Magnopus – Page 2 – Augmented & Virtual Reality Confabulation

March 16, 2018

Get CNN’s Latest Breaking News via its VR App for Oculus Rift

CNN and Magnopus have launched the latest in virtual reality (VR) experiences in the form of CNN VR onto the Oculus store.

CNN VR Screenshot 01

Announced back in March of last year, the CNN VR application invites viewers directly into the newsroom of the future, getting closer than ever before to the stories that are being delivered. Viewers will have the power to “go there” into the heart of the story and become fully immersed in 360-degree news coverage.

The CNN VR application gives viewers the power of being the “producer” of their own show, allowing them to have full control of the experience. After a tutorial that is voiced by CNN anchor Wolf Blitzer, users can choose what news they want to view from the latest breaking stories or jump right into 360-degree videos. This will transport a user to immersive original 360-degree videos from CNN journalists around the world, connecting them to the news as close as possible without actually being there. All of the content is delivered in 4K resolution and encoded by Pixvana to ensure a smooth viewing experience.

CNN VR Screenshot 02

CNN have been involved with VR for some time now, having created a number of news stories in 360-degree video. These include the Syrian civil war, showcasing the devastation of Aleppo, a collaboration with NextVR to live stream the Democratic presidential debate, along with the US Inauguration. The application will also include an CNN ticker scroll and social integration with the CNN Twitter accounts allowing viewers to get up-to-the-minute breaking news alerts throughout the experience.

With the release of the CNN VR application, the news channel hopes to bring viewers more detail rich stories all within the comfort of their own home. With continued development in better technology, including cameras and displays, the VR newsroom experience is sure to develop even further into the future. Currently the CNN VR application is only available for the Oculus Rift via the Oculus Store but this is sure to reach out to other platforms in time, depending on the success of the Oculus release.

For more stories like this in the future, keep reading VRFocus.

November 21, 2017

Explore the International Space Station as Mission:ISS Lands on Gear VR

There are plenty of virtual reality (VR) experiences available for those who enjoy heading out into the stars, some more realistic than others. In March developer Magnopus launched true-to-life simulation Mission:ISS for Oculus Rift, made in collaboration with NASA. Now Samsung Gear VR users get to try the experience for themselves, completely free for the mobile headset.

Mission:ISS has been created to provide an accurate representation of the ISS for users to explore, using NASA Space Station models, the VR Laboratory at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston and feedback from astronauts themselves.

Mission:ISS Gear VR

Just like the Oculus Rift version players will be able to dock incoming cargo capsules, conduct spacewalks, and perform mission-critical tasks. They’ll also be able to learn about the station’s 18 year history and hear stories from the astronauts that have spent time in orbit above the Earth.

But Mission:ISS In a blog postingisn’t a straight port due to the performance limitations of the mobile headset. the developer states: “The Mission:ISS development team did some investigating and rather than port the experience directly to mobile using much of the existing code, we decided to redesign from the ground up to get the best quality and interactivity.”

This meant reconsidering the main navigation controls for the Gear VR controller whilst re-optimising both the interior and exterior environments for mobile devices. “Players can still use the same set of basic and advanced controls as the Rift including: snap rotation, pressing forward or backward on the touchpad to move in space, or grabbing walls and bars with the trigger to move through the ISS,” the team adds. “We’ve upgraded you to one-handed rotation in the GearVR release. But we didn’t stop there. Now, we’ve added the ability to roll while floating! Just push forward on the touchpad while twisting your wrist, to roll while floating through the ISS.”

There’s also a bunch of new additions for the Gear VR release, including a faster way for users to jump to a favourite specific mission, an updated tablet interface so that users can now see all the achievements they’ve currently unlocked as well as browse the remaining achievements, plus re-recorded all the voiceovers adding a bit more polish.

VRFocus will continue its coverage of Magnopus, reporting back with any further announcements.

October 26, 2017

Blade Runner 2049: Memory Lab Now Live on Oculus Store

Oculus VR has today announced the launch of Blade Runner 2049: Memory Lab, available to download now for Oculus Rift and Samsung Gear VR. Developed by Los Angeles based studio, Magnopus, Blade Runner 2049: Memory Lab is an interactive experience is available to download for free.

Blade Runner 2049: Memory Lab is the second of three Blade Runner virtual reality (VR) experiences hitting Oculus VR’s platforms. The first, Blade Runner 2049: Replicant Pursuit, put players in the role of a Blade Runner chasing a replicant through a busy 2049 Los Angeles in his flying car, known as a ‘Spinner’. After a violent end to that chase, the player reports to the Wallace Corporation’s Memory Lab for incident analysis. With the help of a holographic AI similar to the character of Joi in the movie, the player explores their memories of the event, reconstructing and interacting with them as you uncover a mysterious conspiracy.

This second instalment continues that theme, as Blade Runner 2049: Memory Lab puts the player in the role of a replicant who is having their memories examined. In the world of Blade Runner the artificial humans, known as ‘replicants’ have artificial memories implanted into their digital minds, each of which is strictly controlled by the companies that create them. However Blade Runner 2049: Memory Lab tells the store of a replicant’s memories believed to have become corrupted, leading to the uncovering of a dark conspiracy.

VR experiences based on the Blade Runner franchise were first teased back in 2016, when Disney revealed a collaboration with Oculus VR. At Oculus Connect 3, San Jose, the company stated: “We’re going to be working with Alcon Interactive to bring VR experiences based on the Blade Runner sequel to the Oculus Platform ahead of the film’s release in 2017.”

Blade Runner 2049: Memory Lab was originally expected to launch for Oculus Rift on 19th October 2017, however Oculus VR decided to delay the release so that both the Oculus Rift and Gear VR editions could launch simultaneously. Both are available to download now from their respective versions of the Oculus Store.

The official trailer for Blade Runner 2049: Memory Lab follows below and VRFocus will keep you updated with all the latest Blade Runner 2049 VR experiences made available to download.

October 21, 2017

‘Blade Runner 2049: Memory Lab’ is a VR adventure into the film’s setting

The free VR experience 'Memory Lab' puts you in the shoes of a replicant Blade Runner on the streets of Los Angeles in 2049 as you try to cover up evidence of your own horrific crime.

The post ‘Blade Runner 2049: Memory Lab’ is a VR adventure into the film’s setting appeared first on Digital Trends.

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.

March 19, 2017

NASA’s ‘Mission: ISS’ is an Impressively Detailed View of Life in Zero Gravity

NASA and Oculus have launched their collaborative project ‘Mission: ISS’ for the Oculus Rift for free and it’s offers a detailed, visually sumptuous virtual reality trip to space that most of us would otherwise never experience.

Virtual Reality’s transportative powers being used to live out experiences most of us will never have in real life is rarely most effective than in the realm of space travel. Given the tiny fraction of Earth’s inhabitants that have (around 500 to date) or ever will venture beyond the planet’s gravitational field, VR can give as what life is like for those brave enough to travel beyond it.

Mission: ISS is the latest VR experience to try to convey what it feels to be an astronaut as the collaborative project between Oculus and NASA attempts to recreate life onboard the International Space Station (ISS) high above Earth’s atmosphere.

According to a blog post from Oculus, the new experience, built for the Rift and Touch motion controllers, uses space station models direct from NASA themselves, while information for enhancing the authenticity of the project were gleaned from conversations with “multiple astronauts and the VR Laboratory at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston.”

This is no Sci-fi action extravaganza though, as the most outrageous tasks you’ll get to fulfil on your virtual extra-terrestrial mission is docking cargo capsules and station maintenance. You do however get to venture beyond ISS itself to experience spacewalks however.

Magnopus are the developers behind Mission:ISS and the team is born from experience in Hollywood visual effects and are now focused on the realms of interactive entertainment.

Mission: ISS is available now on Oculus Home for the Rift and Touch (and I’m sure for HTC Vive via Revive either now or soon) for free. It’s well worth checking out even if you posses just a passing interest in the subject matter.

The post NASA’s ‘Mission: ISS’ is an Impressively Detailed View of Life in Zero Gravity appeared first on Road to VR.

February 12, 2017

The VR Job Hub: Magnopus, NSC Creative, NCTech & EON Reality

Whether you’re an experienced designer, programmer, engineer, or maybe you’ve just been inspired after reading VRFocus articles, the jobs listed here are located worldwide, from major game players to humble indie developers – the one thing they all have in common is that they are all jobs in VR.

View the new listings below for more information:

Location	Company	Role	Link
Los Angeles, CA	Magnopus	Unreal Engine Programmer	Click Here to Apply
Los Angeles, CA	Magnopus	Senior Unity Programmer	Click Here to Apply
Los Angeles, CA	Magnopus	Senior Gameplay Programmer	Click Here to Apply
Los Angeles, CA	Magnopus	Realtime Rendering Engineer	Click Here to Apply
Leicester, UK	NSC Creative	Junior VR Developer	Click Here to Apply
Leicester, UK	NSC Creative	3D Animator	Click Here to Apply
Edinburgh, Scotland	NCTech	VR Software Engineer	Click Here to Apply
Manchester , UK	EON Reality	Business Development Manager	Click Here to Apply

Look back at last week’s post for ongoing listings. If you’re an employer and are looking for someone to fill a VR or AR related gap on your workforce and would like your role to feature on next week’s VR Job Hub please send details of the role to either pgraham@vrfocus.com or keva@vrfocus.com

Check back with VRFocus at the new time of 3pm GMT every Sunday for the latest positions in this ever growing industry.