The Best Apps and Games to Download for Oculus Go

All the Black Friday hijinks has finally ended for 2018, and with the mad sales dash now over it’s time to enjoy some of those nicely discounted items. One of the good deals this year was for standalone headset Oculus Go, which was the first time the device had been reduced since launch in May. If you happened to pick one up and need a helping hand in the right direction of decent content, or already owned one and just want to expand your library then read on.

What VRFocus is looking at is purely the best content, whether that’s apps for watching movies and TV, playing videogames or simply going online in VR. This is all about showcasing what Oculus Go can do and the reason for buying it in the first place.

Oculus Go Apps

YouTube VR

One of the best ways to see plenty content, the app gives Oculus Go access to the video platform’s massive library of immersive, 3D 360° and VR180° experience, allowing viewers to watch the videos as intended.

Price: Free

Netflix

Watch all of the streaming services TV shows, movies and original content anywhere you like, whenever you like. All on one massive screen, binge-watch to your heart’s content.

Price: Subscription based

Facebook 360

Similar to YouTube VR, the Facebook 360 app gives you access to social media sites 360 videos, 360 photos, Live 360 and Facebook Shows, all in one convenient location.

Price: Free

Gala 360 – See the World

With over 300 tours (most of which are free), Gala 360 is a great app to showcase the quality of the 6k resolution images. Drop viewers in exotic locations to see how awe-inspiring VR can be.

Price: Free (premium content costs $3.99 USD)

AltspaceVR

One of several apps that showcase the social qualities of VR, AltspaceVR allows you to hang out with friends, make new ones, play videogames together and even attend live events with comedians, DJ’s and more.

Price: Free

Oculus Go Games

Virtual Virtual Reality

Virtual Virtual Reality a somewhat bizarre comedy adventure about VR and AI. Use virtual VR headsets to explore over 50 unique virtual virtual realities, uncovering the story as you go.

Price: £7.99 GBP

Catan VR

Experiment 7 has brought this classic board game to VR, offering four-player tournaments online as well as a single-player to learn the ropes. Players take the role of settlers who need to establish colonies on the islands of Catan, acquiring resources to build infrastructure and roads whilst engaging in trade with other players, all with aim of growing large enough to get the ten victory points needed to win.

Price: £7.99

Wands

A cross-platform multiplayer experience, Wands puts you in the shoes of an apprentice magician who must do battle in one-on-one matches against other wizards. With a small selection of spells to begin with, as you level up and become stronger you’ll gain access to better spells offering a wider choice of tactical opportunities.

Price: £7.99

Keep Talking and Nobody Explodes

An oldie but a goldie, Keep Talking and Nobody Explodes by Steel Crate Games was one of the earliest examples of local social VR multiplayer, highlighting the fact that VR doesn’t have to be a solitary experience. The VR player has to diffuse a bomb, unfortunately, they have no idea how to as each bomb is made up of different modules that have to be solved individually. To do this all the non-VR players have a bomb manual and must guide the person in VR to the correct solution.

Price: £7.99

République VR

One of the bigger adventures on this list, République VR is another Oculus Go launch day title. It’s stealth-action videogame that explores the perils of government surveillance in the internet age. With over 10 hours of gameplay, République VR has players controlling the fortunes of Hope, a woman trapped inside a mysterious totalitarian state who must hack her way to freedom.

Price: £7.99

Rush

One for the adrenaline junkies out there. Proximity jump off mountains in a wingsuit and race AI competitors to the bottom, just watch out for cliffs, trees, the ground, basically, everything in this adrenaline-fuelled ride.

Price: £5.99

End Space

Designed as a pure space combat title, End Space puts players in the pilot seat of the Minos Starfighter that can track targets with their gaze and blast them with Pulse Lasers, or lock on and pound them into space dust with Meteor Missiles. Like any good shooter, players can unlock new weapons and upgrades as they progress through the ranks by taking on increasingly daring missions.

Price: £5.99

December 14, 2017

Baobabs’ Asteroids Crash into VR Today

Baobab Studios has today debuted the highly anticipated virtual reality (VR) animated film, Asteroids!, available for Google Daydream, Samsung Gear VR, Google Cardboard and Windows MR head-mounted displays (HMDs). Featuring Ingrid Nilsen as the voice of Peas, Asteroids! marks Nilsen’s first foray into VR work alongside Elizabeth Banks.

The follow-up to Baobab Studios’ well received Invasion!, Asteroids! follows the journey of Mac, Cheez (Elizabeth Banks) and their sidekick Peas (Ingrid Nilsen) as they traverse the challenges of space. Cheez is a loyal robot pet with a playful streak who is always ready for a game of fetch or daring rescue mission, while Peas is the loveable goofball with a heart of gold who just wants her best friends to be happy.

From the director of Madagascar, Asteroids! is an 11-minute interactive cinematic experience in which viewers are taken by Mac, Cheez and Peas on a deep space mission where they come face-to-face with teeth-gnashing space-bugs and careening asteroids.

“I’ve never seen anything quite like Asteroids!,” said YouTube and lifestyle personality Ingrid Nilsen. “Asteroids! is completely social and interactive. From the second the film starts, you are immediately immersed in a world where virtual animated characters become your friends and together, you experience emotions like humour, excitement and compassion, just as you would in real life.”

Asteroids! is now available for free via YouTube 360, Facebook 360, Baobab VR app for iOS and Android, Samsung Gear VR, Google Daydream, and Windows MR HMDs. The film can also be directly downloaded for Samsung Gear VR, Google Daydream, and both iOS and Android editions of Google Cardboard.

Baobab Studios’ executive team is led by Maureen Fan, Eric Darnell and Larry Cutler, combining experiences from cinema, animation and gaming as leaders formerly of Pixar, Zynga and DreamWorks Animation. In 2015 Baobab Studios announced a first funding round of $6,000,000 USD, lead by Comcast Ventures. This was followed by a second round of $25,000,000 from the likes of 20th Century Fox, HTC Corp., Youku Global Media Fund and Horizons Ventures. There’ll be plenty more to come from Baobab Studios in the future, and VRFocus will keep you updated with all the latest details.

December 14, 2017

VR Short Film ‘Asteroids!’ from Baobab Studios Now Available

Interactive VR short film Asteroids!, the follow-up to Emmy award-winning VR short Invasion! (2016) is now available for Gear VR, Daydream, and Windows MR headsets. From the director of the Madagascar franchise, the full 11-minute cut continues the journey of aliens Mac and Cheez (and robot sidekick Peas) on their deep space mission.

Baobab Studios announced Asteroids! at Oculus Connect 3 in 2016, and has since made an interactive preview of the animation available on Gear VR and Daydream platforms. A 360 video ‘sneak peek’ has also been available in various forms, including the iOS and Android Baobab app.

Today, the full version of Asteroids! is available for free across several platforms. The best experience can be found on Gear VR, Daydream, and Windows Mixed Reality devices, where the animation is rendered in real-time 3D. Sadly, unlike their first short, Asteroids! is not currently available on PSVR, HTC Vive, or Oculus Rift, despite its considerably more interactive design.

Invasion! was the team’s first foray into VR animation, and was a polished experience, but ended all too quickly. It was later slightly extended with an intro narrated by Ethan Hawke, but this felt like an afterthought, and didn’t offer the viewer what was really needed—more time with the characters. Asteroids! is a major improvement, being longer, with more complex animation and now interactivity.

“Different storytelling mediums all have a common goal—to tell great stories through characters that audiences connect with, care about, and maybe even come to love,” Baobab writes on their official site. “The great challenge and great potential for VR storytelling is not simply to achieve this goal, but also, to do it in a way that actually lets the viewer become a part of the story. With Asteroids!, this is a step towards achieving this goal.”

Follow these links to download the Gear VR, Daydream, and Windows Mixed Reality real-time versions. The non-interactive 360 video version of the full short can be viewed via YouTube 360 and Facebook 360, or via the Baobab app for iOS and Android (which also supports the Cardboard VR viewer), but for the reasons above, it is strongly recommended to experience one of the real-time versions first.

Baobab Studios is one of the largest independent VR film studios, having raised a total of $31 million in funding to date, most notably a $25 million Series B funding round in 2016 which also welcomed Larry Cutler (ex Dreamworks and Pixar) as CTO. Their current project, Rainbow Crow, an adaptation of a Lenape Native American tale, is their most ambitious, presented in several chapters, and features musician John Legend.

The post VR Short Film ‘Asteroids!’ from Baobab Studios Now Available appeared first on Road to VR.

August 7, 2017

Annabelle Wants to Play In New VR Short Film

Annabelle, a horror film about a possessed doll and the terror it causes was originally released in 2014. A prequel movie, Annabelle: Creation is due out in cinemas on 11^th August, 2017. To tie in to the film, a virtual reality (VR) interactive film has been released titled Annabelle: Creation VR – Bee’s Room.

Annabelle: Creation VR – Bee’s Room is available on Samsung Gear VR as well as via YouTube 360 and Facebook 360. The short film puts the user in the role of someone trapped in the room of a young child, forced to play a twisted game of hide and seek with the possessed and malicious doll, Annabelle.

The short VR experience was created by Pasadena-based VR content creators SunnyBoy Entertainment and aims to provide a taste of the panic the protagonists of the film will feel as Annabelle hunts them down.

The Annabelle: Creation movie tells the story of a dollmaker named Samuel Mullins and his wife, who open their homes to some a nun named Sister Charlotte and some children made homeless by the closure of the local orphanage. However, the apparently pleasant house holds a dark secret, involving the Mullins daughter who died years ago, and whose angry spirit may yet live on in the form of the doll, Annabelle.

Further information can be found on the official Annabelle: Creation website, where the VR short can also be found.

VRFocus will bring you further information on Annabelle: Creation VR – Bee’s Room and other new VR experiences as it becomes available.

July 25, 2017

Facebook Update Adds 4K 360 Video Streaming Support to VR Headsets and More

Facebook today announced new updates coming to their 360 streaming service including live 4k streaming support to VR headsets, image stabilization and a number of features that puts VR-ready 360 video more in line with the company’s standard streaming video service. Facebook also released a list of vetted 360 cameras and software suites so prospective content creators can jump straight into the 360 deep end with full knowledge that what they’re doing conforms to the company’s 360 streaming standards.

At least for Gear VR owners, Facebook’s 360 livestreaming service is getting the star treatment, now letting you deliver 360 videos in up to 4K resolution to the Facebook 360 app for Gear VR—both live and replayed later. Bringing 360 video up to speed with the rest of the platform also means giving it some of the features first released for standard video like donate buttons for charities, scheduled live broadcasts, and some post-live video tools that can help you get the most out of the video.

It’s uncertain at this time when Facebook Spaces, the Oculus Rift app that allows 360 photo and streaming video, will see the update.

When it’s done with care, VR can let you step into the shoes of another person—a powerful tool that pioneering immersive journalist Nonny de la la Peña lauds as an ’empathy generator’. Now you’ll be able to donate directly from within a 360 video just like on standard video. Only pre-approved “verified pages” can inject a donate button into their 360 live and recorded stream, and it must be a US-based 501(c)(3) nonprofit.

360 Cameras and Software Vetted by Facebook

Facebook-approved cameras and software are coming too, emblazoned with the “Live 360 Ready” logo. The company says each camera’s app or web experience will enable you to interact with your friends and followers through direct access to their native reactions and comments function. The current list of Live 360 Ready cameras and software includes:

Cameras

Giroptic iO ($249)
Insta360 Nano ($199)
Insta360 Air ($129)
Insta360 Pro ($3499)
ION360 U ($249)
Nokia Ozo Orah 4i ($3595)
Z CAM S1 ($2499)
360fly 4K Pro ($499)

Software

Assimilate SCRATCH VR
Groovy Gecko
Livescale 360
Teradek
Voysys
Wowza
Z CAM WonderLive

You can check out more about the update on Facebook’s media blog.

The post Facebook Update Adds 4K 360 Video Streaming Support to VR Headsets and More appeared first on Road to VR.

April 19, 2017

Facebook Unveils Two New Volumetric Video ‘Surround360’ Cameras, Coming Later this Year

Facebook today announced two new additions to the Surround360 hardware initiative that are poised to make 360 video more immersive. Unveiled at the company’s yearly developer conference, F8, the so-called x24 and x6 cameras are said to capture 360 video with depth information, giving captured video six degrees of freedom (6DoF). This means you can not only move your vantage point up/down, left/right like before, but now forwards/backwards, pitch, yaw and roll are possible while in a 360 video.

Even the best stereoscopic 360 videos can’t provide this sort of movement currently, so the possibility of a small, robust camera(s) that can, is pretty exciting—because let’s face it, when you’re used to engaging with the digital world thanks to the immersive, positional tracking capabilities of the Oculus Rift, HTC Vive, or PSVR, you really notice when it’s gone. Check out the gif below to see exactly what that means.

Originally announced at last year’s F8 as an open source hardware platform and rendering pipeline for 3D 360 video for VR that anyone could construct or iterate on, Facebook is taking their new Surround360 reference designs in a different direction. While Facebook doesn’t plan on selling the 360 6DoF cameras directly, the company will be licensing the x24 and x6 designs—named to indicate the number of on-board sensors—to a select number of commercial partners. Facebook says a product should emerge sometime later this year.

The rigs are smaller than the original Surround360, now dubbed Surround360 ‘Open Edition’, but are critically smaller than rigs capable of volumetric capture like unwieldy rigs like HypeVR’s high-end camera/LIDAR camera.

Specs are still thin on the ground, but the x24 appears to be around 10 inches in diameter (257mm at its widest, 252mm at its thinnest), and is said to capture full RGB and depth at every pixel in each of the 24 cameras. It is also said to oversample 4x at every point in full 360, providing “best in-class image quality and full-resolution 6DoF point clouds.”

The x6, although not specified, looks to be about half the diameter at 5 inches, and is said to oversample by 3x. No pricing info has been made public for either camera.

Facebook says depth information is captured for every frame in the video, and because it outputs in 3D, video can be feed into existing visual effects (VFX) software tools to create a mashup of live-action capture and computer-generated imagery (CGI). Take a look at the gif below for an idea of what’s possible.

Creating good-looking 6DoF 360 video is still an imperfect process though, so Facebook is also partnering with a number of post-production companies and VFX studios to help build out workflows and toolchains. Adobe, Otoy, Foundry, Mettle, DXO, Here Be Dragons, Framestore, Magnopus, and The Mill are all working with Facebook in some capacity.

“We’ve designed with Facebook an amazing cloud rendering and publishing solution to make x24’s interactive volumetric video within reach for all,” said Jules Urbach, Founder & CEO Otoy. “Our ORBX ecosystem opens up 28 different authoring and editing tools and interactive light field streaming across all major platforms and browsers. It’s a simple and powerful solution this game-changing camera deserves.”

Keep an eye on this article, as we’ll be updating information as it comes in.

The post Facebook Unveils Two New Volumetric Video ‘Surround360’ Cameras, Coming Later this Year appeared first on Road to VR.

April 4, 2017

Facebook Expands 360 Livestreaming to All, Adds More Cameras and Spatial Audio

As promised at its December launch, Facebook has now enabled Live 360 video streaming globally on all Profiles and Pages, allowing anyone with a 360 camera to broadcast live. The global roll-out introduces a wider range of camera compatibility, and spatial audio has been added.

Building on Facebook Live, a video streaming service introduced in 2015, 360-degree livestreaming was an inevitable combination of technologies, as 360 video playback has been supported in the News Feed since 2015. The world’s largest social network, with 1.87 billion monthly active users, Facebook has aggressively pursued live media as an essential pillar of the service, staying competitive with the likes of Twitter and YouTube as a live streaming platform.

facebook-live-360-cameras — Photo courtesy Facebook

The company continues to push livestreaming hard; it’s a top priority, with CEO Mark Zuckerberg apparently obsessed with the format. Livestreamed 360 video was introduced on selected pages last year, but now any individual, group or ‘page’ can start broadcasting in seconds. All you need is a compatible camera; the list of which now includes several consumer-level products: the new Samsung Gear 360 (2017), Giroptic IO, Insta360 Nano/Air, and ALLie Camera, as well the professional-grade Z CAM S1 and Nokia Ozo.

Livestreamed 360 video doesn’t specifically target VR; the feature is not available yet (but you can replay the recorded video on a headset after the fact), and many of the currently-supported cameras don’t capture stereoscopic 3D. Plus, the 1920×960 target resolution, 30fps frame rate and 4 Mbps target bitrate for live 360 video is far from an ideal specification for VR. However, the introduction of spatial audio support is a clear step in that direction; 360-degree sound is an immersion-enhancer that is most effective when heard from within a VR headset. As noted on the Facebook Media Blog post, cameras with integrated support for spatial audio in Live 360 are coming soon, and they’ll be introducing ways to include it manually through an ambisonic microphone.

A step-by-step downloadable guide and best practices for livestreaming in 360 are available on the Live 360 page.

The post Facebook Expands 360 Livestreaming to All, Adds More Cameras and Spatial Audio appeared first on Road to VR.

March 29, 2017

Tomorrow Facebook Live 360 Goes Global, Adds Spatial Audio and Integrates with 360 Cameras

In December 2016 Facebook launched its Live 360 service, allowing users to share immersive stories, places and experiences in 360-degree live video. Today the company has announced the expansion of Live 360, enabling all of Facebook’s global users to upload and enjoy immersive video.

The announcement means anyone with a 360-degree camera can go live in 360 degrees on Facebook tomorrow.

Alongside this, Facebook has integrated Live 360 with several camera manufacturers to make the process even more seamless – accessible right from the camera interface. From the camera users will be able to log in, set post privacy and write a description and then once live see comments and reactions.

Currently, consumer compatible cameras include the Samsung Gear 360, Giroptic IO, Insta360, and ALLie Camera, while professional options include Z Cam S1 and Nokia Ozo. Facebook plans to continue working with other manufacturers to integrate additional cameras in the future.

That’s not all. Sound plays an important part of any 360-degree video so Facebook will be introducing spatial audio, so that users can enjoy proper immersive sound with any experience. Cameras which feature support for spatial audio in Live 360 are due soon, plus the company will also allow spatial audio to be added manually through an ambisonic microphone.

Facebook has been massively pushing virtual reality (VR) and 360 content since its acquisition of Oculus. This month saw the Facebook 360 app arrive for Samsung Gear VR, so that users can access 25 million 360 photos and more than 1 million 360 videos posted to date.

VRFocus will continue its coverage of Facebook, reporting back with the latest announcements.

March 9, 2017

Facebook 360 App Makes Debut on Gear VR

Social media giant Facebook became heavily involved in virtual reality (VR) when it bought Oculus way back in 2014. Since then the company has added 360-degree video and picture capability to its online offerings but never a dedicated immersive app. That’s changed this week with the introduction of Facebook 360 for Samsung Gear VR.

While Gear VR users have been able to view a variety of 360-degree content, now they can directly access Facebook’s massive collection,with more than 25 million 360 photos and more than 1 million 360 videos posted to date.

Designed as a one-stop shop for viewing the latest immersive content, from amateur home movies to professional documentaries and more, the app will feature four feeds to investigate. There’s Explore, Following, Saved and Timeline. Using Explore, users can discover the latest and most popular 360-degree content from around the world. While Following showcases content from friends, as well as Pages and people that users follow. For favourite pieces, Saved houses those that users have kept from their News Feed to view at their leisure. And Timeline enables users to relive their 360-degree memories, whether through video or picture uploads.

In the Facebook 360 app, users will also be able to comment on 360-degree photos and videos and share them on Facebook, with more social features coming soon.

This year has seen Facebook’s CEO Mark Zuckerberg appoint ex Xiaomi VP Hugo Barra to head Oculus, and show a sneak peak behind the doors of Oculus Research, showcasing some of the latest developments Oculus scientists and engineers are working on to advance VR and augmented reality (AR).

The Facebook 360 app is freely available to download from the Oculus Store for Gear VR. It’s not yet confirmed if the app will be coming to Oculus Rift, but Facebook has said in a blog posting it hopes to bring the app to more platforms. When it does VRFocus will keep you updated.

March 9, 2017

Facebook 360 zeigt 360°-Content auf der GearVR

Startet jetzt Facebook in VR durch? Facebook 360 ist eine neue App für die Samsung GearVR und bringt zum ersten Mal Teile des sozialen Netzwerkes direkt auf die VR-Brille. Wie der Name vermuten lässt, werden das erst einmal 360-Grad-Videos und Bilder sein, die auf Facebook veröffentlicht werden.

Facebook 360 ist die erste reine Facebook-VR-App

Facebook übernahm das VR-Unternehmen Oculus bereits im Jahr 2014. Seitdem unterstützt die Firma, deren Zugpferd das soziale Netzwerk gleichen Namens ist, Oculus großzügig mit finanziellen Mitteln und eigenen Ressourcen. Facebook-Gründer Mark Zuckerberg hat bereits öffentlich verlauten lassen, dass Virtual Reality Facebooks Zukunft darstellen soll. Facebook 360 könnte somit der erste von vielen Schritten in die VR-Welt sein.

Eine eigene VR-App hatte Facebook allerdings noch nicht veröffentlicht – bis heute. Allerdings hatte Facebook bereits 2015 eine 360-Grad-Option eingeführt, die es ermöglicht, Videos und Bilder direkt innerhalb des sozialen Netzwerks zu betrachten. Mittlerweile gibt es über eine Millionen 360-Grad-Videos und mehr als 25 Millionen Bilder.

360-Grad-Content von Unternehmen, Organisation und Freunden

Damit man Facebook 360 nutzen kann, muss man sich mit seinem Facebook-Account anmelden. Daraufhin bekommt man Videos und Bilder angezeigt, die von Unternehmen, Organisationen oder anderen Nutzern veröffentlicht wurden. Und natürlich werden die Panaormabilder und Videos von eigenen Freunden angezeigt. Auch gibt es die Möglichkeit selbst veröffentlichten Content in der eigenen Timeline zu betrachten und eigene Kommentare zu hinterlassen.

Was die App allerdings noch nicht unterstützt ist 360-Grad-Livestreaming. Auch sonst ist die Kopplung mit anderen Facebook-Funktionen noch recht beschränkt. Facebook 360 wird deshalb erst einmal nur darauf ausgelegt sein, 360-Grad-Inhalte zu betrachten. Auch eine Oculus-Rift-Version der App ist zumindest noch nicht angekündigt. Facebook begründet das damit, dass man seinen Nutzern das bestmögliche Ergebnis liefern möchte – und deshalb die App erst einmal für GearVR testen möchte. Laut eigenen Angaben sollen GearVR-Nutzer die VR-Brille zu 80 % zur Video-Betrachtung nutzen.

(Quelle: uploadvr.com)

Der Beitrag Facebook 360 zeigt 360°-Content auf der GearVR zuerst gesehen auf VR∙Nerds. VR·Nerds am Werk!