Category: GDC 2019

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HTC Vive Pro Eye is NVIDIA’s Preferred Headset for its VRS Technology

One of the surprise announcements during CES 2019 in January came from HTC Vive with the reveal of its enterprise-focused headset, the Vive Pro Eye. Today, as part of NVIDIA’s GPU Technology Conference (GTC), HTC VIve has announced that the upcoming device is the preferred head-mounted display (HMD) for NVIDIA’s Variable Rate Shading (VRS) technology.

HTC Vive Pro Eye

 

Variable Rate Shading is a new rendering technique enabled by the latest Turing GPUs like the GeForce GTX 1660 or the GeForce RTX 2060 for example. The process increases rendering performance and quality by applying a varying amount of processing power to different areas of the image. So combined with the eye tracking capabilities of HTC Vive Pro Eye, the two help optimize computer and VR performance.

“We’re continuing to see enterprise VR demands evolve, and Vive is meeting these demands for more toolsets within the headset,” Daniel O’Brien, GM Americas, HTC Vive in a statement. “Coupled with NVIDIA VRS, integrated eye tracking in the new Vive Pro Eye delivers a host of features to take enterprise and location-based VR to an unprecedented level of impact, rapidly evolving what enterprise users can do in VR.”

And to aid developers interested in creating software using eye tracking, HTC Vive has released an updated “Pro Eye SDK” today, which directly integrates VRS for foveated rendering. The Vive Pro Eye SDK (SRAnipal) is available on the HTC Vive developer portal.

HTC Vive Pro Eye

“Vive is among the best VR headsets available for professional users, and Vive Pro Eye takes it to the next level,” said David Weinstein, Director of VR, NVIDIA. “With NVIDIA VRS technology, users can now derive the benefits of foveated rendering and super-sampling to deliver the highest quality of visualization while increasing computing efficiency.”

At the moment HTC Vive hasn’t confirmed a launch date for the Vive Pro Eye, simply stating ‘Q2 2019’. Plus we’ve no idea how much it’ll cost. As the normal HTC Vive Pro retails for $799 by itself or $1,089 as a starter kit, expect the eye tracking version to be even pricier. As further VR announcements are made at GTC and GDC 2019, VRFocus will endeavour to keep you updated.

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Pimax’s Answer to Rift’s Asynchronous Spacewarp ‘Brainwarp’ to Exit Beta This Week

Pimax today announced their Brainwarp software will be coming out of beta soon with the official launch of Brainwarp version 1.0.

Like Oculus’ Asynchronous Spacewarp, Brainwarp was designed to reduce the massive hardware requirements needed to run the headset’s high resolution displays; it’s also touted for its ability to improve latency and maintain acceptable refresh rates.

The 1.0 release will include three main tools, all of which were seen in the previous Brainwarp beta first released in January. Pimax says the official release “will ensure a smooth and optimized VR experience.” Brainwarp 1.0 is said to release sometime this week, although the exact date isn’t certain at this point.

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Pimax to Launch Ruggedized "8K" VR Headsets for Business This Year

The tools include: Smart Smoothing, Fixed Foveated Rendering (FFR) and Refresh Rate Switching (RRS). The company says these can be enabled or disabled individually by the user as needed.

Here’s a quick roundup of each tool, and how they’re positioned to improve the user experience with Pimax’s headsets, including Pimax “8K”, “5K” Plus, and “5K” XR (ex-“5K” BE).

  • Smart Smoothing: compensates for low frame rates by halving the effective frame rate to 45 fps and filling with synthetic frames as necessary, much like Oculus’ ASW or Valve’s Motion Smoothing. Pimax says you can use GPUs such as the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2060 or GTX 1070 to play most VR games with any of its headsets thanks to Smart Smoothing.
  •  Fixed Foveated Rendering (FFR): renders the center of the lenses at full resolution and progressively diminishes the resolution outward toward the user’s peripheral vision. Pimax claims performance gains of a typical VR game are between 10-30%. Compatibility with this feature is currently limited to NVIDIA RTX GPUs.
  • Refresh Rate Switching (RRS): can be used in conjunction with Smart Smoothing and FFR. With different mode options for the refresh rate (5K Plus: 90/72/64Hz, 8K: 80/72/64Hz), users have the ability to select the mode for their desired use with different games to achieve the best experience.

The post Pimax’s Answer to Rift’s Asynchronous Spacewarp ‘Brainwarp’ to Exit Beta This Week appeared first on Road to VR.

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Make ARKit and ARCore Development Easier With Unity AR Foundation

When Apple and then Google launched their augmented reality (AR) development software ARKit and ARCore respectively, they provided a perfect avenue for creators to build immersive AR apps and videogames for mobile devices. But just like the Khronos Group is trying to solve with the issue of fragmentation using OpenXR, having both ARKit and ARCore meant more work for developers trying to support both. During the recent Unity keynote at the Game Developers Conference (GDC) 2019, the videogame engine company has a solution, AR Foundation.

Angry Birds AR Structure Destroyed

While devices like Magic Leap and HoloLens might be pushing the upper reaches of AR technology, some of the most interesting work is being done at a consumer level on mobile devices. Yet creators generally have to choose whether to focus on ARKit or ARCore. Which is why Unity created the AR Foundation framework, specifically for AR content developers, allowing them to build an AR app and then deploy it to both ARKit and ARCore.

AR Foundation also includes features to overcome common problems such as anchoring digital objects into the real world and the visual fidelity of digital objects. One of the options Unity focused on was AR Remote: “it significantly reduces iteration time by streaming sensor data from an AR-enabled mobile device directly into the Unity editor, explains a blog posting. “This allows developers to see changes on their target device in real time without having to publish to the device.

As AR Foundation is part of Unity, veterans of the software will feel right at home using its workflows and features to create AR content. They can even use the assets built for non-AR titles and use them in their new AR project.

Tendar

Unity is one of the most popular engines for virtual reality (VR) and AR development, supporting the industry from an early stage. Unity CEO John Riccitiello has previously claimed that around two-thirds of all VR and AR apps on the market were built using Unity.

As Unity continues to expand and introduce more features for VR and AR development, VRFocus will keep you updated.

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Magic Leap and Weta Workshop Reveal Multiplayer Experience Grordbattle

As expected the Game Developers Conference (GDC) 2019 is building up nicely with a growing number of virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR) announcements. During the Unity keynote, Magic Leap and Weta Workshop announced for the first time a new multiplayer project for the mixed reality (MR) headset called Grordbattle. 

Magic Leap One Lightwear

Currently, in an early prototype phase, Grordbattle is set within the universe of Dr. Grordbort’s Invaders, an offshoot of that experience where between two to four players can go head-to-head in battle. As you can see from the below image, the videogame allows players to select a character of their choosing, giving their head a new digital representation where their eye movements and voices are mirrored by the character.

Developed entirely in Unity, the original Dr. Grordbort’s Invaders is another collaboration with Weta Workshop and Magic Leap, creating a realistic action game in which evil robots have chosen the players living room to stage an invasion.

“We are thrilled to partner with Unity to showcase this exciting development in spatial computing. Unity has been a long-standing supporter of the Magic Leap platform. Developing in Spatial Computing requires a completely new way of thinking, with fresh opportunities and challenges for creators, said Magic Leap in a blog posting.”

Grordbattle - Magic Leap

Demos of both Grordbattle and Dr. Grordbort’s Invaders will be available to GDC 2019 attendees.

Magic Leap looks to be having a much greater physical presence at GDC 2019 than in previous years, likely due to the company being keen to ramp up content support by supporting the developer community. It was only last month that Magic Leap announced the 31 successful applicants for its Independent Creators Program, with the likes of Resolution Games,  Funktronic Labs, Felix & Paul Studios and Within all being selected.

The Magic Leap One headset is still very much a device for developers rather than a consumer version. While it’s now more widely available, it still comes with a retail price starting from $2,295 USD. As further details or Grordbattle are released VRFocus will keep you updated.

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GDC 2019 Roundup: Oculus Rift S, Beat Saber For Quest, HP’s 4K Headset, Vive Finger Tracking

gdc 2019

Now that the 2019 Game Developers Conference (GDC) is over, you may have missed all the VR hardware, software and games news. You can let this article serve as your one-stop shop for links to everything we’ve written about GDC 2019.

Headsets

Games

Software

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The post GDC 2019 Roundup: Oculus Rift S, Beat Saber For Quest, HP’s 4K Headset, Vive Finger Tracking appeared first on UploadVR.

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HTC: Lippen-Tracking-Modul für Vive Pro angekündigt

Werbung für Virtual Reality Hygiene

Die GDC 2019 enthüllt zahlreiche Neuigkeiten für die VR-Industrie. So wird Beat Saber ein Starttitel für die Oculus Quest und HTC öffnet den Viveport für Windows-VR-Brillen. Eine weitere Nachricht aus dem Hause HTC verspricht ein neues Lippen-Tracking-Modul für die HTC Vive Pro. Allerdings soll das zusätzliche Add-on vorerst nur experimentell zu Forschungszwecken eingesetzt werden.

GDC 2019 – HTC kündigt Lippen-Tracking-Modul für Vive Pro an

Vinay Narayan, Vice President Product and Operations von HTC Vive America, verkündete auf der GDC 2019 die Veröffentlichung eines Lippten-Tracking-Moduls für die HTC Vive Pro. Das Modul soll akkurate Lippen- und Mundbewegungen erfassen, um Daten für die Entwicklung von diversen Technologien zu sammeln.

So sollen dadurch unter anderem Gesichtsanimationen von Avataren in Echtzeit optimiert werden oder Motion-Capture-Verfahren verbessert werden. Auch in diversen Forschungsbereichen, wie beispielsweise der Sprach- und Sprechentwicklung sollen die erfassten Daten zum Einsatz kommen. In Kombination mit dem kürzlich vorgestellten Vive Pro Eye-Tracking mit Foveated Rendering könnten uns somit schon in naher Zukunft lebensechte Avatare mit realistischen Gesichtsanimationen erwarten.

Vive Pro Eye 2

Während die technischen Details noch unbekannt sind, wird das Add-on vermutlich mit einer Kamera an der unteren Seite der VR-Brille befestigt, um die Mundregion zu erfassen. VR-Heimnutzer sollen vorerst allerdings nicht in den Genuss des Moduls kommen. Stattdessen wird es als Dev-Kit für experimentelle sowie Forschungszwecke eingeführt. Zusätzlich zum Modul soll ein SDK zum Gesichts-Tracking erscheinen.

Ein Release-Termin oder Preis wurde bisher noch nicht bekannt gegeben.

(Quelle: Road to VR)

Der Beitrag HTC: Lippen-Tracking-Modul für Vive Pro angekündigt zuerst gesehen auf VR∙Nerds. VR·Nerds am Werk!

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HTC Planning Lip-tracking Module Dev Kit for Vive Pro

Today at GDC, HTC announced plans to make available a lip-tracking module for the Vive Pro. The company says it doesn’t currently have plans to consumerize the device, but instead wants to make it available for research and experimentation.

HTC Vive America’s Vice President of Product and Operations, Vinay Narayan, today at GDC revealed that the company is plans to make available a lip-tracking module for the Vive Pro headset which will accurately gather data about how the user’s mouth is moving. This data could be used for a variety of purposes, like more realistically animating an avatar’s facial expressions in real-time, motion capture recording for NPC animations, or a variety of research uses involving speech, body language, and more.

HTC has revealed very little about the lip-tracking module so far, but we’d venture to guess that it will consist of a camera mounted underneath the Vive Pro visor which faces the user’s mouth. The module could tap the Vive Pro’s hidden USB port for power and data transfer, or could have its own on-board power and communicate to the host PC wirelessly.

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Wit the upcoming Vive Pro Eye, a version of the headset with built in eye-tracking, the lip-tracking module would be even more powerful as it, combined with eye-tracking data, could animate both eyes and mouth together, leading to a richer avatar representation.

HTC has said that it doesn’t presently have plans to turn the lip-tracking module into a consumer product, but wants to make it available as a development kit for research and experimentation. The lip-tracking module will tie into a Vive facial tracking SDK that the company will make available.

So far the company hasn’t said when the lip-tracking module or the facial tracking SDK will be released or what the the module might cost.

The post HTC Planning Lip-tracking Module Dev Kit for Vive Pro appeared first on Road to VR.

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OptiTrack to Showcase its Signature Pulse Active Tracking Technology at GDC 2019

OptiTrack’s tracking technology is used by location-based entertainment (LBE) centres specialising in virtual reality (VR) around the world, and at GDC 2019 this week the company is showcasing its latest tech. 

OptiTrack Jenga Demo

Guests at the expo will be able to see OptiTrack’s latest six degrees of freedom (6DoF) system with its Signature Pulse Active tracking technology, via a custom-built demo based around Jenga blocks.

“We wanted to highlight some of the things that make OptiTrack technology so popular with the world’s location-based VR professionals, so we developed a live show that demonstrates that our systems track everything, which allows LBVR experience designers to fully express their creativity, without worrying about technical limits,” said Brian Nilles, CSO at OptiTrack in a statement. “So we built an LBVR set that will track everything within it, including two sets of Jenga blocks, which people can play live – and in VR, and we embedded our Active tracking tech in everything else in the experience in order to open people’s imaginations to the possibilities.”

The ‘Track Everything’ GDC demo features more than 130 objects tracked simultaneously with OptiTrack’s Signature Pulse Active, with the system specs reportedly delivering:

  • Positional errors  < 0.2mm
  • Rotational errors < 0.02 deg
  • Tracking areas > 10,000 sq ft (930 sq m)
  • Number of tracked objects > 250 with a single PC
  • Signature Pulse Active: each individual LED is tracked and identified independently
  • Enables tracking of 100s of identical items
  • 100% drift free tracking

In addition to Signature Pulse Active, OptiTrack will also be showing the new HTC Vive Pro HMD clip and its plug-and-play integration, a prototype Manus VR/OptiTrack hybrid glove, and the OptiTrack integrated Striker VR haptic feedback weapon.

VRFocus will continue its coverage of OptiTrack as the LBE industry continues to grow, reporting back with the latest updates and announcements.

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Breakout VR Hit ‘Beat Saber’ Confirmed as Oculus Quest Launch Title

Beat Games is getting ready to take their massively successful block-slashing rhythm game to new heights, as Oculus today announced that Beat Saber (2018) is coming to Oculus Quest at launch.

According to an Oculus blog post, the Quest version of the game will deliver the entire Beat Saber experience, including all of the songs currently available on Rift, Vive, and PSVR, as well as “maybe more to come,” an Oculus spokesperson tells us.

The game originally launched into Early Access on Steam (Rift, Vive, Windows VR) and the Oculus Store (Rift) in May 2018. A few months later, the game then made its way to PSVR, quickly landing a decisive hit on the platform by becoming PSVR’s second most-downloaded VR game for the entire year; it was live on the PlayStation Store for only six weeks before vaulting past every PSVR game except the perennial favorite Job Simulator (2016), which came in at number one.

Beat Saber most recently celebrated an important milestone too, namely the revelation that the game has sold over one million copies, generating between $20 – $30 million in gross revenue across all platforms.

Image courtesy Oculus

Outside of Beat Saber, Quest launch titles already confirmed thus far include Robo Recall, Moss, The Climb, and Dead & Buried (Superhot VR is also very likely). At Quest’s Oculus Connect unveiling last year, Mark Zuckerberg also said there will be some 50 launch titles planned for the Oculus Quest launch.

At the time of this writing we still don’t know when the company’s $400 6DOF standalone headset is due to hit consumer doorsteps, although Oculus hasn’t changed their Spring 2019 launch window expectation, putting launch hypothetically anywhere between March 20th and June 21st. Whatever the case may be, Oculus has started a ‘Quest Countdown’, so we’re bound to learn more at GDC this week.

The post Breakout VR Hit ‘Beat Saber’ Confirmed as Oculus Quest Launch Title appeared first on Road to VR.

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Khronos’ OpenXR 0.90 Provisional Spec for VR & AR Devices Launched at GDC 2019

.Ever since the Khronos Group announced back in 2016 plans to have an open standard for virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR) devices called OpenXR, the initiative has garnered more and more support. With the first public demos showcased at SIGGRAPH last year, for the start of the Game Developer Conference (GDC) 2019 the group has publicly launched the OpenXR 0.90 provisional specification.

OpenXR Solving Fragmentation

The whole purpose of OpenXR is to solve the issue of fragmentation within the VR/AR ecosystems – commonly referred to as XR – allowing developers to easily port content to a range of devices without having to spend serious amounts of time dealing with each their particular software issues.

As this is version 0.90 of OpenXR it’s not the final version, merely a provisional release so that Khronos Group can correlate feedback from users. OpenXR 0.90 specifies a cross-platform Application Programming Interface (API) so that platform vendor’s expose the functionality of their runtime systems, which can frustratingly different across existing vendor-specific APIs.

“OpenXR seeks to simplify AR/VR software development, enabling applications to reach a wider array of hardware platforms without having to port or re-write their code and subsequently allowing platform vendors supporting OpenXR access to more applications,” said Brent Insko, lead VR architect at Intel and OpenXR working group chair. “The OpenXR provisional specification—together with the runtimes publicly available at launch and coming in the next few weeks—will enable hands-on, cross-platform testing by application and engine developers. The working group welcomes developer feedback to ensure an OpenXR 1.0 specification that truly meets the needs of the XR industry.”

Khronos Group

Advocates of the OpenXR standard range across the industry, from Google and Epic Games to Magic Leap and Sony Interactive Entertainment.

“Epic believes that open standards like OpenXR are essential foundations for a vibrant, multi-platform VR and AR industry in the coming years. We’ve supported OpenXR since its inception, including powering the first public demo of OpenXR at SIGGRAPH last year, and hope to see the ecosystem continue to grow with the first public release of the spec at GDC,” said Tim Sweeney, founder and CEO of Epic Games. “Epic plans to continue supporting OpenXR in Unreal Engine 4.”

“Facebook and Oculus continue to believe in the value the OpenXR standard delivers to users and developers. We plan to provide runtime support for apps built on OpenXR 1.0 on the Rift and Quest platforms later this year,” Nate Mitchell, Oculus Co-founder and head of VR product, Facebook adds.

The new specification can be found on the Khronos website. For further updates on OpenXR, keep reading VRFocus.