Follow Me Dragon

October 25, 2017

The Virtual Reality Company Want To Be The Disney Of Immersive And Interactive Storytelling

AR and VR on the Lot at Paramount Studios had some big names walking around, including companies seeking to create stories in both virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR) that are equivalent of Hollywood standards. VRFocus sat down with Guy Primus, the CEO of the Virtual Reality Company, a studio trying to do just that with VR experience Raising a Rukus in partnership with IMAX, for it and the Samsung Gear VR. As well as their AR app Follow Me Dragon.

Virtual Reality Company Raising a Rukus Family Scene The Virtual Reality Company is co-founded by Robert Stromberg, who has created the world of Avatar (2009) and Alice in Wonderland (2010) as well as directed Maleficent (2014) and Guy Primus, a heavyweight in the advertising industry and previous Chief Operating Officer for Overbrook Entertainment, a film and television production company founded by Will Smith and producer James Lassiter. The 28-person team are on a mission to bring people “face to face with imagination” through immersive technologies.

Their mission has led them to creating Raising A Rukus, a VR experience about twins who follow a little dog named Rukus underground on an adventure that involve dinosaur skeletons coming to life on a wild adventure. The VR experience debuted at IMAX VR cinemas with the D-box chairs, which help further immerse viewers into the experience. Primus says that the feedback so far has been fantastic with people asking, “you can do a Pixar movie in VR?”

It’s not only VR that the Virtual Reality Company are looking into. They’ve most recently released Follow Me Dragon on iOS devices. The moment Apple announced ARKit, the team managed to get the Follow Me Dragon out and ready 10 weeks later. Primus hopes that the little dragon called Drake in Follow Me Dragon will be a mascot, like Mickey Mouse to Disney. They plan to iterate, add six brothers and sisters to the experience and have them overlap into VR. In other words, your dragon companion in Follow Me Dragon would develop its own personality as you travel with it and this would lead to various experiences in VR. No dates have been announced just yet, but it Primus hints at some very exciting projects that will be announced in the next few weeks. Watch this space.

To find out more watch the video below.

September 21, 2017

8 Cool AR Apps to Try Now That Apple iOS 11 is Here

Apple’s newest iteration of the iOS mobile operating system is here, and with it comes the ability to turn your iOS 11 compatible device into an honest-to-goodness augmented reality viewer. Thanks to a few months of lead time with Apple’s developer tool ARKit, the App Store already has plenty of useful apps and interesting games boasting AR capabilities.

IKEA Place

One of the most talked-about ARKit apps is here, IKEA Place. Letting you virtually ‘place’ IKEA products in your home to figure out if they actually fit, the app features everything from the company’s unpronounceable sofas to it’s equally unpronounceable coffee tables. If only it included a flatpack model that showed how big the damn box was before trying to fit it in your car.

Download here (free)

Zombie Gunship Revenant AR

Zombie Gunship Revenant is a unique zombie shooter where you take control of a heavily-armed helicopter gunship and obliterate zombies from the sky as they run around a military complex. Complete with fake heatmap and plenty of radio chatter, it’s amazing how realistic it all looks.

Download here (free)

Ok, so there’s also some pretty silly AR apps too. Exhibit A: Follow Me Dragon. Although we can’t say how long something like this will actually be fun (especially for $2), there is an undeniable novelty in owning your own dragon that’s too hard to turn down. You can poke him, make him do tricks, take selfies with him, change his skin color and a bunch more basically useless things that will make your kids giggle.

Download here ($1.99)

World Brush

Art is everywhere with World Brush. You can create and post your 3D paintings anonymously at the approximate GPS location you created it. To combat the inevitable onslaught of phallic artistry, users have the ability to like, dislike and report paintings The app also uses a scoring algorithm that combines popularity and time of creation so you can always view the best stuff at your location.

Download here (free)

Housecraft

IKEA Place is great, but if you’re looking for something a little more generic, Housecraft has a wider selection of 3D models to choose from if you’re planning out a new space including the ability to save the whole room configuration for later viewing.

Download here (free)

Measure Kit

MeasureKit contains 7 AR measuring tools for those impromptu moments when you need to measure anything and everything including:

Ruler — measure straight lines on any surface, such as a desk or wall.
Trajectory — measure by “drawing” (moving your device) in the real world.
Marker Pin — measure distance from device camera to fixed points in space.
Angles — measure corners.
Person Height — measure how tall someone is.
Cube — visualize how big something is.
Level — check if something is horizontal or vertical

Download here (free)

The Machines

Featured onstage at the iPhone X unveiling was Directive Games’ AR real-time strategy game, The Machines, featuring a PvP arena and a selection of robot warriors. Playable online or in the same room as your friends, The Machines is basically the game we all wanted when we were six.

Download here ($4.99)

Sky Guide AR

Finding stars in the sky is easy. Just look up. Figure out the names and constellations is another matter entirely though. With Sky Guide AR, identifying stars, planets and satellites is easier than ever.

Download here ($2.99)

The post 8 Cool AR Apps to Try Now That Apple iOS 11 is Here appeared first on Road to VR.

September 20, 2017

The Virtual Reality Company Unveils AR app Follow Me Dragon

With the roll out of iOS 11 yesterday developers are beginning to release their augmented reality (AR) apps for Apple’s mobile devices. Today has already seen Climax Studios ARise launch and now The Virtual Reality Company has delved into the AR field with Follow Me Dragon.

The experience features adorable dragons who dance, jump, pose for pictures, play fetch and fly through real-world environments. Designed to be enjoyed by participants of all ages, users can take pictures with their dragons and share their adventures via social media accounts.

Virtual Reality Company Follow Me Dragon

“With Follow Me Dragon, VRC is taking a leap forward into Augmented Reality,” explains VRC co-founder and Chief Creative Officer Robert Stromberg in a statement. “Beginning with the first dragon, Drake, each character will have a unique personality that will navigate real world environments with its own flair. Collectively, the dragons will serve as the foundation for an immersive new fantasy experience.”

VRC’s CEO Guy Primus adds, “while early adopters to the app will enjoy all the delightful interactions they can share with the current dragon, VRC’s development team is actively working to build and grow the world of Follow Me Dragon – both within the app and beyond.”

The Virtual Reality Company is known for its cinematic VR releases like Raising a Rukus and The Martian VR. VRFocus will continue its coverage of the studio, reporting back with its latest projects.