Category: entertainment

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HTC Announces Vive XR Suite, Including Partnership With VRChat And MOR

HTC announced a new collection of software this week called the Vive XR Suite today, which will be available as a bundle from Q3 2020. The suite includes five different apps, four of which feature partnerships with existing platforms, such as Engage, VRChat, and the Museum of Other Realities.

At its “Journey into the Next Normal” event this week, HTC announced the Vive XR Suite, which will launch in China in Q3 2020 and other regions throughout the year. The five included applications are called Vive Sync, Vive Sessions, Vive Campus, Vive Social, and Vive Museum. HTC launched Vive Sync in a free open beta in April, however the other four apps are all part of partnerships with prominent companies in the VR industry. These apps will essentially use existing platforms to offer Vive-branded versions and alternatives similar to white labeling, available as part of the suite.

The companies working with HTC on the suite applications are Engage, VirBELA, VRChat, and the Museum of Other Realities, presumably branded as Vive Sessions, Vive Campus, Vive Social, and Vive Museum respectively.

There will be both a free ‘lite’ version of the suite and then a premium ‘pro’ subscription with additional “enterprise/creator level capabilities and commercial use licenses.” All of the apps will also work on many devices, not just VR headsets. Despite the name, the Vive XR Suite will be fully available for PC and laptops and select suite applications will also support smartphones. However, while you don’t need VR technology to use the suite, HTC says that for a “superior immersive experience, PC VR or standalone VR devices would be recommended.”

The Vive XR Suite will be “compatible with all leading VR platforms and devices” and available to purchase as a subscription service on the Viveport store. HTC says that beta versions of the apps will be available gradually before a full launch of the service in Q3 2020.

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HTC Announces Vive XR Suite, Including Partnership With VRChat And MOR

HTC announced a new collection of software this week called the Vive XR Suite today, which will be available as a bundle from Q3 2020. The suite includes five different apps, four of which feature partnerships with existing platforms, such as Engage, VRChat, and the Museum of Other Realities.

At its “Journey into the Next Normal” event this week, HTC announced the Vive XR Suite, which will launch in China in Q3 2020 and other regions throughout the year. The five included applications are called Vive Sync, Vive Sessions, Vive Campus, Vive Social, and Vive Museum. HTC launched Vive Sync in a free open beta in April, however the other four apps are all part of partnerships with prominent companies in the VR industry. These apps will essentially use existing platforms to offer Vive-branded versions and alternatives similar to white labeling, available as part of the suite.

The companies working with HTC on the suite applications are Engage, VirBELA, VRChat, and the Museum of Other Realities, presumably branded as Vive Sessions, Vive Campus, Vive Social, and Vive Museum respectively.

There will be both a free ‘lite’ version of the suite and then a premium ‘pro’ subscription with additional “enterprise/creator level capabilities and commercial use licenses.” All of the apps will also work on many devices, not just VR headsets. Despite the name, the Vive XR Suite will be fully available for PC and laptops and select suite applications will also support smartphones. However, while you don’t need VR technology to use the suite, HTC says that for a “superior immersive experience, PC VR or standalone VR devices would be recommended.”

The Vive XR Suite will be “compatible with all leading VR platforms and devices” and available to purchase as a subscription service on the Viveport store. HTC says that beta versions of the apps will be available gradually before a full launch of the service in Q3 2020.

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Social VR Music Platform ‘Wave’ Raises $30M In Series B Funding

Wave, a social VR music platform that hosts virtual concerts and live performances inside virtual reality, has raised $30 million of Series B funding. They’ve raised $40 million to date.

Wave’s funding is split up between a wide assortment of companies. According to VentureBeat:

“Maveron led the new round, with a big chunk of the funding provided by Griffin Gaming Partners. Additional investors in the round include NTT DoCoMo Ventures, Avex, Superfly Ventures, Convivialite Ventures, and Raised in Space. Entrepreneurs Scooter Braun, Alex Rodriguez, Superfly cofounder Rick Farman, and Twitch cofounder Kevin Lin also participated in the round.

Wave’s existing investors include RRE Ventures, Upfront Ventures, the Venture Reality Fund, GFR Fund, and GC Tracker Fund.”

Recently, Wave announced a series of virtual concerts under the “One Wave” name featuring acts like John Legend and will allow performers to create their own digital avatars similar to VRChat characters.

Another popular way to experience live music events in VR is through livestream footage in virtual stadiums, like Oculus Venues. Big artists such as Billie Eilish have performed in Oculus Venues with mixed results. 

“You can put on a headset and listen to Coachella live, but no one wants to do that,” Phil Sanderson said, managing director at Griffin Gaming Partners, one of Wave’s latest investors . “The only way to do this is to capture the emotion of the crowd, which is effectively what Wave does by creating an interactive experience. It’s so much better — if you were watching Travis Scott in Fortnite, it would be so much better if you could see his facial expressions and interact with him in real time.”

For context, Sanderson was the first investor in Pandora and also invested in Song Pop and is an frequent attendee at music festivals.

For more insight into how Wave got started, check out our feature story from 2016 on the founding of the company and its early experiences in VR. And for more on Wave and what’s coming up next, check out the app on Steam, Oculus Home, or the company’s official website.

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Baba Yaga Is Baobab Studio’s Next VR Movie, First Look Coming Soon

Baobab Studios, the developers behind Bonfire, Asteroids! and more, revealed that their next project is an immersive experience called ‘Baby Yaga’. A first look will be unveiled at the 2020 Annecy International Animation Festival Online in a few weeks.

Baba Yaga will be co-directed by the studio’s Co-Founder Eric Darnell and French director Mathias Chelebourg. The experience will be “a contemporary portrayal of the Eastern European legend inspired by illustrative 2D pop-up animation, hand-drawn and stop-motion styles.”

A few details of Baba Yaga’s narrative can be found on the Baobab Studios site:

It’s up to you and your sister Magda, to save your mother by entering the forest to obtain the cure from the enigmatic witch, Baba Yaga. Your choices define how this story of love and magic ends.

Due to the ongoing global COVID-19 pandemic, Annecy is one of many festivals and events to move to an online format this year. Accredited festival viewers will be able to watch a ‘Work In Progress’ presentation on Baby Yaga, which will be available for the entire two-week event starting from June 15. A live Q&A with the Baobab Studios team will also take place on June 23rd at 9am PST.

We were big fans of Baobab’s last offering, Bonfire, which starred comedian Ali Wong and premiered at the 2019 Tribeca Film Festival. As Jamie noted in his Bonfire review, Baobab’s learned a lot from each of their productions, getting better and better every time. We can’t wait to see what they’ve got in store next.

Baobab Studios says Baba Yaga will premiere later this year, in ‘multiple formats’.

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Wallace And Gromit To Get Story-Driven AR Experience

Wallace & Gromit are popular British claymation characters featured in award-winning stop motion animated films and TV shows. This week, Aardman Animations, W&G Ltd., and Fictioneers Ltd. announced that they’ll be bringing the series to AR for the first time with The Big Fix Up this fall.

According to a prepared statement, Wallace & Gromit: The Big Fix Up will be a “first of its kind, story-driven” AR experience. Based on the announcement trailer, embedded above, it looks like they will be using CG animation for the characters, but will do so in a way that mimics stop motion movement. The AR experience is being developed in Unity and is a collaborative project with research support from the University of South Wales and funding from UK Research & Innovation.

“Aardman is a multi-faceted creative studio and is just as happy with classic film making as it is with new and emerging technologies,” says Merlin Crossingham, Aardman’s Creative Director of Wallace & Gromit. “Wallace and Gromit’s heart and soul is in stop motion, but they have often dabbled in the cutting-edge of tech, and this is one of those occasions. We are delighted to join forces with the amazing folk at Fictioneers to take Wallace and Gromit on a new adventure in such a groundbreaking way.”

We don’t really know much else about The Big Fix Up other than you’re basically guaranteed to walk away smiling after trying it if the series’ track record is anything to go by. To get notified when more details are available, check out The Big Fix Up’s website to register your interest.

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Facebook: VR Fitness, Social Apps Seeing ‘The Bulk’ Of Increased Usage In Lockdown

According to Facebook’s VP of consumer hardware, Andrew Bosworth, VR fitness and social apps are seeking “the bulk” of increased usage during the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.

Bosworth revealed as much in an interview with Protocol earlier this week. “Usage is up across the board, especially during the weekdays,” he said. “Fitness and social apps are getting the bulk of that, which makes sense, given what people are missing elsewhere in their lives.”

Despite the logic, Bosworth said the surge in fitness hadn’t been anticipated by the company. “We have an employee of ours in the Redmond area whose son is allowed to do Beat Saber for P.E. while they’re on lockdown,” he said. “It’s a sanctioned physical education exercise for their school under quarantine.”

VR headsets were already helping people lose weight while having fun before the COVID-19 pandemic set in. But in the midst of lockdown headsets like Oculus Quest have seen renewed focus in this area. Beat Saber got a fitness-focused track and games like Synth Riders and OhShape have seen multiple free updates. Meanwhile, Within was bold enough to launch a subscription-based VR fitness service called Supernatural that offers daily workouts.

Social apps like Altspace VR and Rec Room, meanwhile, offer users a way to virtually meet up with at least some sense of face-to-face connection. Facebook itself is working on a social VR application for Quest and Rift called Horizon, though it’s not available yet.

Ironically probably the most strenuous VR workout we’ve tried during the pandemic isn’t sold on the Oculus Store; VRWorkout is a free app on the SideQuest third-party store that uses Quest’s hand-tracking to free you up for push-ups, squats and more.

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VR And AR Projects Releasing Online After SXSW 2020 Cancellation

In light of the COVID-19 pandemic, several VR and AR projects that were set to be presented at this year’s SXSW Festival are being released online this month after the festival’s cancellation. The projects include several 360 video projects that will launch on Oculus TV, along with a new AR project called ‘Fragments’ that is available now  for Magic Leap 1 users.

SXSW announced that they would launch a new collaboration called the ‘SXSW 2020 Virtual Cinema on Oculus TV’. In lieu of a physical festival, SXSW will present seven 360 video projects which were all entered into the Virtual Cinema competition before the physical events were cancelled. All seven projects will be available to experience in Oculus TV from May 22-31, and you can read more details about each project on the SXSW site.

Additionally, a new augmented reality project from Atlas V and NSC Creative called ‘Fragments’ is available for the Magic Leap 1 from today. The project was set to have its world premiere at SXSW as part of the official selection before cancellation. The project is directed by Peabody Award winner Aaron Bradbury and is based on the true story of Lisa Elin and her husband Erik Craighead, who passed away six years after they met. Fragments will explore the themes of grief, death and ‘how we perceive and hold onto memories of a tragic event.’ The project’s release also coincides with the International Day of Light, chosen as a a ‘reminder of hope in these especially dark times’.

Will you be checking out any of these SXSW VR and AR projects when they go live? Let us know in the comments below.

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Historical World War I VR Experience ‘War Remains’ From Dan Carlin Coming To PC VR This Month

War Remains Home: Dan Carlin Presents an Immersive Memory is a historical VR experience presented by Dan Carlin that’s centered on the Western front of the first World War coming soon to home PC VR headsets this month on May 21st to PC VR headsets via Oculus Home for Rift, SteamVR, and Viveport at a price point of $4.99.

The historical VR experience is a collaborative effort between MWMi as producer, Brandon Oldenburg as director, Flight School Studio as the developer, and Skywalker Sound on audio design.

The experience won the Tribeca Film Festival Out-of-Home VR Entertainment of the Year award in 2019. In War Remains, users will get to feel what it was like in the heat of battle during the “war to end all wars” in the trenches. World War I was a major inflection point in the history of the planet and War Remains aims to be an accurate and immersive way to see and feel what it was like in the middle of a battle. Specifically, War Remains focuses on the Battle of Passchendaele.

“I wanted to create a time machine that would give people just a taste of what soldiers experienced on this unimaginable battlefield, and I think we’ve come as close as possible while still giving people a bearable experience,” said Dan Carlin. “It is my hope that people – students, teachers and the general public – can use ‘War Remains’ to gain a greater understanding of one of the most impactful events in world history.”

Personally, I’m eager to try this out. One of the most impactful VR experiences I ever did personally was focused on the first flight of the Wright brothers back in December of 1903. Standing on the hill at Kitty Hawk as their plane flew by over head was incredibly immersive.

Do you plan on checking out War Remains later this month? Let us know what you think down in the comments below!

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Community Download: What’s The Best Star Wars VR Experience?

Community Download is a weekly discussion-focused articles series published (usually) every Monday in which we pose a single, core question to you all, our readers, in the spirit of fostering discussion and debate. For today’s Community Download, we want to know what you think is the absolute very best Star Wars VR game or experience out there?

Today is May 4th, 2020, also known as May the Fourth, also known as Star Wars Day because Fourth sounds like Force. May the Fourth be with you, get it?

Chances are if you’re a VR fan then you’re a Star Wars fan and if you’re a Star Wars fan then you at least have a passing interest in VR. That’s just the law.

But the question is: what’s the best way to experience Star Wars in VR? Obviously there’s The Void, which has an amazing Star Wars location-based VR game that runs you and up to three others through a daring adventure across Mustafar as you narrowly escape Darth Vader’s base. But it’s a bit impossible to try that right now. Then there’s the excellent and totally underrated X-Wing VR Mission in the original Battlefront remake from DICE for PSVR. It still rocks. Plus, Vader Immortal is a wonderful episodic experience for Quest and Rift (coming to PSVR soon) that’s definitely worth experiencing. But maybe you prefer the fan-made variety instead? There’s one for flying an X-Wing, a series of Skyrim VR mods, a Robo Recall mod, and many others, to pick from too. We also rounded up a bunch of options a few years ago here.

Regardless of your choice, there are a lot of great options out there these days. What’s your pick for the very best Star Wars VR game or experience?

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NFL MVP Lamar Jackson Partners Status Pro For A VR Game

Today Status Pro revealed that they are partnering with NFL MVP and Baltimore Ravens quarterback Lamar Jackson for an upcoming “suite of VR products” and a VR game.

Reportedly, Status Pro is working on a series of first-person virtual reality experiences that will collectively be known as “The Lamar Jackson Experience” and are designed to provide a first-hand perspective of what it’s like to compete in the NFL. This includes an “at-home” VR game, arcade games, and live activations.

Utilizing game tracking data, the experiences will recreate real-life game scenarios as a glimpse of what it’s like to lace up as the NFL MVP. Details are scarce on what that means exactly, but based on the brief teaser video above and promo image, it looks like some sort of QB simulation that will have players simulating throwing motions and play-calling on the field. Notably, it looks like you’ll actually suit up as a Baltimore Raven, meaning this is likely an official NFL product of some kind that’s not tied to the Madden series. In the promo image we can also see Jackson wearing an Oculus Quest using two Touch controllers.

Status Pro is, according to their own press release, “a sports technology company that combines data with augmented and virtual reality to provide a suite of training and gaming products that revolutionize the way coaches, players, and fans experience their favorite sport.” Here’s more information about the company on their official website.

What do you think about this idea? Let us know down in the comments below! While waiting for more details you can check out 2MD VR Football to scratch that VR football itch.

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