Apple will soon allow users to upload their own spatial videos to Vision Pro demo units in hopes to really drive home the headset’s value proposition.
When it comes to plonking down $3,500 for Vision Pro, seeing truly is believing, as anyone who wants to buy Apple’s first mixed reality headset can sign up for an in-store demo. That is, anyone in the US, as the company still hasn’t announced when it’s launching Vision Pro internationally.
As reported by 9 to 5 Mac, it was discovered in the iOS 17.5 beta 2 software release that Apple will not only be serving up its regular slate of pre-loaded Vision Pro spatial videos during in-store demos, but also allow users to upload their own content soon.
Spatial videos captured on a prospective owner’s iPhone 15 Pro and iPhone 15 Pro Max will be transferred to Vision Pro, which will notably have a limit to keep the whole process snappy. According to message obtained by 9 to 5 Mac, all files will be deleted immediately after the demo session for privacy reasons.
“We recommend selecting shorter videos and up to X items to ensure quick transfer times,” the message reads. “Your items will be deleted off of Apple Vision Pro at the end of the demo and will not be accessible to anyone else. You will have the option to delete your items on Apple Vision Pro at any time during the demo.”
It’s been widely rumored that spatial video capture will be a more prominent feature moving forward on successive iPhone models, reportedly arriving on a wider swath of iPhone 16 models in the near future.
Although we’re not expecting a specific announcement as such, we’ll be following Apple’s WWDC 2024 when it kicks off in June, which is said to showcase updates to visionOS in addition to the regular deluge of software feature updates for the company’s wider family of devices.
Our series Inside XR Design highlights and unpacks examples of great XR design. Today we’re looking at Beat Saber (2019) and why its most essential design element can be used to make great VR games that have nothing to do with music or rhythm.
You can find the complete video below, or continue reading for an adapted text version.
More Than Music
Welcome back to another episode of Inside XR Design. Now listen, I’m going to say something that doesn’t seem to make any sense at all. But by the end of this article, I guarantee you’ll understand exactly what I’m talking about.
Beat Saber… is not a rhythm game.
Now just wait a second before you call me insane.
Beat Saber has music, and it has rhythm, yes. But the defining characteristic of a rhythm game is not just music, but also a scoring system that’s based on timing. The better your timing, the higher your score.
Now here’s the part most people don’t actually realize. Beat Saber doesn’t have any timing component to its scoring system.
That’s right. You could reach forward and chop a block right as it comes into range. Or you could hit it at the last second before it goes completely behind you, and in both cases you could earn the same number of points.
So if Beat Saber scoring isn’t about timing, then how does it work? The scoring system is actually based on motion. In fact, it’s actually designed to make you move in specific ways if you want the highest score.
The key scoring factors are how broad your swing is and how even your cut is through the center of the block. So Beat Saber throws these cubes at you and challenges you to swing broadly and precisely.
And while Beat Saber has music that certain helps you know when to move, more than a rhythm game… it’s a motion game.
Specifically, Beat Saber is built around a VR design concept that I like to call ‘Instructed Motion’, which is when a game asks you to move your body in specific ways.
And I’m going to make the case that Instructed Motion is a design concept that can be completely separated from games with music. That is to say: the thing that makes Beat Saber so fun can be used to design great VR games that have nothing to do with music or rhythm.
Instructed Motion
Ok so to understand how you can use Instructed Motion in a game that’s not music-based let’s take a look at Until You Fall (2020) from developer Schell Games. This is not remotely a rhythm game—although it has an awesome soundtrack—but it uses the same Instruction Motion concept that makes Beat Saber so much fun.
While many VR combat games use physics-based systems that allow players to approach combat with arbitrary motions, Until You Fall is built from the ground up with a notion of how it wants players to move.
And before you say that physics-based VR combat is objectively the better choice in all cases, I want you to consider what Beat Saber would be like if players could cut blocks in any direction they wanted at all times.
Sure, you would still be cutting blocks to music, and yet, it would be significantly harder to find the fun and flow that makes the game feel so great. Beat Saber uses intentional patterns that cause players to move in ways that are fluid and enjoyable. Without the arrows, player movements would be chaotic and they’d be flailing randomly.
So just like Beat Saber benefits by guiding a player to make motions that are particularly satisfying, combat in VR can benefit too. In the case of Until You Fall, the game uses Instructed Motion not only to make players move a certain way, but also to make them feel a certain way.
When it comes to blocking, players feel vulnerable because they are forced into a defensive position. Unlike a physics-based combat game where you can always decide when to hit back, enemies in Until You Fall have specific attack phases, and the player must block while it happens, otherwise you risk taking a hit and losing one of just three hit points.
Thanks to this approach, the game can adjust the intensity the player feels by varying the number, position, and speed of blocks that must be made. Weak enemies might hit slowly and without much variation in their attacks. While strong enemies will send a flurry of attacks that make the player really feel like they’re under pressure.
This gives the developer very precise control over the intensity, challenge, and feeling of each encounter. And it’s that control that makes Instructed Motion such a useful tool.
Dodging is similar to blocking, but instead of raising your weapon to the indicated position, you need to move your whole body out of the way. And this feels completely different from just blocking.
While some VR combat games would let the player ‘dodge’ just by moving their thumbstick to slide out of the way, Until You Fall uses Instructed Motion to make the act of dodging much more physically engaging.
And when it comes to attacking, players can squeeze in hits wherever they can until an enemy’s shield is broken, which then opens an opportunity to deal a bunch of damage.
And while another VR game might have just left this opening for players to hit the enemy as many times as they can, Until You Fall uses Instruced Motion to ask players to swing in specific ways.
Swinging in wide arcs and along particular angles deals the most damage and makes you move in a way that feels really powerful and confident. It’s like the opposite feeling of when you’re under attack. It really feels great when you land all the combo hits.
Superhot VR hasn’t spawned nearly as many games as we thought it might, considering the ‘move to unfreeze time’ mechanic works so well in VR. Now, an upcoming game called COLD VR is looking to invert Superhot’s iconic gameplay and spin it for some fast-paced action.
In Superhot you’re encouraged to stop and execute precise moves in order to unpause time, however Cold VR is the exact opposite: stay still and the game speeds up, meaning you’ll always need to be on the move to get past an army of blue (re: not red) crystalline enemies and their barrage of bullets.
Effectively, taking a second to aim down your sights for a faraway shot may just may put a stop to your run, so you’ll need to make tactical use of cover, and always be moving towards an objective, lest you get hit once and end the level.
Developed by Allware, Cold VR pits you against a corrupted AI who you must battle, all the while being helped by a friendly hacker-man who pops up in cutscenes between levels.
Cold VR is slated to launch on PC VR headsets sometime this summer. In the meantime, you can download the free VR demo over on the game’s Steam page.
Pimax today announced two new Crystal series PC VR headsets, one of which is focused on affordability while the other pushes the envelope on resolution.
During a prerecorded presentation today, Pimax introduced the Crystal Light and Crystal Super PC VR headsets.
Pimax Crystal Light
Image courtesy Pimax
Crystal Light might sound like a diet drink, but it’s actually a more affordable version of the company’s flagship Crystal headset, which Pimax says has been “highly successful.” The company says Crystal Light is a “streamlined iteration” of the original Crystal headset, and cuts some major features to reduce the weight and price of the headset.
Most notably, Crystal Light ditches the original version’s on-board Snapdragon XR2 processor, battery, and storage, which allowed the headset to run in a standalone mode without a PC.
Crystal Light retains the same 8.3MP (2,880 × 2,880) per-eye resolution as the original headset, while dropping eye-tracking, automatic IPD adjustment, interchangeable lenses, and on-board hardware to enable compatibility with a 60GHz wireless module.
Doing so has allowed the company to drop weight by 30% and the price of the Crystal Light to $700 (compared to the original Crystal at $1,600).
While that’s a huge savings over the original, it’s the price of the headset with inside-out tracking and controllers. Those wanting the full SteamVR Tracking will need to add controllers and base stations which add another $580 or so, plus a SteamVR Tracking faceplate for the headset (currently of unknown price).
Like the original, Crystal Light has on-board audio and claimed 125° degree horizontal field-of-view.
Pimax also says the Crystal Light can be optionally equipped with mini-LEDs in its display for greater contrast via local dimming, which will raise the headset’s price to $900.
Crystal Light is available for pre-order today and the company says it will start shipping next month.
Pimax Crystal Super
Pimax Crystal Super equipped with SteamVR Tracking faceplate and controllers (sold separately) | Image courtesy Pimax
For those looking for the best visual fidelity from Pimax, the Crystal Super is the company’s latest offering. It also drops some of the extraneous features of the original Crystal, like the standalone processor, but keeps some others.
The headlining features are a 14.7MP (3,840 × 3,840) per-eye resolution, optionally using QLED & mini-LED (120Hz) or micro-OLED (90Hz).
Pimax says the Crystal Super not only has greater clarity than the original Crystal thanks to the resolution boost, but also claims a “significantly bigger field-of-view.”
The exact field-of-view will depend on which of two different lens choices the buyer makes, one which will provide 50 PPD and a slightly higher field-of-view of 130° horizontal, or the other with 57 PPD with a slightly lower field-of-view (the exact FoV is not currently specified).
Unlike Crystal Light, Crystal Super will retain eye-tracking with automatic IPD adjustment and dynamic foveated rendering capabilities. It also has on-board audio.
The base model of Crystal Super with QLED display is priced at $1,800 with inside-out tracking, while the micro-OLED model is priced at $2,000. Or, you can buy both for $2,400, thanks to the Crystal Super’s ability to swap between different display modules. Controllers are sold separately.
Image courtesy Pimax
SteamVR Tracking can be added with an optional faceplate (additional pricing unknown).
Pimax says Crystal Super will ship in Q4 2024.
60GHz Wireless for the Original Crystal
Image courtesy Pimax
Pimax also showed further progress on its 60GHz “airlink” system for streaming PC VR content to the Crystal headset wirelessly. The wireless module was originally announced way back in 2021, but still hasn’t shipped.
Today the company showed the latest prototypes of the module—an impressively slim dongle—and announced a $300 price with shipping expected later this year.
The airlink module is only compatible with the original Crystal headset because the Crystal Light and Crystal Super lack the on-board hardware necessary to handle the wireless connection and processing.
International Day on Alternate Metaverse Grid. (Image courtesy Alternate Metaverse Grid.)
Alternate Metaverse Grid celebrated its first annual International Day on Thursday, March 7: Celebrating International Diversity on OpenSim.
Grid co-owner Cataplexia Numbers said she was looking of a way to bring together the residents of various countries that are members of the Alternate Metaverse Grid and have them not only get to know each other better but to also interact on a united level, celebrating the music of various countries together. To celebrate the various differences within a multi-cultural grid as opposed to having those differences as a means of dividing.
“It is my hope that this catches on to the other grids as well and that it is celebrated yearly on all grids,” Numbers said in a statement. “I have noticed a significant amount of change in the open-ness of ALL musical events lately, becoming more populated by a more mixed international crowd, and this makes me feel we are making a beautiful change here!”
Invitations went out translated into nine languages. A very large and inclusive food court and personalized stages for each performer were built by the incredible Ted Junior and Doc Mercury of AMV Special Projects build team.
International Day on Alternate Metaverse Grid. (Image courtesy Alternate Metaverse Grid.)
The event was extremely well attended with people from grids all over OpenSim — and countries all over the world. There was an average of 48 people in attendance at any given time and as some left, others came.
A new international singer from all over the world performed every 30 minutes. There was also a large international food court, and freebies showcasing many flavors and gifts from around the world.
The gifts and food court will remain open for some time as people just keep coming in for the gifts, Numbers said.
The hypergrid address is alternatemetaverse.com:8002:AMV International.
Performers included Portugal’s Joao Frazao, Brazil’s Khiron Ametza, Scotland’s Clan Escotia, Indonesia’s Putri and Icky & Sum from the U.K, Nikita Andersen and Zeno Stark from Italy. US performers included Dave King and Cataplexia Numbers. Zoree Jupiter represented Portugal and the U.S., Mavenn Live represented Canada and the U.S., and Ian Kitsilano represented Canada and the UK.
Ted Junior and Doc Mercury created and designed the whole event venue inside the building scenes and the stage scenes were also created by Ted Junior alone and put into a rezzer for each live performance.
Jimmy Olsen created the International Day banner that can be seen in the video link — or by visiting the region in person.
Cataplexia Numbers took the pictures and Sofee Supermarine filmed the video.
Although the Founder's Editions can be purchased right away, you won't be able to play Smite 2 until the closed alpha weekend goes live sometime this May.
The total land area on OpenSim’s public grids reached the equivalent of 138,831 standard regions this month, an all-time high — and the fourth month in a row that OpenSim land area has broken this record. That’s an increase of more than 5,000 regions since last month.
The biggest gainer in terms of land area was OSgrid, which gained 2,655 new regions, taking the top slot back from Wolf Territories Grid.
At the same time, the number of active users hit 47,620, another record, and an increase of more than 2,000 actives compared to the previous month. Here, Wolf Territories maintained its leadership position after gaining 307 new active users.
Meanwhile, the total number of locally registered users in OpenSim went up by more than 2,000, led by AvatarLife with 521 new registrations.
I’m now tracking a total of 2,657 public grids, of which 313 were active, and 247 published their statistics this month. If you have a stats page that we’re not tracking, please email me at maria@hypergridbusiness.com — that way, your grid will be mentioned in this report every month, for additional visibility with both search engines and users.
Also, I’m no longer sending out a monthly email blast reminding OpenSim grid owners to send me news and updates for this report. If you have news, please email me before the tenth of the month if you want a short item included in this monthly wrap-up. For longer news, feel free to send me press releases at any time.
OpenSim land area for April 2024. (Hypergrid Business data.).
Our stats do not include many of the grids running on DreamGrid which is a distribution of OpenSim since these tend to be private grids.
OpenSim is a free open-source, virtual world platform, that’s similar to Second Life and allows people with no technical skills to quickly and cheaply create virtual worlds and teleport to other virtual worlds. Those with technical skills can run OpenSim worlds on their servers for free using either DreamGrid, the official OpenSim installer for those who are more technically inclined, or any other distribution, while commercial hosting starts at less than $5 a region.
Every month on the 15th — right after the stats report comes out — we will be sending out a newsletter with all the OpenSim news from the previous month. You can subscribe here or fill out the form below.
Top 25 grids by active users
When it comes to general-purpose social grids, especially closed grids, the rule of thumb is the busier the better. People looking to make new friends look for grids that already have the most users. Merchants looking to sell content will go to the grids with the most potential customers. Event organizers looking for the biggest audience — you get the idea.
All region counts on this list are, whenever available, in terms of standard region equivalents. Active user counts include hypergrid visitors whenever possible.
Many school, company, or personal grids do not publish their numbers.
