War Thunder devs apologize after using Challenger shuttle explosion in official art
War Thunder developers responded over the weekend after players spotted that the Challenger explosion had been used in new key art.
There’s a Military Focus on Professional VR Training at DSEI 2021
The largest Defence, Simulation and Training conference descended on London (DSEI) and immersive technology specialist, Kevin Williams, took the time to traverse the massive convention space and return with observations on VR and AR impact in this sector.
The reality of VR in commercial training, simulation and education is often overlooked or side-lined. The enterprise or commercial aspect of VR has proven a very lucrative part of the technology’s deployment, with many consumer headset manufacturers pivoting from a consumer-centric focus to broadening their investment to include a commercial business focus.
What has been coined by me as the “Serious VR” landscape, comprising commercial applications using more powerful hardware and a focus on a core deliverable (such as training, marketing, or out-of-home entertainment). While the “Casual VR” scene is focused on consumer requirements and a price-sensitive, home gaming approach.
The best example of Serious VR was amassed in London, with the holding of the Defence and Security Equipment International (DSEI) 2021, covering all the ExCel exhibition centre, and even taking up the riverside births for presentations of the latest Naval craft. The show gathering more than 30,000 attendees from the international military services, and operations that support them.
Along with warfighting, the convention gathers security, medical, training and infrastructure elements, and the show floor proved a valuable litmus of the actual penetration of immersive technology into the aspects of the commercial scene. Previous DSEI attendance has seen a growing interest in VR, but this years’ shows a definite re-evaluation of the hype over the reality of the value of the technology.
The first aspect of VR application on observation can be described as “Direct Training”.
One of the largest military providers, BAE Systems, used DSEI to launch their new SPA-TAC platform, a solution for sophisticated training, and mission rehearsal suite of tools, using virtual reality visualisation. These allow multiple user support and are deployed on the latest high-end VR hardware. On the booth, the company presented both the latest VRgineers XTAL professional headset, with its impressive field-of-view. Alongside the HTC Vive Pro series.
Another developer at the defence event was VRAI – a specialist dedicated to combining VR and Artificial Intelligence (AI) towards providing enterprise and public service organisations remote training. The ability to use the latest VR technology to create a mobile training solution in the field driving many of the applications seen. On their booth the company had a flight training solution, employing the HP Reverb G2 headset. HP is one of those manufacturers that has seen the opportunity in commercial development support. And alongside this, was a Cleanbox Technology headset sanitizing system offering a much-needed hygienic approach to usage in this environment.
Across the way, on the Defence and Security Accelerator (DASA) stand was a demonstration of high-level immersion for training UK soldiers, employing the latest Varjo VR-3 professional VR headset. DASA is a government fund that invests in exploitable innovation for a safer future. The usage of VR in this application cutting the time for training, and offering better information retention by new recruits, with the control interfaces mapped to offer realistic weapon interaction.
The latest Varjo headset hardware was also seen on many other booths – the platform focused wholly on high-end commercial VR applications, offering an impressive performance beyond consumer headset specifications. The professional headset is deployed in automotive, aeronautical, CAD design and training. This marks a new phase of development in VR deployment, with the commercial sector at such as scale that it can support its own unique hardware development. On the Inzpire booth, the latest Varjo XR-3 was employed promoting its mixed reality capabilities.
The company had on one of their demonstrations a Joint Terminal Attack Controller (JTAC) training platform, that was incredibly portable and rugged. Powered by two high-end PC’s the user could wear the VR headset and see the actual binoculars and physical controls, as the MR capability dropped the real-world imagery into the virtual environment through sophisticated tracking. This was a compelling demonstration of the versatility that VR training can bring, and the level of immersion was extremely high compared to consumer applications. Also promoting their portability of training simulation, the company showed a helicopter simulator, using both VR (from an HTC Vive Pro) and conventional screen, able to be broken down into a small case.
Simple to install and operate VR training aids were also on display at the Lockheed Martin booth, showcasing their Armoured Fighting Vehicle (AFV) gunnery simulator. Employing in the VR configuration the Varjo headset and offering a means to be deployed anywhere for training units. Previously, this level of training would have depended on crude flatscreen alternatives, or expensive dedicated simulators, unable to be deployed in the field. VR applications beginning to be seen as a strong middle-ground alternative.
On the British Army stand was developers and solution providers QinetiQ – developing realistic training environments for mission rehearsal, and procedures. The company presented their latest environment for infantry training and army warfighting scenarios in urban conditions. Deploying the latest VR hardware with their setup of Varjo headsets. The level of visual realism and performance from their VR setup far surpassing anything comparable on consumer hardware.
The second aspect of VR application seen in this sector can be described as “Promotion and Visualisation”.
While there were seen some Standalone VR headsets, such as HTC Vive Focus, and an Oculus Quest 2 – these applications were more for promotional means, allowing visitors on booths a glimpse at simple information or applications. In previous years VR headsets on booths were ubiquitous, but now the focus was more on the high-end application, steering away from the casual approach.
Visualisation also saw the appearance of augmented reality (AR) on the show floor. To be more accurate the services have been employing AR in its basic form since the 1980s with the use of helmet-mounted optics supporting IR night vision or even heads-up telemetry displays. The latest AR technology has generated a lot of headlines in defence procurement, with Microsoft awarded a $22b deal to supply Hololens headsets in the evaluation of battlefield support for the US Army.
AR was represented at DSEI with the appearance of the Microsoft Hololens 2, being fielded on another part of the British Army booth, and with the developer of the application, Atos. The company is a world leader in digital transformation, providing cloud-based and information handling solutions. Their infrastructure used the Hololens to allow the user to have tactical awareness of the battlefield and deployment of resources, communicating with other users in real-time. Offering a demonstration of the future strategic planning aids that this technology represents.
Overall, the new trends on display at DSEI 2021 were clearly the explosion in investment into Unmanned Vehicles and Autonomous support – ranging from Naval based helicopter drones, and UAVs – with the first appearance of UAV land vehicles for support and casualty retrieval. Great advances in this sector are expected, and the use of augmented displays to track and direct these vehicles is expected to grow.
As mentioned previously, from the great hype and promise, VR has entered a more pragmatic phase in this industry. Its ubiquity replaced at this point, for a focus on more grounded high-end simulation, using the newly available high-end headsets. A new phase of development is about to take place, ejecting Serious VR into the next level of immersion.
US Army Signs Contract For Wide-FoV HoloLens Headsets From Microsoft
Microsoft won a large US Army contract to supply advanced AR headsets for frontline soldiers, based on the HoloLens platform.
The US Army’s Integrated Visual Augmentation System (IVAS) program aims to equip infantry with AR helmets for situational awareness and convenient display of sensor outputs.
The contract is worth up to $21.88 billion over 5-10 years. While the order has been widely reported as 120,000 units, a US Army statement to Breaking Defence suggests that is the maximum, not a fixed quantity.
In 2018 Microsoft won the $480 million evaluation contract for just over 2500 units, based on HoloLens 2 with some modifications and an extra sensor.
The evaluation found the hardware not rugged enough for military use, and identified problems with the sensors at night. Since then the hardware has been significantly upgraded. It’s more ruggedized and houses many more sensors.
The field of view has been significantly increased from roughly 40°x30° to 80°x40°. That’s significantly wider than any other see-through AR headset on the market.
Reported use cases for the headset include:
- overlaying icons on friendly units, objectives, threats, and points of interest
- built-in night vision & thermal view modes
- live picture-in-picture feeds from drones, including the Soldier Borne Sensors (SBS) personal drone
- simulated weapons & enemies for training exercises
- scanning nearby people for high temperature (COVID-19)
- facial recognition for hostage rescue situations
The Army is also testing integrations with vehicles, such as soldiers being able to see-through the walls of the armored vehicle carrying them. That means on dismounting they’ll be situationally aware.
Some Microsoft employees have protested providing technology for the military, but that’s unlikely to have any effect given the enormous potential value of the contract.
IVAS is still in the late testing & evaluation stage, and the scale of deployment will depend on future budgets. But if things go to plan, frontline soldiers could be equipped with these game-changing AR capabilities by the end of the decade.
This Humanoid Robot Offers Telepresence With VR And Motion Controllers
Meet Reachy, the humanoid robot that’s controlled via VR with motion controllers to offer telepresence to users from around the globe.
Reachy is a robot in development by Pollen Robotics that can be controlled by a remote user wearing a VR headset and holding motion-tracked controllers. This means that the user’s head movements are mapped to the robot and the user’s hand movements are also 1:1 matched by the robot. We’ve already seen hints of this technology popping up across various industries, including for space flight and surgeries, so it’s great to see it slowly seeping out into more areas.
Going beyond the real-time movement mapping, you could theoretically “teach” a robot how to perform tasks using this method as well. In the video above we see the robot using fine motor skills to place blocks in a bucket based on shape, input time on a microwave, and more.
This type of technology is important because, once the tracking gets really, really good, it functionally allows people to “teleport” their “presence” (ie telepresence) across the world and potentially even into space at some point. In terms of potential, that would allow a top surgeon in the USA to perform an operation on an injured soldier on the front line, or to a robot stationed in a hospital in another country. That’s likely very far away from becoming a reality, but this is one step closer to that.
Uses extend far beyond just medical as well, as there are already experiments to get humanoid-style robots into space craft to help simulate effects on the human body, perform simple tasks, and help alleviate deep space isolation effects.
Reachy from Pollen Robotics is an open-source robotics platform available for research and prototyping, starting at $17,000.
VTOL VR Exits Early Access, No Flight Stick Needed
SteamVR combat flight game VTOL VR just left early access after exactly three years with a major patch focused on polish and final bug fixes.
Most flight sims are made to be played on a monitor, with VR support added in later. They’re usually played with a flight stick. VTOL was built specifically for VR headsets with tracked controllers.
In VTOL, the flight stick is just another cockpit element you interact with using your virtual hands. VTOL isn’t formally a simulator, but runs a surprisingly detailed simulation of a fighter jet’s controls and the Multi-Function Displays (MFDs) used in many real cockpits.
By reaching out and pressing the buttons on the bezel of an MFD you can view a GPS map, slew the targeting pod, manage the radar, and prime weapons like missiles and bombs. Developer Boundless Dynamics describes these types of systems as “near-realistic”. Think of it as a VR-native DCS “lite”.
The three aircraft available to fly in VTOL are fictional near-future vehicles, but draw from real systems:
- F/A-26 “Wasp” is based on the F-15 Eagle, but with the multirole carrier-capabilities of an F/A-18 Hornet
- AV-42C “Kestrel“ is as entirely fictional gunship platform with rotating jet nozzles, capable of vertical takeoff (VTOL, the game’s namesake) and featuring a large cargo bay with multiple weapon mounts
- F-45A is an agile stealth fighter based on the F-35.
Like the real world F-35, the F-45A replaces the physical MFD with a large singular touchscreen with four virtual MFDs.
After three years in, there’s a lot of content to play. Land on an aircraft carrier, refuel from a midair tanker, and take on a number of combat missions. A level editor is available, with 386 Steam Workshop uploads as of writing.
If your Windows 10 build supports Voice Recognition, you can even talk out loud to wingmen, ATC, AWACS, and ground crew.
If you use an Oculus Quest for PC VR, or a Rift, don’t use the native Oculus mode on this one. It’s marked as ‘Not Recommended’, and has a strange tracking jitter issue. The game performs great in SteamVR mode though.
VTOL VR is available on Steam with ‘Overwhelmingly Positive‘ reviews. The regular price is $30, but it’s on sale for $24 until August 10.
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Watch: Onward 1.8 PC Update Leads To Community Backlash Over Graphics Changes
Today Onward released for Oculus Quest with PC crossplay and the update resulted in some major Onward PC changes. Fans are not happy.
As a result of the port, the PC version of Onward has been patched to v1.8, which includes dramatic map changes to accommodate for alterations made to get the game running on Quest. Previously, Downpour Interactive had told us these changes would mostly be in the form of altering the layout, removing some features the Quest couldn’t have right now like extra foliage, and so on. But it seems more dramatic than that. The Onward Discord server is a steady stream of users unhappy with the update and posting reports of various new bugs.
After reading over Onward VR Reddit comments, new PC VR user reviews, Discord impressions, and trying the new 1.8 version of Onward PC for myself, the differences are quite clear. Every map now looks notably downgraded visually, suffers from similar texture pop-in issues that hinder the Quest version, and generally is lower quality now.
Late last month the Dev Blog hinted at these changes, but it didn’t sound as dramatic then as it looks now.
On the bright side, the update has resulted in significant stability and performance improvements on PC. Users that previously had issues maintaining framerate will likely now have a much smoother game to enjoy. Additionally, KasperVid, a Community Manager in the Onward Discord, claims the game’s new structure will allow for more robust and feature-rich updates in the future:
“We rewrote and rebuilt large parts of the game over the past months,” says KasperVid on Discord. “On the one hand we’ve created tons of headroom for future improvements and expansions to the game, on the other there is the temporary pain we’re experiencing right now. And I completely understand it’s frustrating. But we’ve been working on this game for many years, and we’re dedicated to it. That won’t change, so please give us that little bit of credit that we’ll make it right, soon.”
Furthermore, MrDeathpwn, an Onward Community Manager on Reddit, also explains, “me and the devs have been recording all your feedback and we’ll do our best to get these issues resolved asap. I’ll be sharing all the feedback with the team. Let’s make this a 2 steps forward and 1 step back situation.”
We’ve reached out to Downpour Interactive directly for additional comment and will update this post once we hear back. Let us know what you think of the 1.8 update on PC down in the comments below!
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Have a Ball in VR With Eight360’s Extreme Motion Simulator NOVA
There have been plenty of hardware examples designed to make virtual reality (VR) as immersive as possible whilst reducing motion sickness. From Virtuix and its Omni treadmill to the seated Yaw VR motion simulator they all have their pros and cons when looking for that ideal solution. Quite possibly the most impressive to look at is Wellington, New Zealand-based Eight360‘s motion simulator NOVA.
The brainchild of Terry Miller and George Heather-Smith, NOVA offers a completely untethered platform for VR simulations and gaming purposes. Developed over the past 4 years, NOVA’s spherical design allows for unlimited rotation in whichever direction the user decides thanks to three omni wheels.
Now in its third iteration which is ready for commercial production, everything is contained inside the giant sphere which the user sits in; PC, battery, chair and harness, VR headset and then the required control scheme – a steering wheel and pedals for example. The entire unit is built with standard off the shelf parts where possible for easy maintenance.
Taking up just over 2x2m of floor space and weighing in at less than 500 kg (1,100 lb) the motion simulator is already compatible with titles such as DCS: World, X-Plane and NoLimits2 – Roller Coaster simulator. NOVA has been designed to simulate as many vehicle forces as possible, whether that’s a plane tilting to the bumps and crashes of a racing experience like Dirt Rally.
While the NOVA certainly looks impressive and you’re probably adding it to your VR wish list, its not aimed at the gaming market and likely won’t be appearing in your local VR arcade. The company is looking at various industrial and military use cases due to the costs involved. Eight360’s first customer was the New Zealand Defence Force (NZDF). “We’re looking to lease them as a hardware as a service model,” Miller said to New Atlas. “With ongoing maintenance and upgrades. It’ll be on the order of US$150k a year. So heavy, yeah.”
Eight360 has now begun taking orders for the NOVA from interested organisations. As the company continues to expand, VRFocus will keep you updated.
Interview And Demo With The $8,000 Military-Grade Dual 4K XTAL VR Headset At CES 2020
At CES 2020 this week, VRgineers announced a new version of its XTAL high-end headset for enterprise priced at $7,890, including business grade support.
The original XTAL was announced back in summer 2018. For $5,800 it featured dual 1440p OLED panels, 70Hz refresh rate, custom lenses with 180° field of view, eye tracking for automatic IPD, and built in Leap Motion controller-free hand tracking.
This new XTAL ditches OLED for dual 4K LCD displays instead. While VRgineers calls this “8K” (just like Pimax does), it’s important to note that the industry definition of 8K is actually 4 times as many pixels than 4K, not twice. This is because you need to multiply both axis of resolution. Hopefully VR companies stop using misleading terminology for the sake of marketing in future.
For more information read here or watch the interview and demo above.
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Winter Fury: The Longest Road Review – Misfiring Wave Shooter
Winter Fury: The Longest Road from developer SpiderMonk Entertainment and publisher 10th Reality is set in World War II and puts you in the boots (on the ground) of an allied shoulder attempting to help bring the fight back to the Axis in an attempt to overcome a truly great evil.
This isn’t new territory for games, after all, we’ve gone through multiple eras of gaming that focused on this war and all of the horrors that it contained. It is one of the few chances to play it in VR though, so it stands as something a little more unique in this theater as a result.
Perhaps the most interesting thing about Winter Fury is in its design. The designer of the game, Scott March, has said that the on-rails sections of it were made for those gamers who suffer from motion sickness when playing VR games. Meanwhile, the tank sections are for those of us who have found our VR legs and are looking for something a little bit more involved.
As such, the game can be pretty handily split into these two sections, and that’s what we’re going to do here. So, first up, let’s talk about the on-rails sections. These are all handled within The Longest Road campaign which sees you making your way through a few short levels to try and take out the baddies. The story isn’t going to win any awards here, and neither is the gameplay.
Shooting works most of the time, but there are some strange glitches that can occur while holding a two-handed weapon wherein said weapon will simply disappear completely for some reason. There’s also an issue with the weapons you use; while you’ll often be manning a turret of some kind, you’re nearly always better off just using the rifle strapped to your chest instead. This is because you need to be more mobile than a turret allows, and that’s the case throughout the game.
Part of this is due to the fact that you need to have 360-degree tracking. If you don’t have this, you’re going to be turning around a lot to take out the enemies that try and sneak up on you. Unfortunately there’s no stick-based turning at all so if you don’t have a good 360-degree setup then you’re gonna have trouble here.
There are other weird elements too, like enemies simply popping up out of thin air, or appearing in places where they simply shouldn’t be able to be. I’m happy to suspend my disbelief for games, but this random Nazi just literally teleported into cover before firing a rocket at me, and that feels cheap. It is, quite simply, not fun. It would be fine if it felt good to shoot things, but it doesn’t.
All of this is exacerbated by the announcer/narrator/poor-man’s Serious Sam voice over randomly trying to drop dull one-liners on you or warn you about “enemies on your left” only for you to get shot from the right.
While a lot of these issues are inherent to the game itself, the Tank Commander mode is definitely more enjoyable than The Longest Road. For one, you can actually use stick turning in this mode, so that’s nice. This mode places you in control of a tank and has you completing objectives like capturing flags, all while shooting other tanks and enemies.
It feels pretty good to drive the tank, and the aiming is aided massively by the infinite stream of machine-gun fire that your tank can produce to help you line up your turret. You get a few shots before you have to reload the turret, but the machine gun never needs reloading. You can also flick a switch to bring up the targeting reticle, which is largely useless, and another switch to point your tank in the direction you’re looking, which is very useful.
As well as this, you can exit the tank to get on top and use the machine gun or your own weapons while you’re up there. Once again, the turret isn’t anywhere near as useful as your rifle, so it all feels a bit odd. You’re generally better off just staying in the tank, but you’ll have to hop out whenever someone is too high or low for you to hit while inside. It’s a lot better than the other mode, but it still lacks the feedback and feeling necessary to make it enjoyable. In fact, I’d go so far as to say that the whole experience is quite dull.
Winter Fury: The Longest Road Review Final Verdict –
I’m not sure how I’d have felt about Winter Fury: The Longest Road if it was the first VR game I’d ever played, but I think it might have been more enjoyable in that case. The fact is this, we both deserve and have received far better games, and it’s important to keep that in mind whenever you play something new. The lack of proper feedback, the strange glitches (including the ability to shoot through scenery sometimes) and the graphical fidelity simply aren’t good enough to make this game worth your time despite the handful of bright spots. The game is, at the very least, true to its name, it certainly feels like the longest road, despite the incredible short playtime.
Final Score: 
2/5 Stars | Disappointing
You can read more about our five-star scoring policy here.
This review of Winter Fury: The Longest Road is based on the Steam version using an Oculus Rift. The game is available on Steam for $19.99 with official support for Rift, Vive, Index, and Windows headsets.
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BISim’s Latest Military Grade Simulator VBS4 Renders Entire Planet for Training Purposes
Bohemia Interactive Simulations (BISim) is a specialist in immersive military training solutions which VRFocus has covered on a number of occasions as the company has advanced its virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR) applications. Today, BISim has announced its next-generation training software VBS4 which sees the entire planet digitised.
Officially unveiling VBS4 in December 2019 at I/ITSEC 2019, planet rendering uses a curated global dataset, a massive library of vegetation and clutter models, as well as advanced procedural enhancement. Therefore militaries should be able to reduce the cost and time of building new detailed virtual terrains. Improvements over VBS3 include view distance enhancements and further optimized VR/AR visualizations.
New features include:
- VBS Plan – a time-saving mission planning capability allowing instructors and administrators to draw static plans on 2D and 3D maps using standard military symbols and leverage AI forces to execute those plans in the virtual environment.
- VBS Geo – an easy to use collaborative terrain editing application that doesn’t require geospatial data expertise.
- VBS World Server – a terrain server streaming whole-earth terrain layers from the Cloud or a local computer or network to VBS4, reducing hardware and terrain development costs.
“We are further accelerating the capabilities of our product line by introducing VBS4,” said BISim CEO Arthur Alexion in a statement. “VBS4 brings whole-earth capabilities to desktop military simulation and training. Whilst VBS3 is PC based and has size limitations for terrain areas, VBS4 offers a massive step-change in modularity, openness and ease-of-use as well as the performance and terrain enhancing capability of BISim’s new engine, VBS Blue. And, importantly, is our first step towards a full cloud-enabled desktop training product.”
BISim expects VBS4 to be feature-complete by mid-2020 with additional enhancements including animation and physics upgrade, backwards compatibility with VBS3 missions and terrains, and a new workflow for easier creation and configuration of 3D models.
Alongside the VBS4 announcement, the company has revealed significant growth over the past 12 months, hiring over 40 new staff globally as well as seeing the U.S. Marine Corps and U.S. Army acquire BISim licenses, maintenance and/or development services, the Netherlands’ military renew its VBS3 license and so did the Australian Army.
“The key to BISim’s momentum is expansion in our product range together with top-class service — from our flagship products VBS3 and VBS Blue IG to state-of-the-art technologies in the areas of AI, terrain data prep, terrain serving, software development kits and VR/AR/MR, we provide a complete platform for system integrators and military organizations to meet the latest training requirements,” adds Alexion.
VRFocus will continue its coverage of BISim and other military uses case of VR and AR, reporting back with the latest announcements.