Category: Dear Angelica

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25 Free Games & Apps Quest 2 Owners Should Download First

Not ready to plonk down your first $100 on Quest 2 games? Thankfully there’s an impressive number of free games, experiences, apps, and social VR platforms to keep you playing before you’re paying.

Note: We didn’t include demos for paid games in the list, but you should definitely also check out these too for a quick taste of the full thing, such as Synth Riders, Journey of the Gods, Creed: Rise to Glory, Beat Saber, Superhot VR, Space Pirate Trainer, No More Rainbows, Pistol Whip, and Carve Snowboarding. 

We have however included App Lab games. If you want to see more, SideQuest’s search function is a great resource for finding free stuff and demos. Below you’ll find some of the top App Lab games in addition to those hosted on the official store.

Free Games

Population: One

Population: One is basically VR’s most successful battle royale, letting you climb, fly, shoot, and team-up with whoever dares. Once paid, the free-to-play game does feature microtransactions, but only for cosmetics, which is nice. It’s still a paid on game on Steam though, which makes sense considering developers BixBox VR were acquired by Meta. There is more than just battle royale though: you can play in the sandbox for custom maps and rules, team deathmatch with customizable loadouts, a 12v12 war mode, and more.

Blaston

Once a paid game, this room-scale shooter is now free-to-play, letting you take on friends, family and foes in head-to-head 1v1 dueling. Refine your loadout and jump into the action as you scramble for weapons and send a volley of hellfire at your enemies, all the while Matrix dodging through this innovative bullet hell meets futuristic dueling game. Spend money on cosmetics, or don’t: it’s a massive slice of fun any which way.

Gun Raiders

There aren’t a ton of free-to-play shooters out there that promise multiplayer action, however Gun Raiders fits the bill with its multiple game modes that let you jetpack through the air, climbing from wall to wall, and shoot down the competition. There’s the same sort of microtransactions you see in bigger games, but it they’re all avatar skin stuff, so no pay-to-win here.

  • Developer: Gun Raiders Entertainment Inc.
  • Store link

Hyper Dash

Hyper Dash is a multiplayer shooter that basically fills in where Echo Combat never could (never mind that Echo Combat was never on Quest, and is now entirely defunct on Oculus PC). Letting you quick dash, sprint, and rail grind around, Hyper Dash manages to serve up an impressive number of modes, including Payload, Domination, Control Point, (Team) Deathmatch, Capture The Flag, and Elimination. You can also take on both Quest and SteamVR users thanks to the inclusion of cross-play.

Ultimechs

Ultimechs should look pretty familiar: it’s basically Rocket League, but instead of driving around in cars, you’re given rocket-powered fists to punch balls into the goal. Online multiplayer includes both 1v1 and 2v2 matches, offering up tons of opportunities to earn cosmetic gear that will let you outfit your battle mech into something unique. There are also now two paid battle passes too, offering up a ton of cosmetics to set you apart from the competition.

Battle Talent

Battle Talent is one of those fighting sims that let you go ham on ragdoll baddies, which in this case are wily goblins and loads of skelingtons. This physics-based roguelite action game lets you climb, run and slide your way through levels as you slash, shoot, and wield magic against your foes.

Cards & Tankards

Cards & Tankards is a pretty addictive social collectible card game, letting you collect and battle friends with over 180 cards. With cross-play against SteamVR headsets (also free on PC), you may consider hosting your regular game night playing more than a few rounds in the game’s characteristic medieval fantasy tavern.

Pavlov Shack Beta

Ever wanted to play Counter-Strike on Quest? Pavlov Shack offers up a pretty comparable experience, as you play in either deathmatch or co-op mode. It’s got all of the realistic gunplay and much of the fun of the paid PC VR title, but it’s still going strong with a free open beta on Quest.

Spatial Ops

Still in open beta, this 4v4 arena-scale shooter requires space and Quest 2 (or Quest Pro) owning buddies—both of which you may not have. Still, it makes for an incredible time that is basically the best version of laser tag you’ve ever played. You’ll need SideQuest to download this one since it disables Quest’s guardian system, but it’s well worth jumping through the hoops to get working if you have everything else.

Gorilla Tag

This humble game of tag started out life on SideQuest and App Lab, offering up an infectious bit of gameplay that’s now available for free on the official Quest Store. You’ll be lumbering around a tree-lined arena using its unique grab-the-world locomotion style that lets you amble around like a great ape. Chase the other apes and infect them or climb for your life as the infected chase you. Pure and simple. Make sure you’re far from TVs, furniture, babies, and pets because you will punch something in the mad dash for sweet, low-poly freedom.

PokerStars VR

No real cash gambling here, but PokerStars VR not only let you go all-in on games of Texas Hold’em, but now a full casino’s worth of table games a machines that are sure to light up the dopamine starved pleasure centers of your brain. It’s all free play, so you won’t be risking real cash unless you buy in-game chips, which cannot be turned back into real money: it’s only to keep your bankroll flush for free play.

Gym Class – Basketball

Gym Class – Basketball is the solution if you’re looking to shoot some hoops and dunk like you probably can’t on a physical court. Online multiplayer lets you go head-to-head for a pretty convincing game of b-ball thanks to the game’s physics-based and full-body kinematics.

Ancient Dungeon Beta

This plucky roguelite dungeon crawler is still in beta (still!), but there’s a reason it’s become an App Lab favorite. Explore a vast dungeon to explore, housing plenty of baddies just asking for the steel of your sword, knives, and arrows. You’ll climb over deep pits, dodge lethal traps, and search for hidden treasures. Smash all the pots and crates you can before it officially launches on Quest sometime in the near future.

Elixir

Would-be wizards, this is your time to shine. Explore a magical laboratory and take on the job of apprentice wizard. The lab is full of gadgets and magical stuff to mess around with; as one of the games that natively supports Quest’s hand tracking, you can put your controllers down and get experimenting with this little slice of the dark arts.

Bait!

Since the recent Fishin’ Buddies update, this classic VR title has gotten a whole new lease on life as a multiplayer VR fishing game that lets you sit back and crack a cold one with the boys as you reel in the big’uns. The additional social areas also let you sit back between your fishing adventures to take part in casual mini-games.

Gods of Gravity

Gods of Gravity is an arcade-style RTS game where you compete in an epic showdown of between celestial gods (2-8 players). Scoop up ships and fling them to capture a nearby planet, or open wormholes to teleport them across the solar system. Hold planets and moons to boost your production. Mine asteroids for the powerful resources within. And if you dare, capture the sun for the ultimate buff. Then send a massive fleet to conquer your enemy’s home planet. Last god standing wins.

Social VR Platforms

Rec Room

Without a doubt one of the most fun, and most expansive VR titles out there… and it’s free. Sure, you can pay real cash for in-game tokens to buy spiffy clothes for your avatar, but that’s really up to you. Gads of mini-games await you in both first-party creations such as the ever so popular co-op Quests—that could be games in their own right—to user-created stuff that will keep your pocket book gathering dust. It’s social VR, so meet people and have a ball for zero dollarydoos. Fair warning: there’s a ton of kids.

VRChat

If you’ve been anywhere near the Internet in the last few years, it’s likely you’ve already heard about VRChat, the user-generated social VR space filled with… well… everything you can imagine, re-pro games included like Among Us, Mario Kart, and even a version of Beat Saber. Fashion your own avatar or download the millions of user-generated avatars out there so you can embody SpongeBob, Kirito from Sword Art Online, or any one of the million anime girl avatars that you’re bound to see there.

Horizon Worlds

Horizon Worlds is still taking baby steps, although recent efforts have brought more tools and user-generated content to the platform which has rounded out things to make it more competitive with Rec Room and VRChat. You may want to check in just to see the state of Meta’s first-party VR social platform—and then check right out again—but at the price of ‘free’, you may just find an environment or community you really gel with, which is the whole reason behind social VR in the first place.

Continue on Page 2: Free Experiences & Apps»

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VR Movies Dear Angelica And Henry Arrive On Oculus Quest, But You Should Watch Them With Link

Two of Facebook’s first in-house experiments in VR movie-making, Henry and Dear Angelica, have been uncovered on Oculus Quest. But, in our opinion, you shouldn’t watch them there.

The short films are available to download for free (you may need to search in the Oculus Store on browser to find them but Henry is here but Dear Angelica is here). Reddit users uncovered both apps, though it’s not clear if they’ll get featured release slots on the store.

Note that these are not Oculus Go apps that you can download from the Go store as you can others; they’re full, native Quest downloads. Despite this, both apps are the same 3D 360 video version seen on Go as opposed to Rift; there’s no positional tracking in either experience. We can’t find Story Studio’s very first film, Lost, on Quest at this point in time.

Henry was one of the first releases under the Oculus Story Studios banner, launching on Rift in 2016. The short film, narrated by Elijah Wood, stars a lonely hedgehog looking for companionship on his birthday. It’s a sweet, experimental piece that resembles a Pixar short.

Dear Angelica, meanwhile, was Story Studio’s last release before Facebook shuttered the team in mid-2017. Built inside Oculus Quill, the experience tells the story of a daughter reminiscing over her mother’s Hollywood career. It was a powerful experience that’s still worth watching today.

Both Henry and Dear Angelica’s Go releases used a 5K 3D 60FPS video player code made by John Carmack. We can’t say for sure but it looks like these Quest releases use it too. That said, given that both of these experiences only offer 3DOF movement, we’d recommend instead seeking them out on PC with an Oculus Link cable if possible. Doing this will allow you to move your head around in VR just like you can in other Quest games. That’s really how these films were first intended to be seen.

Members of Story Studio went on to create Fable Studio, best known for its 2019 series, Wolves in the Walls. Facebook, meanwhile, continues to lend support to other VR movies and experiences in production, though to the best of our knowledge doesn’t produce such apps in-house.

The post VR Movies Dear Angelica And Henry Arrive On Oculus Quest, But You Should Watch Them With Link appeared first on UploadVR.

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Kortex Expands List Of Compatible Titles

Kortex, the device used in partnership with virtual reality (VR) experiences has announced a number of new titles and expereines that are compatible, offering users more options for immersive stress relief.

Kortex Promo 01

The device uses electrodes which attach to the skin to provide gentle neurostimulation, which in some studies has been shown to stimulate the production of serotonin and lower cortisol. After a large number of beta testers gave feedback on how positive the combination of Kortex and Land’s End: A VR Adventure was, the company have now expanded the umber of titles that will be ideal for use within Kortex. The list is a taste of suggestions put forward by VR World Director of Content, Tommy Goodkin which is based on his six weeks of using Kortex.

For Samsung Gear VR users there are now two additional titles that will work with Kortex. This includes the 2017 Emmy winner title Invasion! from the director of Madagascar, featuring the voice of Ethan Hawke. The second title being Asteroids! which is once again from the director of Madagascar and will take users on an 11-minute immersive cinematic experience through space as part of the crew. Both of these are available via the Oculus Store and are free to download.

KORTEX

For Oculus Rift and HTC Vive users there are even more titles which are now able to be enjoyed along with Kortex. The Climb (Oculus exclusive) will see users climbing up huge heights, feeling the exhilaration of extreme free solo climbing like never before. Take your time and enjoy the views or complete for the fastest time to the top, the choice is up to you. Just make sure you are not afraid of heights.

Google Earth VR is also now supported, allowing users to take a stroll through the streets of their local town or famous cities, soar over the Grand Canyon, or walk around key landmarks such as the Eiffel Tower.

If the ocean is more your thing than TheBlu is for you. Explore the wonder and majesty of the ocean from the comfort of your own home. Visit a range of different habitats and come face to face with some of the most interesting and largest species on the planet. Fantastic Contraption will let users engage in a surreal building title as they build life-sized contraptions that fill the skies, and use them to sure puzzles on the other side of a floating island. No solution is right or wrong, so let your creativity run wild.

Real-time strategy (RTS) title Tethered awaits for users t o lend their guiding hands in a beautiful series of islands that will offer an experience unlike anything a user has seen before. Lastly, Dear Angelica (Oculus exclusive) is a journey through a magical and dreamlike world by the Emmy Award winning Oculus Story Studio. Featuring artwork painted entirely in VR, Dear Angelica is an immersive short story starring Geena Davis and Mae Whitman.

Kortex are continuing their work to develop the neurostimulation solution further and expand the library of suitable content as well. It is currently available to order direct from their website and is compatible with most VR units.

For more on Kortex in the future, keep reading VRFocus.

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The Chainsmokers’ Paris.VR Picked as Best Branded VR Experience at the Raindance Festival VRX Awards

This year’s Raindance Film Festival embraced virtual reality (VR) like never before by introducing the first ‘Raindance VRX Awards’ with 10 categories. The festival ended at the start of October announcing all the award winners, with The Chainsmokers’ Paris.VR among the winners.

Created by specialist VR developer Kuju, along with brand experience agency Ralph Creative, as part of Sony’s ‘Lost In Music’ campaign, Paris.VR let viewers experience a live-remixed version of Paris, entering the mind of Drew Taggart. They fly through an ethereal landscape, being able to make decisions along the route applying major changes to the mix, whilst looking at various objects make more subtle changes to what is being heard.

ChainsmokersParisVR_Screenshot_04

“Working with Ralph Creative on this project, we knew that we had something special with Paris.VR,” said Kuju’s Head of Studios Brynley Gibson in a statement. “We’re delighted that our work with The Chainsmokers has been recognised with this prestigious Raindance award.”

Originally unveiled earlier this year at SXSW in Austin, Paris.VR is available exclusively for PlayStation VR in the PlayStation Store.

As for all the other Raindance VRX Award winners, they are:

  • Best Cinematic Narrative VR Experience –  Alteration (by Jérôme Blanquet and OKIO-Studio)
  • Best Documentary VR Experience – First Impressions (by Francesca Panetta, Nicole Jackson and the Guardian VR)
  • Best Interactive Narrative VR Experience – Manifest 99 (by Flight School Studio)
  • Best Mobile Interactive VR Experience – Virtual Virtual Reality (by Tender Claws)
  • Best Animation VR Experience – Dear Angelica (by Wesley Allsbrook and Saschka Unseld)
  • Best Music VR Experience – Beethoven’s Fifth (by Jessica Brillhart)
  • Best Sensual VR Experience – Through You (by Lily Baldwin and Saschka Unseld)
  • Best Social Impact VR Experience – Munduruku: The Fight to Defend the Heart of the Amazon (by Greenpeace)
  • Best Sound Design VR Experience – Reeps One: Does Not Exist (by Aurelia Soundworks and Reeps One)
  • Special Prize Winner: Best Storytelling in #VR – Arden’s Wake (by Eugene Chung and Penrose Studios)

The Raindance Film Festival will be back in 2018, from 19th – 30th September. As details are release VRFocus will keep you updated.

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VR Experiences Get Emmy Award Nominations

Virtual reality (VR) has been steadily gaining recognition from the mainstream entertainment industry, but very few forms of recognition are more prestigious than the Emmy Awards. The 69th Emmy Awards nominations have been released, and the list includes six VR experiences.

While the Emmy’s have not gone so far as to have a separate VR category, but two categories have VR included in the nominations list, ‘Outstanding Original Interactive Program’ and ‘Outstanding Creative Achievement in Interactive Media Within a Scripted Program’.

DearAngelica

Outstanding Original Interactive Program:

  • Dear Angelica – Oculus Story Studios – Oculus
  • Mission: ISS – Oculus – Magnopus / Oculus
  • The People’s House – Inside The White House With Barack And Michelle Obama – Samsung / Oculus – Felix & Paul Studios and Oculus

Outstanding Creative Achievement in Interactive Media Within a Scripted Program:

  • The Mr. Robot Virtual Reality Experience – USA Universal Cable Productions, Here Be Dragons, Esmail Corp. and Anonymous Content
  • Stranger Things VR Experience – Netflix – Netflix and CBS Digital
  • The Simpsons – Planet Of The Couches – play.google.com – Gracie Films in association with 20th Century Fox Television and Google Spotlight Stories

Several of the nominated titles, Dear Angelica, Mission: ISS and The People’s House were produced by Oculus Story Studio, which was recently closed, though Facebook says funding for non-gaming content it set to continue to allow for the continued growth of the market, with $50 million (USD) of its VR investment heading towards that goal.

The Emmy Award ceremony will be broadcast on 17th September, 2017. You can see the full list of Emmy Nominations here. VRFocus will bring you further news on any VR titles that make it.

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6 VR Experiences Nominated for 2017 Emmy Awards, Oculus Receives Multiple Nominations

The 69th Emmy Awards nominations are out, and while it’s true the Emmys were created to recognize excellence in the television industry, virtual reality as a medium has been lauded with six total nominations this year, three of which are thanks to content created by Oculus.

There isn’t an official ‘VR’ section of the Emmys, rather the nominations have been spread between two categories: ‘Outstanding Original Interactive Program’ and ‘Outstanding Creative Achievment in Interactive Media Within a Scripted Program’.

Outstanding Creative Achievement In Interactive Media Within A Scripted Program

  • The Mr. Robot Virtual Reality Experience USA Universal Cable Productions, Here Be Dragons, Esmail Corp. and
    Anonymous Content (360 video on YouTube)
  • Stranger Things VR Experience – Netflix – Netflix and CBS Digital (360 video on YouTube)
  • The Simpsons – Planet Of The Couches – play.google.com – Gracie Films in association with 20th Century Fox Television and Google Spotlight Stories (download here for Google Cardboard)

Outstanding Original Interactive Program

image courtesy Oculus

Oculus’ Henry, the company’s Pixar-esque VR cartoon that follows the woes of a lonely hedgehog, won the 2016 Emmy for Outstanding Original Interactive Program, becoming the first VR original narrative to do so. While the company’s production studio Oculus Story Studios—which saw the release of Lost, Henry, and Dear Angelica—is now shuttered, Oculus says they’re earmarking $50 million of the $250 million they recently committed to invest in VR content exclusively for external investments in “non-gaming, experiential VR content.”

This effectively means Oculus will be funneling funds away from internal production in order to further grow the nascent industry of VR-based narratives. There’s no word on whether these $50 million will come with platform exclusivity however, although it would make sense from a business perspective for Oculus to do so. More high-quality, exclusive content on the Oculus Store equates to a high perceived value in their growing milieu of VR headsets, possibly including a reported Oculus-branded $200 standalone VR headset to come next year.

We’ll be tuning in to this year’s Emmy Awards on September 17th at 5PM PT (local time here). Check out the full list of this year’s Emmy nominations here.

The post 6 VR Experiences Nominated for 2017 Emmy Awards, Oculus Receives Multiple Nominations appeared first on Road to VR.

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What Oculus Story Studio Taught Us About VR Storytelling

What Oculus Story Studio Taught Us About VR Storytelling

So here’s a confession: before Oculus announced it was closing down Oculus Story Studio last week, I hadn’t actually seen any of the team’s VR movies from start to finish. In the ever-growing backlog of VR content that continues to increase by the week, I just hadn’t set out the time to sit down (or stand up) and properly dive into them yet. Fueled somewhat by guilt, I decided now was as good a time as any to do that.

So I did VR’s first binge watch. It lasted about half an hour.

I think we can all agree Story Studio didn’t get the time it deserved to realize its full potential, though it’s important to understand that its goal wasn’t necessarily to be the leading VR filmmaker. If its mission statement from early 2015 is to be believed, this was a team that was more interested in charting the path to making effective VR movies so that others might walk it. Obviously its films were meant to be enjoyed, but the studio wanted to be educational, dissecting both its success and failures for the next generation of VR filmmakers to learn from.

So the question is simply this: what did we learn? Let’s take a look at the three movies it made over the past two years to find out.

Lost

As Story Studio’s first project, Lost displays earnest beginnings and a big heart that leave you a little underwhelmed. Lasting mere minutes, it follows a detached robotic arm, lost in a forest and obediently calling for its owner. You can see a whole lot of Brad Bird’s The Iron Giant in it.

You might call Lost ‘VR Movie Making 101’; it feels like a template for the basics more than anything else. The camera is nestled away behind some leaves, making you a hidden onlooker, privileged to be witnessing the scene unfolding in front of you, a similar technique to when your friendly rabbit pal hides behind you in Baobab Studio’s Invasion. It also plays with some of the bread and butter elements of VR immersion, like the wow-factor that comes with scale, the tug of the heart strings that you’ll feel when you make direct contact with a saddened character, and the inescapable allure of watching things buzz around your head. It’s very much a lesson in the initial wonder of VR, much like some of the early content from studios like Within.

The result is something wonderfully sweet; the lost hand melts your heart by wagging its tail as it waits for its master to come and retrieve it. As well-intentioned as it is, though, Lost ultimately does little to leave an impact on you as its credits start to roll. It was just the very tip of the iceberg of what VR can do with storytelling, more of a trailer for what the studio and the wider industry might be able to flesh out one day. For Story Studio itself, though, it no doubt laid essential foundations for the team to get up and running.

Henry

Henry, meanwhile, was a much bigger deal, proudly touted by Oculus for winning an Emmy after launching alongside the Rift (as did Lost, though with very little said of it). Here was Story Studio’s first real push into — I’ll just say it — Pixar territory. It resembled the animated shorts the studio would run before one of its bigger features.

Henry the hedgehog, as Oculus executives would repeatedly tell us, just wanted to be loved. Sadly whenever he attempted to hug someone, he ended up stinging them with his spikes. You joined the little critter on his birthday, where he prepares a little party for himself and makes a wish for some real friends. Would you believe that he might just get what he asked for?

Though undeniably charming, it’s hard to shake off the slight feeling of cynicism that comes with anything that so closely echoes the beloved creators of Toy Story and Finding Nemo, but Henry does at least bring the invention of VR to the table. Imagine watching something like Pixar’s Presto, in which a magician and his rabbit come to blows, only feeling like you were really in the audience watching the mayhem unfold. Story Studio hoped this presence would help you grow a stronger bond with Henry.

The film doesn’t quite possess the intelligent story-telling techniques of its contemporaries, though. It’s somewhat clumsily introduced with narration from Elijah Wood, who lays out the story as photo frames appear from the dark. This feels like a piece that would have been more memorable without any spoken words; we could have sussed out Henry’s isolation for ourselves by spotting the clues dotted around his apartment. Self-discovery could be one of VR storytelling’s defining traits, and this fails to capitalize on that.

But, crucially, Story Studio was open and honest about its mistakes with Henry. As lonely as he might get during the film, he’d always shoot you a sad sideways glance, acknowledging your presence. That sort of meant that, really, he wasn’t alone; we were there with him. For Story Studio to really achieve its goals it had to exhibit what didn’t work just as much as it showed what did, and Henry definitely gave creators some pointers (pun intended) on what to avoid.

Dear Angelica

If you want to see how filmmakers can grow in VR, look no further than the journey Story Studio took from Lost to Dear Angelica, its final and easily most memorable piece. It was created with the Quill software that it would also release for free.

From the opening few moments it’s clear that Angelica is considerably more evolved than its predecessors, depicting a young girl recalling memories of her deceased mother via the movies she starred in as a successful actress. Scenes are painted into reality like a lucid dream, with elegant brush strokes that you can’t help but follow as they wind around you, slowly transporting you from the lonely confines of a bedroom to the fantastical sights and sounds of Hollywood,  providing idealized metaphors for Angelica to be remembered by.

It’s a masterclass in using your imagination, blinding you with bold and brilliant colors, creating images you long to reach out and touch, and cleverly avoiding immersion-breaking clipping by having paintings fade the closer your head gets to them. If Lost shows you how cool it is to see big things in VR, Angelica teaches you about the intimacy of doing something much smaller. It’s most striking scene shrinks its characters down to a tiny diorama which you have to lean in to get closer to. This is some of the most intelligent storytelling I’ve seen in VR, successfully translating the tricks that traditional cameras can use to evoke emotion into fully fleshed out VR transitions. The movie tampers with distance and erratic progression in similarly affecting ways.

Dear Angelica is a lesson in throwing out conventions and forgetting the rules. Ignore what you know about capturing images on a flat rectangle; approach a story knowing the audience will be inside it with absolutely no preconceptions about how it should be told. Get creative; what does it mean if you’ve got so much going on the viewer doesn’t know where to look? Where can you go if you’ve got unlimited possibilities? How does it feel to have a character close to you? How does it feel to have them far away from you? Story Studio won’t want people imitating its creation, but it no doubt hopes to instill these same questions in the minds of its successors, and we’ll hopefully get better VR movies from that.

Oculus Story Studio’s untimely demise is one of VR’s most unfortunate stories so far, but co-founders Saschka Unseld, Max Planck and their team of creators should take heart in the fact that they taught the VR industry some valuable lessons to build on.

We often talk about how the VR rule book is yet to be written, and that we’re in the wild west of content creation. Story Studio played an important part in trying to tame those unknowns.

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Dear Angelica Creator Oculus Story Studio to Close

Oculus Story Studio, the division behind immersive virtual reality (VR) behind Lost, Henry, and Dear Angelica will now shut down Oculus has confirmed.

In a blog posting Jason Rubin, VP of Content wrote: “We’re now entering the next chapter of VR development, where new creators enter the market in anticipation of adoption and growth, and we’ve been looking at the best way to allocate our resources to create an impact on the ecosystem. After careful consideration, we’ve decided to shift our focus away from internal content creation to support more external production.

“As part of that shift, we’ll be winding down Story Studio.”

DearAngelica

Rubin adds that because so many developers and filmmakers are producing immersive content Oculus will help and support them rather than create its own, enabling the company to concentrate on internal research and development towards the advancement of VR hardware and software.

In 2016 Facebook committed $250 million USD to fund VR developers and that’s set to continue. But $50 million from that pot will be used for non-gaming content, as well as continuing programmes that provide creators with an opportunity to step into the field with video tutorials, production and distribution tips and best practices for VR development.

The announcement adds to Facebook’s gradual assimilation of the Oculus brand ever since it bought the company in 2014. In recent months that has become more pronounced with CEO Brendan Iribe stepping down in December to lead an internal group focused on PC VR. Instead of appointing another CEO Facebook hired the vice president of Chinese tech giant Xiaomi, Hugo Barra, to head the Oculus division.

And let’s not forget Palmer Luckey, Oculus’ co-founder and for the most part the face of the company for many years. He suddenly disappeared in September 2016 after suffering a backlash due to his support for Nimble America. He then returned to social media last month after Oculus announced he’d be leaving.

The company that started this VR revival is slowly becoming no more, and whether Facebook keeps the brand remains to be seen. As ever, keep reading VRFocus for the latest updates.

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Werdet Teil eines Comics in „Talking with Ghosts“ von Oculus Story Studios

Das neueste Projekt von Oculus Story Studio Talking with Ghosts umfasst vier animierte Geschichten im Comicstil. Selbstverständlich sind die imposanten Handlungsstränge durch VR illustriert und zum Leben erweckt. Dadurch wird es für jeden möglich in eine Comicwelt einzutauchen.

Vier animierte VR-Filme erwarten euch in Talking with Ghosts

Der Titel umfasst eine Kollektion von vier verschiedenen Filmen, die jeweils aus der Feder von unterschiedlichen Zeichnern stammen. Jeder Film wurde innerhalb der VR erstellt, jedoch unterscheiden sich die einzelnen Filme in ihrem Stil. Dies betrifft sowohl den künstlerischen Aspekt als auch die Handlung. So gibt es Zeitsprünge, eine Geistergeschichte, eine Kriegsgeschichte und eine absurde Runde Minigolf zu sehen. Ein gemeinsames Ziel haben die Filme jedoch, und zwar das Ziel den Zuschauer direkt in die virtuellen Comics eintauchen zu lassen.

Die Titel der Filme

Im ersten Film Fairground von Sophie Foster-Dimino besuchen zwei Freunde aus Kindertagen einen alten Rummelplatz. Dabei kollidieren ihre unterschiedlichen Vorstellungen aus der Vergangenheit und der Zukunft. Der zweite Film The Neighborhood von Roman Muradov ist eine Geistergeschichte. Diese erzählt von der Beziehung zwischen Geist und Hausmieter. Ganz anders The Reservoir von Ric Carrasquillo: ein Drama über die Beziehung eines Liebespaares, das bei einer Runde Minigolf entsteht. Der letzte Film nennt sich Tattoo Warrior von Maria Yi und handelt von einer epischen Geschichte über Krieg und Liebe – gezeigt durch ein 3D-Tattoo.

Talking-with-Ghosts-Logo-Oculus-Story-Studio-VR-Film

Interessant ist die Vorgehensweise der Künstler, denn jeder nutzte das VR-Tool Quill zum Erstellen der Comics. Nach Dear Angelica soll Talking with Ghosts eine Weiterentwicklung in VR-Filmen sein. Die Premiere des Projekts ist am 21. April auf dem Tribeca Film Festival. Damit sollen andere Künstler inspiriert werden, ebenfalls an neuartigen Projekten, wie VR-Filmen oder Kunstprojekten zu arbeiten. Die vier Autoren und Oculus Story Studios vereint ihre Liebe zu den Comics, die in Talking with Ghosts auf den Zuschauer überspringt. Der Titel erscheint. nach der Premiere im laufenden Kalenderjahr, im Oculus Store.

Der Beitrag Werdet Teil eines Comics in „Talking with Ghosts“ von Oculus Story Studios zuerst gesehen auf VR∙Nerds. VR·Nerds am Werk!

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Oculus Story Studio’s ‘Talking With Ghosts’ Takes You Inside a Comic, Debuts at Tribeca

The latest project from VR film specialists Oculus Story Studio. Talking with Ghosts, is a collection of four animated stories, each illustrated and brought to live in virtual reality, designed to bring you into an immersive comic book world.

Oculus Story Studio’s continue their exploration of illustrative VR film when their latest collaborative project debuts at this years Tribeca Film Festival on April 21st.

Talking with Ghosts is a collection of four illustrative VR films, each created by a different artist, each created within VR and each inspired by OSS’ collective love of comic books. Although each film adopt a different stylistic approach, each of them aim to take the viewer “inside the pages of a comic”. The breakdown of the four films is as follows:

  • Fairground by Sophia Foster-Dimino—Two childhood friends revisit an old fairground where their divergent interpretations of their past and future collide.
  • The Neighborhood by Roman Muradov—A ghost’s tale of his relationships with the house’s tenants from the beginning of time until the end of the universe.
  • The Reservoir by Ric Carrasquillo—A couple’s relationship drama unfolds as they play the most surreal game of mini golf you’ve ever seen.
  • Tattoo Warrior by Maria Yi—An epic story of war and love told entirely through a 3D tattoo ribbon.

Talking with Ghosts is the next step in Story Studio’s exploration of a medium they arguably created. OSS first created VR art package Quill, then they commissioned Dear Angelica, an illustrative made-in-VR film directed by former Pixar artist Saschka Unseld and painted artist Wesley Allsbrook – entirely using Quill, entirely within VR.

Dear Angelica and Quill not only led to an intriguing new form of filmmaking, it enabled Story Studio to realise a way to make creating immersive VR films much more intuitive and accessible. As the OSS team put it in a new blog post:

We believe the best way to make a VR experience is inside VR, unencumbered by the tools of the past, and we’re excited to share the latest results at Tribeca to help inspire other artists.

We’re still in the early stages of made-in-VR illustrative storytelling. We can’t wait to see what the VR filmmaking community does with Quill in the coming years.

After the new film’s debut at Tribeca, as with every other Oculus Story Studio production, it’ll make its way onto the Oculus Store later in the year.

SEE ALSO
'Dear Angelica', Oculus Story Studio's Latest VR Film, is Out Now for Free

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