Category: Google

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Google Ends Cardboard VR Sales

Google has removed all listings for Cardboard VR headsets, the last bastion of its early VR efforts, from the Google Store.

The Google Cardboard product page now redirects to the Google Store homepage and displays a message that “the page you are looking for is not available, you have been redirected.”

Both Google Cardboard and Daydream View were early efforts from Google to break into the smartphone VR space. In the same vein as Gear VR, these headsets allowed you to put a mobile phone into a headset shell and experience rudimentary 3DOF virtual reality. Cardboard was on the decidedly lower end of the scale given that, as the name suggests, the headset was made out of folded card.

Google Cardboard was compatible with many different smartphones, whereas Daydream supported Google Pixel devices specifically. In 2019, Google confirmed that its then-newest flagship phone, the Pixel 4, would not support Daydream and that Daydream View headsets would no longer be available for purchase. At the time, Jamie Feltham wrote that Daydream’s death didn’t mark the end of the VR dream, but a sign that it was just growing up.

A month later, Google announced that it would also be open-sourcing the software behind the Cardboard platform in the hopes that third-party developers could continue to support the platform. Previously, Google had also released manufacturing specifications for the cardboard headset with the same intention — so that third party manufacturers could produce their own units and encourage wide support.

Up until recently, Google continued to sell its official Cardboard headsets on the Google Store, likely just to get rid of leftover stock. However, with the listings now gone, Google has officially ended all support for hardware and software of its Daydream and Cardboard VR platforms.

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Google Makes ‘Tilt Brush’ Open Source as Active Development Comes to a Halt

Google announced it has stopped active development on Tilt Brush (2016), the company’s VR paint app. All is not lost though. As the team pivots to creating immersive AR experiences, Tilt Brush has officially gone open source, allowing anyone to modify or even clone the app in its entirety.

Even before Google discontinued its home-spun Daydream platform in 2019, it was fairly apparent that the company’s interest in developing both VR hardware and software had substantially waned. At Google I/O earlier that year, Daydream headsets were nowhere to be seen, revealing the company’s rapidly decreasing enthusiasm for the medium.

Fast forward a few months, and now Google is not only shutting down its 3D object platform Poly, which was announced in December, but it’s also stopping all active development on Tilt Brush. In retrospect, Tilt Brush co-creator Patrick Hackett departing Google earlier this month may have been writing on the wall that the VR paint app was on the chopping block.

In a bid to let Tilt Brush live on, the team has released an open source github repo of the app’s code, allowing others to use, distribute, and modify it for use in other projects. The team says in its build guide that while Tilt Brush is a Google trademark, developers are even free to clone it completely as long as they choose a different name.

Now that developers are free to browse, at least one previously planned feature on the to-do list has raised a few eyebrows in the community, namely the missing addition of multiplayer mode.

 

The team says in a Google blogpost that Tilt Brush will “always remain available in digital stores for users with supported VR headsets,” however the move to open source the app will allow “everyone to learn how we built the project, and [encourage] them to take it in directions that are near and dear to them.”

Originally created by indie studio Skillman & Hackett, it wasn’t long before the studio and its impressive 3D art app were snapped up by Google; a 2015 acquisition proceeded the app’s launch on HTC Vive a year later.

Although it eventually went on to launch on all major VR headsets, development noticeably slowed over the past two years, starting back in 2018 when Google was still enthusiastically pushing its Android-based Daydream VR platform.

Tilt Brush’s most recent feature update came in March 2020, which brought to the app a new Camera Path Panel, Sketchfab, and a beta version of Google Drive backup. The app has only had a few bugfixes since then despite releasing concurrently on PSVR.

The post Google Makes ‘Tilt Brush’ Open Source as Active Development Comes to a Halt appeared first on Road to VR.

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Google Tilt Brush Now Open Source, Creators Instantly Set to Work

Tilt Brush - PSVR

Google’s painting app Tilt Brush has been one of the defining virtual reality (VR) titles since its launch in 2016, with artists around the world creating amazing works of art. Like most of Google’s VR projects the company has decided to end support but to ensure its future Tilt Brush is now open source.

Starting as a simple 3D painting app which helped to showcase VR as an artistic medium, over the years Tilt Brush added new interactive features like audio reactive brushes whilst expanding support from PC VR to PlayStation VR and even Oculus Quest. The last update appeared back in April 2020 so it’s no surprise the company has ended support.

Tilt Brush will still be available to purchase on all the digital stores like Steam and Oculus, but for those that know how the source code is available on GitHub. However, some features have been removed with a blog post explaining: “In order to be able to release the Tilt Brush code as open source, there were a few things we had to change or remove due to licensing restrictions. In almost all cases, we documented the process for adding those features back in our comprehensive build guide.”

The open source route means that Tilt Brush won’t suffer the same fate as many of the company’s other VR projects as it continues to concentrate on augmented reality (AR) technology like ARCore. Recent cullings have included Google Poly, its 3D object library; Daydream View headset sales ceasing in 2019 followed by Android 11 completely dropping support last year. Google Expeditions, its VR field trip app also came to an end in 2020.

For the time being at least, Google Earth VR is still being looked after and its acquisition of Owlchemy Labs (Job Simulator, Vacation Simulator) means Google still has some interest in VR. The studio’s CEO Devin Reimer took to Twitter to clarify: “With Tilt Brush’s announcement some folks have asked if this changes anything at Owlchemy. It does not, we are continuing to grow, build awesome games for everyone, innovate and push VR forward! We also can’t wait to announce our next big thing!”

The VR community has already responded to the open source announcement by playing with the code and seemingly achieving what Google couldn’t in five years, multiplayer. The feature had been teased years ago but never came to fruition. Rendever’s CTO Thomas Neumann promptly achieved this as the above tweet showcases.

So Google’s interest in Tilt Brush has ended but the XR community has really just begun. For further updates, keep reading VRFocus.

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Google Open Sources Tilt Brush

Google open sourced its groundbreaking art app Tilt Brush, representing the latest move by the tech giant to cease development of its first efforts in virtual reality.

Google acqui-hired the developers behind the art application in 2015 as hype around VR built up ahead of the release of Oculus Rift and HTC Vive. It became the go-to VR art application over the last several years and a regular showpiece for VR demo-givers who wanted to show the medium had potential beyond games. Google also tightly integrated Tilt Brush with its Poly 3D-object hosting service, which the company previously announced would be shutting down at the end of June.

The addition of Tilt Brush to an open source repository on Github represents a gift to the VR development community, with other VR devs already crawling through the code for insights or ideas.

“Tiltbrush inspired Modbox more than any other project so I am absolutely going to check out their source. Either I’ll learn something or find out I’ve coded better than Google – either way worth it,” wrote Modbox creator Lee Vermeulen in a direct message.

Patrick Hackett, co-creator of the original software, left Google earlier this month to join Space Pirate Trainer developer I-Illusions “on a very, very special VR thing.” The head of Google-owned Owlchemy Labs — the studio behind Job Simulator and Vacation Simulator — wrote in a tweet that “we are continuing to grow, build awesome games for everyone, innovate and push VR forward! We also can’t wait to announce our next big thing!”

The announcement comes a day after Gravity Sketch switched to a free-for-individual-use pricing model across all devices. The transition of Tilt Brush toward open source essentially cements Gravity Sketch as the go-to VR art app.

“To some, this may look like the end of Tilt Brush,” Hackett wrote. “To me, this is immortality.”

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Oculus Quest’s YouTube App Gets Hand Tracking

Google’s YouTube app for Oculus Quest now supports controller-free hand tracking.

That means you can browse & watch YouTube’s huge collection of regular and immersive videos with just the headset, no controllers required.

This was already possible via the Oculus Browser, but the native app provides a cleaner experience with better performance.

YouTube VR Hand Tracking

YouTube VR first launched on Samsung Gear VR, which accessed an earlier version of the Oculus Store, back in early 2018. It got Oculus Go support in late 2018 and was an Oculus Quest launch app in 2019.

The app allows users to view all of YouTube’s standard 2D content, but the main focus is on immersive 360° videos- a big focus for YouTube in recent years.

Because it’s difficult to type in VR, the app provides a voice search function using Google’s best-in-class speech recognition technology, the same used in Google Home smart speakers. Users can view their own subscriptions, history, and playlists including their YouTube Music playlists.

YouTube’s continued support of the Oculus VR platform is in stark contrast to its parent company Google, which shut down its own mobile VR platform recently after ending viewer sales in late 2019. Last week it also announced it was shutting down its online library of user-made 3D assets, Poly.

YouTube VR frequently appears near the top of the Oculus Store’s Most Popular list, likely thanks to having the largest collection of immersive videos of any platform.

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VR Artist Laments The Loss Of Google Poly As Petition To Open Source Goes Live

Last week Google announced it would soon be shutting down Poly, its online platform for storing and sharing 3D assets made in apps like Tilt Brush, Blocks and others.

The news has wide-reaching implications for many VR artists that had depended on the service for the past few years. Those artists, especially those working with Google’s own creative VR tools, will need to download their existing libraries before the service is taken fully offline on June 30th 2021 and then find a new home for that work. For some, though, this is about more than the inconvenience.

UK artist Rosie Summers has been storing her work on Poly for the past three years. She regularly relies on Google’s services as a means of preserving and promoting her work. Indeed, even sharing her work from Poly in this post below takes just a few simple clicks to embed. Though if you’re reading this after June 2021 those embeds probably aren’t there anymore.

“Poly is the centerpoint of the VR artist community,” Summers told me. “So many creators rely on the site as an easy way to share and promote their works with their audiences. I’ve recently released my VR advent calendar that users download via Poly, so followers can join in with the festivities. I use Poly’s 3D viewer nearly every day to share work in progress with clients, as being able to navigate a scene in 3D is so much more immersive than a couple of screenshots.”

 

But Summers also says that Poly provides a crucial pool of resources for other applications, allowing easy importing of VR-made assets to create unique virtual assets. “Applications such as VRChat, Wave, and ARize have all had the ability to integrate artworks from Poly to create immersive landscapes, exhibitions and galleries that groups of users can experience together,” she adds. “Lots of artists used platforms like this to promote and sell their digital artworks, so Poly shutting down means a vital revenue stream is lost during a pandemic that is proving to be exceptionally tough on creative industries.”

The strains of the COVID-19 pandemic aren’t the only reasons Summers says the timing is less than ideal. “To me the timing of the shutdown is particularly odd, as the cost of entry to VR is rapidly falling, and it feels like the XR content revolution is about to begin. Poly would and should have been a key component in the digital asset space.”

In the wake of the news, many people have pointed to a similar third-party resource, Sketchfab, as a suitable replacement for Poly. Summers, however, says that many of Poly’s alternatives still don’t have the basic support and features that Poly offered for free, like unlimited private hosting. “Poly is more than a site, it’s a community at the core of the digital VR art revolution, and shutting it down will fracture the community,” she says.

To that end, Summers is now promoting a recently-launched petition. It asks not for Google to roll back its Poly plans but instead make the platform open source so that others may continue to carry the torch. The petition has amassed over 500 signatures at the time of writing, and Summers also has hopes for other alternatives. “A community-led effort to create an open-source replacement to the site is already in the works, hoping to re-implement and improve on Poly’s core features, in a way that keeps artworks and heritage safe from being lost to time when large corporations choose to no longer support a platform.”