Augmented & Virtual Reality Confabulation
What Augmented Reality and Virtual Reality developers are talking about
Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice, the latest game from DmC and Enslaved developer Ninja Theory, will now arrive in 2017. The studio cited a separate canceled project as one of the reasons behind the delay.
The post ‘Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice’ won’t erupt from the underworld until 2017 appeared first on Digital Trends.
TIGA, the independent trade association representing the UK videogames industry, today announced the winners of the 2016 TIGA Games Industry Awards. The virtual reality (VR) development scene was well represented, with DiRT Rally, The Assembly and more taking home trophies.
A total of 37 awards were handed out last night, with VR developers or titles taking home 4 of the awards. nDreams, UK-based VR specialist developer, won the award for ‘Most Original Game’ thanks to their adventure experience, The Assembly, while Codemasters’ DiRT Rally, available to play with VR head-mounted displays (HMDs) on PC, won ‘Best Racing Game’.
Also worthy of note to the VR industry were awards given to Supermassive Games, developers of Until Dawn: Rush of Blood and Tumble VR, for ‘Outstanding Creativity’, and ‘Best QA Provider’ for Testology, who have been vocal about the need for a different approach to QA testing for VR experiences.
Finally, Epic Games, Ninja Theory, Cubic Motion and 3Lateral continue to take home trophies for their combined efforts in real-time rendering of motion-captured actors. Deemed ‘Best Technical Innovation’, the performance capture technology first demonstrated at the Game Developers Conference (GDC), San Francisco, earlier this year has since been spun-off into its own facility, Senua Studio.
The full list of winners at the 2016 TIGA Games Industry Awards follows below, and VRFocus will keep you updated with all the latest from the UK’s VR development scene.
The winners of the 2016 TIGA Games Industry Awards are as follows:
BEST ARCADE GAME
HOUSEMARQUE (SIEE)
ALIENATION
BEST ACTION/ADVENTURE GAME
NAUGHTY DOG
UNCHARTERED 4: A THIEF’S END
BEST DEBUT GAME
GHOST TOWN GAMES
OVERCOOKED
BEST CASUAL/SOCIAL GAME
REBELLION
RACELINE CC
BEST PUZZLE GAME
FIDDLESTICKS GAMES
HUE
BEST RACING GAME
CODEMASTERS
DiRT RALLY
BEST ROLE PLAYING GAME
FUNKY PANDA GAMES
MONSTER MOUNTAIN
BEST STRATEGY GAME
SPACE APE GAMES
TRANSFORMERS: EARTH WARS
BEST GAME ON AMAZON APPSTORE
CHANNEL 4
EDEN: THE GAME
BEST AUDIO DESIGN
ROCKSTEADY STUDIOS
BATMAN:ARKHAM KNIGHT
BEST CREATIVE GAMEPLAY
THE CREATIVE ASSEMBLY
TOTAL WAR: WARHAMMER
DIVERSITY AWARD
NEXT GEN SKILLS ACADEMY
NEXTGEN ASPIRING WOMEN
BEST EDUCATIONAL GAME
THE TIMES TABLE ADVENTURE
STRAWDOG STUDIOS / PITSTOP PRODUCTIONS
BEST GAME BY A SMALL STUDIO
PIXEL TOYS
WARHAMMER 40,000:FREEBLADE
MOST ORIGINAL GAME
nDREAMS
THE ASSEMBLY
BEST VISUAL DESIGN
MEDIA MOLECULE (SIEE)
TEARAWAY UNFOLDED
BEST ANIMATION SUPPLIER
ATOMHAWK
BEST AUDIO SUPPLIER
PINEWOOD STUDIOS
BEST IN-HOUSE STUDIO
UBISOFT REFLECTIONS
BEST EDUCATIONAL INITIATIVE AND TALENT DEVELOPMENT
LONDON SOUTH BANK UNIVERSITY
BEST EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTATION
BOURNEMOUTH UNIVERSITY
BEST ENGINES, MIDDLEWARE, TOOLS & TECHONOLGY
GAMEBENCH
BEST INDEPENDENT STUDIO – SMALL
LOCKWOOD
BEST INDEPENDENT STUDIO – LARGE
SUMO DIGITAL
BEST LEGAL SERVICES SUPPLIER
WEIGHTMANS
OUTSTANDING LEADERSHIP
PLAYGROUND GAMES LEADERSHIP TEAM
GAVIN RAEBURN – CEO
TREVOR WILLIAMS – COO
RALPH FULTON – CREATIVE DIRECTOR
OUTSTANDING LEADERSHIP – HIGHLY COMMENDED
VICKIE PEGGS
BEST QA PROVIDER
TESTOLOGY
BEST RECRUITMENT AGENCY
AARDVARK SWIFT RECRUITMENT
BEST START UP
PROJECT M STUDIO
BEST TAX AND ACCOUNTANCY FIRM
SAFFERY CHAMPNESS
BEST TECHNICAL INNOVATION
EPIC GAMES/NINJA THEORY/CUBIC MOTION/3LATERAL
BEST PUBLISHER
SOLD OUT SALES AND MARKETING
OUTSTANDING INDIVIDUAL AWARD
GISELLE STEWART
OUTSTANDING GROWTH AWARD
OUTPLAY
OUTSTANDING CREATIVITY AWARD
SUPERMASSIVE GAMES
GAME OF THE YEAR 2016
SPACE APE GAMES
TRANSFORMERS: EARTH WARS
Virtual reality (VR) has been championed by videogames since the inception of the modern head-mounted displays (HMDs), however there’s much more to the medium than interactive experiences. Healthcare, education, industrial and enterprise sectors have all shown interest, but there’s also other areas of entertainment that could benefit; UK development studio Ninja Theory are clearly aware of this.
Ninja Theory recently announced the opening of a new studio specialising in the creation of virtual characters through real-time motion-capture and rendering services, known as Senua Studio. The first implementation of this technology was showcased with Unreal Engine 4’s Sequencer software at this year’s Game Developers Conference (GDC), San Francisco, and subsequently at SIGGRAPH, Anaheim, this summer. However, while the technology has been impressive for modern videogame experiences, that’s not where the upper limit lies.
“We wanted to find out [what the limitations are] for ourselves which is why we recreated the Senua GDC scene in VR,” stated Tameem Antoniades, co-founder of Ninja Theory. “We had it running at 90 frames per second back in the office and we released a 60 fps 360 video of it to the public. We also had Senua track your head position as you move around which gives you an amazing feeling of presence.”
Videogame engines, such as Unity and Ninja Theory’s collaborator, Unreal Engine, have struggled to categorise themselves in recent years. No longer are these development suites limited solely to videogame production, with partners such as McLaren Automotive, Audi, Airbus, IKEA and NASA all using the technology for showcase projects. Senua Studio’s performance capture technology can reach out beyond videogames, too.
“We also have the tech to live drive a performance and broadcast it into VR right now opening up possibilities for VR concerts or social experiences in the future,” added Antoniades.
“I can imagine concerts like those of Gorillaz or Hatsune Miku but where the digital avatars on stage are driven live by the performer instead of precanned videos. Or a theme park where actors play creatures that interactively chase around punters.”
Many VR pioneers have strived for live music performances in the medium, but these have mostly been limited to pre-recorded 360 degree videos, such as Jaunt’s Paul McCartney concert or Samsung’s Gear VR reveal featuring Coldplay. Bringing live performances streamed in real-time to VR HMDs would be a significant step forward, and doing so with virtual characters even more so.
“We’ve created demos for stage, VR and film but to really take it to the next level we want to work with visionary partners to bring it into a commercial setting and develop it further. I wouldn’t say it’s an off-the-shelf solution. Every step has to be perfect, from the actor scanning, to the art and modelling, shader work, facial rigs, facial solving, motion capturing, and so on and so on. It’s very complex and precise and so we set up Senua Studio to basically take that complexity away so that the focus is on the creative where the magic happens.”
Senua Studio is now open for business, but which clientele or projects the company is working on are not currently known. Ninja Theory has recently released its first VR videogame, DEXED, as a product of an internally hosted Game Jam and the 360 degree trailer for Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice is available here. VRFocus will bring you the full interview with Antoniades soon, as well as keeping you updated with all the latest details on Ninja Theory and Senua Studios’ works in VR.
If you’ve not heard of Ninja Theory then you’ve most likely come across the developers work which includes, Heavenly Sword, Enslaved: Odyssey to the West and DmC: Devil May Cry. Now the studio has released its first virtual reality (VR) title on Steam for the HTC Vive head-mounted display (HMD), a first-person shooter (FPS) called DEXED.
DEXED came to life through a game jam held earlier this year at Ninja Theory’s offices. Teams ranging from two to eight people had one month each to create a videogame using Epic Games’ Unreal Engine 4. After the month had ended everyone got together to play the projects, with DEXED being the standout title.
Inspired by videogames such as Panzer Dragoon and Ikaruga, DEXED is an on-rails shooter in which one of the HTC Vive controllers shoots ice projectiles while the other shoots fire. Corresponding to this are the enemies which are weaker to one of the projectile types. DEXED also features a tagging mechanic so that players can select multiple enemies before releasing a volley of missiles at them, thus gaining a larger score.
As DEXED has been inspired by those earlier titles it also keeps to the classic highscore ethos where players are judged by their best score. So the videogame features both global Steam and friend leaderboards to aid in the competitive replay factor.
Ninja Theory has released two videos to compliment the launch of DEXED. The first is a gameplay trailer showcasing the action and the various levels players can expect to see. While the second video is a development diary giving a behind the scenes look who the team are and why they came up with this particular idea.
While this maybe Ninja Theory’s first VR title VRFocus has covered the studio before through its work on upcoming title Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice, which it has showcased in 360-degrees.
VRFocus will continue its coverage of Ninja Theory, reporting back with any further VR news.
Built as part of an in-house game jam, Ninja Theory’s debut VR title DEXED is a beautiful on-rails shooter that pulls inspiration from the Sega Saturn classic Panzer Dragoon and a dash of cult shooter Ikaruga.
It’s interesting to see older, classic game concepts and mechanics brought up to date inside an entirely new medium such as VR. For Ninja Theory’s developers, clearly in touch with their retro gaming past, Sega Saturn classic Panzer Dragoon‘s core ‘look to target’ system, was liberally pilfered for their latest title DEXED. Although, to this old time gamer, there’s a also more than a hint of cult shooter Ikaruga here too.
Ninja Theory, developers of the forthcoming (and very pretty) brawler Hellblade, held an internal game jam to promote creative thinking and to perhaps find the next killer concept for a new game. Teams of developers at the studio had one month each to build something that they thought would make a game they thought was cool. Of all the concepts that came forth from the Jam, DEXED was the one it was felt showed the most promise.
The title, out today for HTC Vive, has you flying through various fantastical dream-like landscapes holding two controller, each one instilled with it’s own opposing type of projectiles – one ice, one fire. Perhaps predictably then, in order to defeat enemies in your dream world, you need to blast enemies with the corresponding opposing projectile – ice beats fire, and so on. Enemy targeting is handled by the aforementioned ‘look to lock’ mechanism, and if you’ve played Rez you’ll know that the aim is to target as many (or as many points of) an enemy as possible before unleashing multiple auto-targeting salvos. The ice vs fire (red / blue) twist is where I make parallels with Ikaruga whose central premise was that your ship switched states to tackle different coloured enemies.
If this title has appeared somewhat out of the blue, Ninja Theory agree. “Where has this come from?!? You may ask,” they said via press release, well quite. Once the initial game jam was complete and the DEXED team had been chosen as winners, they were given a further two months to refine the title ready for release – and thus Ninja Theory’s debut VR title was born. Today see’s the title for the HTC Vive via Steam for £6.99/$9.99/€9.99.
The post Ninja Theory’s ‘DEXED’ is a Gorgeous Dream-like On-Rails Shooter appeared first on Road to VR.
At several leading events this year British developer Ninja Theory in collaboration with Epic Games, Cubic Motion, 3Lateral, House of Moves, Ikinema, Technoprops and NVIDIA, has been demonstrating real-time motion capture (mo-cap) for its upcoming title Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice. First shown at the Game Developers Conference (GDC) 2016 in March, the demonstration was then tweaked for the SIGGRAPH Computer Graphics and Interactive Techniques Conference and Exhibition 2016 in July. Ninja Theory has now released the full presentation for viewers to see their technology at work.
Parts of the Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice demo have previously been unveiled, with a 360-degree video released in May and last month Epic Games and Ninja Theory released a short behind-the-scenes documentary on the ‘making-of’ of the SIGGRAPH demo. This new video is the full presentation given to SIGGRAPH attendees.
Titled From Previs to Final in Five Minutes: A Breakthrough in Live Performance Capture, Dominic Matthews, Product Development Ninja, Ninja Theory, introduces the video for the real-time cinematography presentation. The experimental technology allows content creators to motion capture actors in real-time then process and render the data in Unreal Engine 4 using the Sequencer Tool. The whole process impressed those at SIGGRAPH that the Ninja Theory team won the Best Real-Time Graphics & Interactivity Award SIGGRAPH 2016.
For all the latest VR related Ninja Theory news, keep reading VRFocus.
Back in March at the Game Developers Conference (GDC) 2016, Ninja Theory in collaboration with several other companies held a technical showcase of live performance capture for Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice. Today the UK-based developer has announced Senua Studio, a new division offering specialised services to bring real-time virtual characters to life for stage, film, broadcast, videogames and virtual reality (VR).
With Senua Studio offering solutions for live capturing and rendering of realistic digital characters in virtual worlds, companies working with the studio will be able to rely on an entire technical pipeline. From the creation of realistic digital characters to making virtual sets, the Senua team allow cutting edge animation technologies to be accessible without the need for internal expertise.
Speaking of the announcement, Tameem Antoniades, co-founder of Ninja Theory said “We have demonstrated working solutions today, and want to push forward the future of real-time entertainment, be it live performances of digital characters for stage or broadcast, shooting fully-rendered CG scenes in real-time for previs, or interacting with believable characters in VR.”
While Nina Kristensen, co-founder of Ninja Theory and CEO added “With Senua Studio we are offering our considerable technological, artistic and production expertise to visionary partners excited about the impact real-time technology could have for their business”.
There are four key areas that Senua Studio can now cater for: Live Performance; Realtime Cinematography; Pre-Visualization and VR Experiences. With the studio’s real-time tech the team can capture actors, music artists and performers straight on to digital characters for stage or broadcast. Its real-time cinematography expertise allows shooting, editing and rendering final or near-final quality cinematics quickly, rather than the weeks or months it takes with traditional methods. While VR will be a key area for Senua Studio as the real-time virtual human technology will help deliver richer more immersive experiences.
For all the latest VR related news from Ninja Theory, keep reading VRFocus.