Category: holonautic

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Cybrix Turns Your Room Into Futuristic Passthrough Brick-Breaking Arena

Cybrix, a game from Hand Physics Lab studio Holonautic, received an update that adds support for passthrough mode, allowing your living room to become a futuristic brick-breaking arena.

Cybrix is available now through App Lab for $9.99 and looks to combine elements seen in games like Breakout, Pong or Blaston. Set in a futuristic squash court, you’ll bat balls towards columns of bricks, with power ups like laser shooters or multi-balls, to quickly clear approaching rows.

The game’s latest update adds passthrough support for endless mode, letting you place the arena in your own environment. We tried it out earlier today and were surprised at just how big the arena actually is — you’ll need a fair chunk of space if you want to be able to move around the entire thing.

That being said, it’s a great way to play the game and, similar to Blaston, makes you feel more comfortable and grounded when you’re extending out to the outer limits of your guardian.

You can see some footage in the tweet embedded below from Holonautic, highlighting the new feature.

We’re big fans of passthrough mode being implemented into Quest games and there have been some fantastic examples so far. One of the best is the aforementioned Blaston, which essentially revolutionizes the game’s level of comfort, allowing you to play and battle against your opponent in your real space, without concern of overextending beyond your boundary in moments of excitement.

Likewise, Cubism recently released its own passthrough update, allowing you to solve puzzles in your real environment and use a table or desk as a form of haptic feedback when playing in tabletop mode.

Cybrix is available now for Quest headsets through App Lab for $9.99. You can also read our review of Holonautic’s other Quest title, Hand Physics Lab, which we nominated for Most Innovative Design at last year’s Best of 2021 Awards.

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Hand Physics Lab Adds Accessibility Options, 120 Hz Mode Planned

Hand Physics Lab now includes a number of accessibility options, including a colorblind mode and the ability to map finger movements to other fingers.

The finger mapping feature should make the game playable for people who have a finger-related disability. The game is one of the few available on Oculus Quest that’s entirely playable with either Oculus Touch controllers or hand tracking. I reviewed the game when it debuted in April and, while it is held back by the quality of Oculus Quest’s cameras, Facebook has since released an update for Quest 2 enabling developers to increase the quality of the hand tracking for the newer headset.

Dennys Kuhnert, the co-founder of Holonautic and creator of the game, already added the high frequency hand tracking to Hand Physics Lab and is also planning to support 120 Hz experimental frame rate as well in a coming update. In the current version of the game, you can set the refresh rate to 72, 80, or 90 Hz on Quest 2.

Kuhnert says the game sold more than 100,000 copies in the six weeks after release, meaning that the $9.99 title made more than $1 million in gross revenue before Facebook took its cut of sales. An early experimental version of the title hit SideQuest last year and he wrote via direct message that its sales on the Oculus Store were “honestly not expected. I started this as a side project in 2020 just for fun with zero expectations. This will allow the studio to grow and work on new exciting projects.”

“After 5 months of experimenting and building the first prototype of Hand Physics Lab, I just wanted to have it out there and get feedback from the VR community to improve it further. Combining fully physics-based interactions with the experimental hand tracking from the Quest (quite unstable a year ago, it improved a lot since) was a big challenge and many things could go wrong,” he wrote. “It was important to minimize the barrier of entry and have safety systems in place to handle bad tracking events for the players. Shane Harris and his platform SideQuest were a big help to help reach a bigger community and basically validate the concept. The platform is really great and allowed many experimental VR concepts like Hand Physics Lab and others to quickly reach a large audience and get valuable feedback to make the experience better!”

Facebook’s head of VR and AR Andrew Bosworth says the company is pursuing an “Oculus Quest Pro” that won’t release this year but is likely to add more powerful sensing abilities to the Quest line of headsets. Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has expressed interest in future headsets including face and eye tracking, and we’d expect Facebook to improve the quality of hand tracking in future hardware as well. Consulting Oculus CTO John Carmack recently commented that Facebook is on a “multi-year path to phasing [physical controllers] away as a core feature, where we want to be able to have a controller -free SKU in the future where we rely just on hand tracking.”

Hand Physics Lab is available  on the Oculus Quest Store.

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The VR Job Hub: Bodyswaps, Holonautic & Facebook Reality Labs

VR Job Hub

Every weekend VRFocus gathers together vacancies from across the virtual reality (VR), augmented reality (AR) and mixed reality (MR) industry, in locations around the globe to help make finding that ideal job easier. Below is a selection of roles that are currently accepting applications across a number of disciplines, all within departments and companies that focus on immersive entertainment.

Location Company Role Link
London, UK Bodyswaps Sales Lead – VR Learning SaaS Click Here to Apply
London, UK Bodyswaps Account Manager – VR Learning SaaS Click Here to Apply
Horw, Switzerland Holonautic VR Unity Developer Click Here to Apply
Horw, Switzerland Holonautic 3D Artist & Designer Click Here to Apply
Horw, Switzerland Holonautic 3D Animator Click Here to Apply
Sunnydale, CA – Seattle, WA Facebook Reality Labs Product Experience Quality Engineer Click Here to Apply
Remote, Contiguous US Facebook Reality Labs Head of Global Contact Centre Operations Click Here to Apply
Menlo Park, CA – Burlingame, CA Facebook Reality Labs Technical Program Manager Click Here to Apply
Redmond, WA Facebook Reality Labs Material Science Research Group Lead Click Here to Apply
Redmond, WA Facebook Reality Labs Systems Integration Engineer Click Here to Apply
Pittsburgh, PA Facebook Reality Labs Firmware Engineer Click Here to Apply
Redmond, WA Facebook Reality Labs Software Engineer – Network Click Here to Apply
Sunnyvale, CA – Redmond, WA – Seattle, WA Facebook Reality Labs Optical Scientist, Waveguide Design Click Here to Apply

Don’t forget, if there wasn’t anything that took your fancy this week there’s always last week’s listings on The VR Job Hub to check as well.

If you are an employer looking for someone to fill an immersive technology related role – regardless of the industry – don’t forget you can send us the lowdown on the position and we’ll be sure to feature it in that following week’s feature. Details should be sent to Peter Graham (pgraham@vrfocus.com).

We’ll see you next week on VRFocus at the usual time of 3PM (UK) for another selection of jobs from around the world.

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Hand Physics Lab Coming To Oculus Quest Next Week

The experimental hand tracking playground, Hand Physics Lab, is moving to a full release on the Oculus Store for Oculus Quest, after being available to sideload for almost a year. No release date was provided at this time.

Update: Hand Physics is arriving on the official Quest store on April 1st! Original story is below.

Original Story: The app launched in May 2020 and was only available through sideloading. Yesterday, developers Holonautic confirmed that the experience will soon be available on the official Quest store, meaning that anyone will be able to find, download, and play with the app without having to use SideQuest or App Lab.

The Hand Physics Lab is less of a game and more of a sandbox-style playground environment offering a variety of activities and interactions centered around hand tracking. It’s essentially a showcase of the current capabilities and limitations of hand tracking on the standalone Quest headset. It serves a similar purpose to Facebook’s introductory app, First Steps, that gets you acquainted with your Touch controllers and the basics of VR.

Using just your hands you can manipulate blocks, color eggs, finger paint, use the force, and much more. There’s a variety of scenes for the user to switch between, each offering a new use of hand tracking to play around with. Last October, the experience received a major update that added existing interactions and added some brand new ones as well.

The Oculus Quest received experimental hand tracking back in December of 2019. Since then, the feature has moved from experimental to full release, however support has been a mixed bag. While some games have added optional hand tracking support that work relatively well, there has yet to be a breakthrough app that provides a truly stellar hand tracking experience. Even apps specifically designed for hand tracking such as Hand Physics Lab or Elixir are still working within the limitations of the Quest hardware, which doesn’t quite have first-in-class hand tracking support just yet.

There’s no word on when exactly Hand Physics Lab will arrive on the Oculus Store, nor any details of whether the app will move to a paid pricing model. Previously, the experience was free to sideload via SideQuest.

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Hand Physics Lab To Receive ‘The Grip Update’ On October 16

The Hand Physics Lab for Oculus Quest is set to receive its first major update since launch, The Grip Update, which improves interactions with objects and adds all new features.

Hand Physics Lab launched earlier this year in May, and provided users with a bunch of different scenarios that perfectly demonstrated the possibilities (and limitations) of the Oculus Quest’s controller-free hand tracking support. That being said, picking up items could sometimes be tedious and inconsistent in the original release. If the grip update does actually live up to its name, then the Hand Physics Lab can continue its reign as one of the best demonstrative hand-tracking experiences on the Quest.

The changes in the update involve more than just improvements to object interaction — there’s also UI changes and more props. You can see some of those changes in the trailer above, plus the developers gave a full breakdown on Reddit:

This is the biggest Hand Physics Lab update yet with a brand new predictive and dynamic snapping system allowing you to seamlessly and firmly grab objects. Along this new system, many new features and improvements are coming as well, including better hand and finger physics, controller support, telekinesis, teleportation, a brand new lab design, a friendly clone, a new UI, and many many new PROPS and setups to play with!

The Grip Update for Hand Physics Lab launches October 16 for Oculus Quest and Oculus Quest 2, available via sideloading through SideQuest. A private beta will also run before the official release, which you can sign up to in the game’s Discord server.

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Hand Physics Lab’s Experimental Playground Comes To Sidequest

A colorful new playground for controller-free hand tracking is available now on Sidequest.

The Hand Physics Lab from the studio behind SteamVR’s Holoception offers a number of switches and buttons to play with that activate different features. You can play with blocks, force push, color eggs, finger paint, stab things, hold a crowbar and a lot more with the experimental software.

Check out some of the toys to play with in the trailer here:

We also captured some gameplay footage that I embedded below. The state of Oculus Quest hand tracking changes a fair amount with each release of the Quest’s system software. A brightly lit room and clean camera lenses could also have a major effect on tracking quality.

In December Facebook released a hand tracking software development kit for Quest but, at the time of this writing, the company isn’t yet letting games update their store versions to support the input system. That’s likely to change soon, however, with the developers behind games like The Curious Tale of the Stolen Pets and Waltz of the Wizard teasing the input system in their Quest titles. May 21, 2020 marks the 1-year anniversary of the Quest going on sale and we expect Facebook to plan some announcements in connection with the occasion.

According to Holonautic’s Dennys Kuhnert, their focus is still the physics-focused Holoception while the Hand Physics Lab is a side project that should get updates with more “crazy” ideas. You can find it now on Sidequest here.

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Free Demo Of Innovative, Physics-Based ‘Holoception’ Now Available

The physics-based VR shooter Holoception is now offering a free demo on Steam after initially launching a paid project in early access in October this year.

The game offers innovative gameplay that allows the player to switch between first-person and a third-person point of view. The latter sees you control a stick person from afar who mirrors your movements. This unusual mechanic can take some getting used to, which is why the developers Holonautic are now offering a demo. Trying the game out might help those who are skeptical, allowing them to try out the system before buying in.

According to a Steam update, the demo includes the full tutorial and on-boarding experience, which should give you a taste of what’s to come and get at least partially acquainted with Holoception’s unique control systems. You can check out some footage of the tutorial we captured earlier this year, embedded below, which was recorded shortly before the game’s early access release.

 

Holoception is currently priced around $20 in US dollars, however, the developers said this will gradually increase between now and the full launch. While the game did initially support the HTC Vive, the Vive wands aren’t currently supported as a method of input, meaning that the Oculus Rift and Valve Index are the only two supported systems currently. Here’s what the developers say on that:

“We temporarily removed the Vive wands as an officially supported input system as we don’t feel that the current state of the locomotion system delivers a good enough experience. We still support the platform of course and improve it steadily with coming updates, but we currently can’t recommend it as a good input device due to the limitations of the input controls (lack of thumbsticks).

The game remains in early access on Steam with the free demo now available, and will continue to evolve with more content and updates until the full release. When it launched in October, Holonautic suggested the game would be in early access for a 6 to 12 month period.

Have you tried Holoception? Let us know what you thought in the comments.

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Holoception Is An Innovative, Physics-Based VR Action Game (Video)

Holonautic announced that their debut title Holoception will release into early access on October 24 for the Oculus Rift, Vive and Valve Index via Steam.

Our Managing Editor Ian got access to a build of the game this weekend, and captured some footage of the game’s tutorial on the Valve Index, embedded above. 

The game is a cartoon-ish physics-based action game that lets you pull off some sick moves using a plethora of different weapons, guns and gadgets. The combat looks amazing, but it’s also got a humorous tone judging from the trailers.

Importantly, the game also introduces some innovative play options – the game uses both first and third-person perspectives. Unlike most VR games that stick to first-person, Holoception lets you control a third person stick figure that accurately mirrors your own head and hand movements in miniature.

According to the Holoception site, the benefit of this mechanic is you can pull off full and intense movements – like jumping, running and climbing – with a much smaller chance of motion sickness than with first-person gameplay.

Besides that, there is a truly vast amount of different guns, mechanics and action sequences on display in the launch trailer alone. That being said, there’s also a trove of content on the Holonautic YouTube channel, which dives into a bunch of the different mechanics and gadgets on offer, demoing how each of them works. These videos are definitely worth checking out further if your interest was piqued by the trailer above.

One particularly cool gadget is the HoloGloves, which pretty much gives you the force from Star Wars. You can pick up, push and pull objects, including enemies, through the air. It looks like a heap of fun.

Holoception launches into early access on October 24. Will you be trying it out? Let us know in the comments.

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