recent RPG Maker MV.
As is popular in many game engines, such as Unity, SMILE GAME BUILDER is adding the ability to interact with your creations in real-time by going inside a VR headset. Currently, the beta build of the feature does not support actually editing and moving things around when you’re in VR, it’s simply features an alternate viewing mode. This could prove useful for creators that want to get a closer view at their games or take a look at things from a new perspective.
“Players can experience the 3D RPG world they created with SMILE GAME BUILDER in the virtual space with HDM equipment without data conversion and any coding,” said Reimi Kojima from SmileBoom, creators of SMILE GAME BUILDER. “The VR system is supported by HTC VIVE and Oculus Rift and players are able to change the angle of view by switching the camera position between bird’s-eye and character’s view.This is still a beta version but we are excited to develop this system with users’ opinions, and we think it is going to be very interesting if players would be able to create their original RPG games with VIVE controller or Oculus Touch in the future.”
For those interested, you can check out SMILE GAME BUILDER on Steam where it currently has a 20% off sale price of $63.99.
Tagged with: creation, jrpg, smile game builder, smileboom, steam
I have always been fascinated by insights into what drives us to make the choices that we do, and what motivates us to stay engaged with an experience. AMC’s Mad Men protagonist, Don Draper, shared his consumer insight in the famous ‘Carousel’ scene, that they were not just selling their client’s slide projector. Instead, they were offering a solution to the deep-rooted human desire to time-travel to past moments in time, with the slide projector technology:
“Technology is a glittering lure. But, there is the rare occasion when the public can be engaged on a level beyond flash, if they have a sentimental bond with the product.”
We in the virtual reality industry are not just selling access to virtual experiences. We are building solutions for deep-rooted consumer needs. But how do we know the right way to develop VR content and technology, to maximize consumer engagement? It comes down to understanding what drives consumers to seek out immersive experiences.
No group in the world is better known for innovating based on a profound consumer understanding, than global design and innovation firm, IDEO. They are behind solutions like the first usable computer mouse, and the first Apple Watch camera band and charger, developed using what they have coined as human centered design.
Curious to understand how to apply human centered design thinking to innovate for the future of VR, I connected with IDEO’s leads on Immersive Experiences. Portfolio Director Peter Hyer oversees their media and technology group and holds a valuable background in architecture and gaming. Senior Design Lead Dav Raush, focuses on new product development in the space of immersive experiences, and holds a rich history in the film industry. In fact, he has already innovated for the future as far out as the 22nd century, leading the design of future user interfaces for blockbusters like Avatar and Iron Man.
Through a combination of explorations, consumer observations and other media work, IDEO has uncovered what they refer to as their Toolkit of human drivers, specific to why we seek out immersive experiences. Applying these drivers helps to evolve the creative focus beyond developing specific technology and features, to decision-making based on human-centered thinking:
The desire to discover is deeply embedded in us. Even babies explore their environments through their senses, before they can crawl. Beyond immersing visitors in new worlds for them to see, the drive for Discovery is also fulfilled through manipulating our senses like touch, as well as playing with the visitor’s size so that they can experience what they wouldn’t normally be able to. Raush reinforced the importance for room-scale over 360, to satisfy the need for Discovery by allowing movement and more freedom to explore.
We are strongly motivated to become masters of things, but Hyer explains that we also “appreciate the sensation of progress.” It’s not as engaging to offer someone an incredible ability in VR, as it is to have them build on it. IDEO uncovered that allowing people to focus on developing one skill at a time, offering repetition of practice, and timely, positive, visible feedback, is how to feed their appetite for Mastery. And, allowing them to build a skill raises their time spent in the experiences, which increases the value that they get from the investment in the content.
Creation is not only a form of expression, but it is also a means to leave our mark on the world. Immersive mediums allow the creation process to become a full-body experience, as users design in the same environment that their creation lives. Users can feel a presence with what is being built, and a more personal connection to it. Offering the ability to create everything from art, to worlds, to stories, appeals to this driver.
Thought-leaders like Chris Milk have leveraged the power of empathy to engage millions with the possibilities of VR. The driver of Empathy, Hyer explains, is the desire to understand another person’s point of view and live their experiences. The most popular form of fulfilling this driver of Empathy is through powerful emotional narratives, but other ways to achieve this include shifting points of view in the content, and developing a juxtaposition between familiar and foreign things.
Shared experiences are how we build social connections. Insights into this driver highlight the extreme importance of multi-user experiences, as well as the value of being able to share what a user experiences with their acquaintances. Hyer explains that when solitary experiences are shared, and others from the users’ network have had similar experiences, it also satisfies the Connection driver. So, while 360 content doesn’t have mult-iuser functionality, if a 360 piece has a strong social media sharing component, it could help to satisfy the itch for Connection. Of course, being present with someone in an immersive experience is the best way to appeal to the Connection driver.
Hyer explains the driver of Transcendence as the need to “push the boundaries of our own sensation…to get out of our day-to-day routine, and go outside of ourselves.” By leaving ‘ourselves’ behind, the payoff is being able to perceive the real world differently, after the experience.
Immersive experiences that offer Transcendence can give consumers the chance to become something other than human, to explore the unknown. Playing with scale, senses, and even the rules of perception, help to take us to a different place.
Raush explains that “Discovery is also a component of Transcendence… As we discover, we start to transcend from who we were.” Once we experience something eye-opening in VR, it has the power to evolve us.
Raush shared from his experience that it’s valuable to identify primary, secondary and tertiary drivers. The way that you design the drivers to work together can make the immersive experience much more intriguing and engaging.
“When you combine different drivers, leading with one and switching to another can work really well. For example, Discovery is immediately attractive, people get it, but Discovery alone is very shallow. It will pull you in, but it won’t pull you very far. Pretty soon you’ll have to have another driver that will keep you engaged.” An example of the secondary driver in this case could be Mastery.
Just think of how the Empathy driver can be complemented with the ability to Master something new, from a person living in a culture different from yours. Or how the desire for Connection can be enhanced with the ability to experience Transcendence together.
And, the timing of when you begin to introduce your secondary and tertiary drivers impacts the experience. Raush notes that “you need to be smart, to get past the awkwardness at just the right moments.” IDEO employs what they call Low-Fidelity Prototyping to quickly test their assumptions during the process of creation. This is a sort of micro test of one specific concept, like determining the right time to introduce the secondary driver to maximize user enjoyment of the experience. Validation Testing is a more complete test of the full experience or product, which happens later in the process.
By testing and building solutions for these deep-rooted consumer drivers, we will be forging strong, lasting sentimental consumer bonds with virtual reality as a whole.
Featured image from James Cameron’s Avatar.
Do you remember how you kept your LEGO blocks? For me, I stored all of them in a big box, unsorted and in complete chaos. Every playtime I would tip this box out and cause an almighty mess. I wouldn’t think about the pain of clearing it away until it was time to do so, at which point I would sigh and whine as I scooped up my inventions with two hands and dropped them back into the container to be forever forgotten as they drowned in a sea of plastic.
LEGO Brickheadz reminds me of that box. I open it up and virtual bricks tumble out of it. I can build what I want and cause as much mess as I please, only at the end there’s no tidy up time. On one hand, it’s like my childhood dream come true, though it ultimately can’t replace the real thing. At least not yet.
Released on Daydream last week for free, Brickheadz is very different to the LEGO games you’re used to seeing on games consoles. Rather than a themed adventure, this fully embraces the spirit of building toys to play with. The main experience is set in a vibrant bedroom in front of a space that toys — themselves based on the LEGO Brickheadz line of bulkier characters — come alive in. From a menu, you pick figures and objects and drag them down into the world with the Daydream controller.
In the main game, you’ll need to unlock more creations by solving simple puzzles that usually involve taking a certain character, giving them a certain item and a certain mood (which you can change by placing them on a portal), and putting them next to a certain object. The fun comes from experimentation; what happens when you give a lion a sword and set him loose on a scene? What if I introduce this magician to this woman looking lonely over here? There’s a playful invention here that adds a bit of Toy Story to the block building.
Where Brickheadz is best enjoyed, though, is with that building. At any point you can point to a frame to head into a creation mode, either following instructions to make your own figures, or tossing out the rule book and constructing whatever you please. You choose from sets of blocks that rain down from above and then use the Daydream controller to pick up individual pieces and place them on a mat. It’s a pretty small space, so what you can build is inevitably pretty limited itself, but there’s still plenty of room for playing around.
Daydream’s controller does an adequate job of simulating playing with LEGO blocks, though it’s a little too restricted. I often found myself longing for two position-tracked controls so that I could really stick these blocks together myself. Without them, sticking pieces together is more finicky. Still, it’s functional, and I could make things with relatively few mistakes. The sheer joy of playing with building blocks is still enough to make this the better half of the game.
Any good LEGO creation is built on a solid foundation. You usually have to start from within and build out, and you’re not sure how you’re going to get to your ultimate goal. I feel the same about LEGO Brickheadz in its current state. I want it to be the foundation for things to come, working toward a high-end game where I can easily build models much bigger and more ambitious than anything I could have put together from my box.
LEGO Brickheadz can be downloaded for free on Google Play.
Steam is a great place for games, but that’s about it. Did you even know Valve’s digital storefront sold movies? They’re rare, but they’re there. And with all the VR content that’s flooding the platform each week, we’re also bound to miss some of the smaller, more experimental pieces that don’t capture our attention with massive explosions and high fidelity graphics.
Anyland appears to be one of those titles that we’ve had our eyes on since the teaser released in mid-July.
Anyland is available now on the HTC Vive through Steam, and is considered a sister app to Manyland, a 2D creative toolset and game. If you need a sense of what Anyland could one day become, I implore you to head to the Manyland website. Just click that link. You will not be expecting what you get.
Manyland is a 2D experience in which you can build your own worlds and invite others to explore them. In this day and age that’s not really saying much, but this is a universe that has persisted over three years now, allowing players to create music and even script actions. Players haven’t just built houses but also a community, and it’s something the developers are proud of.
But, all all along the creators were also dreaming of a VR version of the game that brought its aspirations into the 3D realm. Lenssen tells me over email that the pair had been “hooked” on VR since the days of the Oculus Rift DK1. “I’ve had an interest in world building tools for many years and Anyland is meant to be a blank canvas for everyone’s creativity, where nothing is predefined, and history is invented by all of us together,” he says.
Whereas Manyland plays like a 2D platformer, Anyland reminds me, more than anything, of Unity’s own Editor VR software (Lenessen says the team hasn’t considered Tools integration yet). It’s first-person with position-tracked controls. You bring up 3D menus to summon objects like squares and spheres and can then alter them to your liking. By simply placing your creations on your VR body, you can turn them into body parts for truly unique avatars.
“In Anyland the emphasis is that it’s a shared experience where we all create a universe from scratch, without predefined models, textures, stories and themes,” Lenssen says. “The tools aim to find a balance for different activities and interests, like coding, music, designing, maybe one day painting. And when you don’t create and build, you chat, party, have fun, and go on adventures together.”
There’s a sort of gamification to Anyland that doesn’t exist with a lot of other creation software, then. There’s an intent to actually use your avatars and other creations, sharing them with others and having social gatherings either to show off what you’ve built or see what your friends have made. That puts it closer to something like Valve’s Destinations than it does Tilt Brush or Tvori.
Going forward, Lenssen says the team will look into Rift and Touch support. Since launch, the developers has supported with plenty of updates, and it will continue to provide more with the help of players. “We want to continue to listen closely to all feedback so the world can evolve in a way that makes everyone happy. That’s our top priority.”
This is one VR experience that might have passed you by, but now you can correct that. Anyland is available on Steam for $11.99.
Fall has arrived and pumpkin patches are in full swing as families and groups of friends search for the perfect orange veggie canvas to express their creativity upon. The 19th century Jack-o’-lantern tradition is, now, getting a modernized upgrade: SculptrVR is joining in the festivities and offering a free program to carve virtual pumpkins.
Pumpkin SculptrVR is now available on Steam and allows players to enlarge or shrink down to carve at a massive scale or chisel fine details into a virtual pumpkin. The gameplay is voxel based and can be manipulated block by block or destroyed entirely. The setting in your workspace can also be influenced, adding lighting and fog elements to set the scene.
On top of this free offering, the developers are holding a contest to attract more users. Take to the application and create your best work plus scenery and, if chosen as the victor, you win a little extra loot: The five favorites overall will be given a $100 Steam wallet card. If you’re willing to split your winning prize up, the application allows for up to 16 players at a time to work on a single project with voice chat enabled. You may not need the help, though. Pumpkin SculptrVR’s main tool, the delete sphere, makes the process fairly easy as you remove chunks of voxels with a wave of your wand. So carve out whatever face or design that comes to mind and place a voxel candle inside your creation for the final touch.
Pumpkin SculptrVR is available for HTC Vive and Oculus Rift. A few submissions are already being shared on the company’s twitter, from fairly simple to a bit more detailed, but you still have time to get to work. Let your creativity overflow and flex your VR sculpting skills. The contest runs from now until Oct 31, 2016 11:59 pm PDT.