Category: Oculus Avatars

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Rollout of Rift SI 1.28 Begins

Oculus have announced that users of the Oculus Rift will soon be able to try out the latest build of the Rift SI by accessing the Public Test Channel. Rift SI version 1.28 will include some new features and updates for users to try.

Changes have begun rolling out on the Public Test Channel, which will give Oculus users access to some new features in Oculus Home along with support for nine new languages across all Rift Core software and some changes to the Oculus desktop app.

The new languages now supported across Dash, Oculus Desktop and Oculus Home include Danish, Finnish, Dutch, Swedish, Spanish (Spain), Spanish (Latin American), Italian, Norwegian, and Polish.

Language preference for the Oculus desktop app can be set by using the Language Preference option in the General tab of the Settings page.

The Oculus desktop is getting some tweaks, as personalised app recommendations are starting to be tested on user Home pages. A per-application language pack option is now supported for developers, so users can see what language is available for each applications and set the specific language for each app.

In Rift Core 2.0 Beta, the Oculus Avatars are seeing an upgrade with new custom hair, skin shading and clothing and eyewear designs. Users can edit their avatar by selecting the ‘Avatar Editor’ mirror from the Special Items category and the placing it anywhere in the Home environment.

Developers who upgrade to the latest Avatar SDK will be able to use the new features in their own apps, so users can take their new upgraded Avatars with them into other apps, with some apps such as Brass Tactics and Epic Rollercoasters already allowing this.

Further information on this can be found on the Oculus Forums. VRFocus will be sure to keep you updated on the latest Oculus updates in both hardware and software.

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F8 2018: An Oculus Go Recap

Facebook’s CEO Mark Zuckerberg and his team certainly had plenty to talk about during the opening keynote of F8 2018, touching on new Facebook features, privacy and of course virtual reality (VR). In fact VR featured fairly prominently with the major news surrounding the new standalone headset Oculus Go. VRFocus covered the announcements extensively yesterday but for those after a nice little round-up of what was going on we’ve created a quick recap video. 

As mentioned Oculus Go was the main talking point when it came to VR. Retailing for $199 USD for the 32GB model and $249 for the 64GB version, consumers can now purchase the headset via the Oculus website in 23 countries. The head-mounted display (HMD) is all about making VR even more accessible to the masses. You don’t need a specific smartphone, or and expensive PC to run it as everything is built in, just an Android or iOS device that can run the accompanying app for setup and software purposes.

While the headset announcement wasn’t really a surprise – it was first shown at Oculus Connect 4 (OC4) – the accompanying software additions were certainly eye catching. Social meetup point Oculus Rooms got an overhaul, updating the original Gear VR version with a customisable environment and new games care of a collaboration with Hasbro. As part of that, Oculus Avatars also got an update adding custom skin shading, hair color, and clothing whilst making them fit with the lighting and scene better.

Then there was Oculus Venues, another social feature that’ll let friends watch live events together, from sports tournaments to comedy shows and concerts, with a big part of that helped by a collaboration with NextVR. And just to round things off there was Oculus TV, a virtual living room with a massive TV which will serve as a launch area for apps like Facebook Watch, Red Bull TV, Pluto TV and Netflix.

Then there are all the videogames and other apps that Oculus Go customers will be able to enjoy thanks to the headsets integration with Oculus’ Mobile SDK, meaning compatibility with Gear VR content, unlocking over 1000 experiences on day one.

Check out the video below for more details. VRFocus will continue its coverage of F8 as the conference moves into its second day.

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Oculus Working With Google For Cross-Platform Avatars

For many people, social experiences are the next frontier of virtual reality (VR). There are still obstacles to overcome, but progress is being made to move user avatars out of the uncanny valley whilst allowing for more realism. Oculus have announced that not only is it improving its avatars, those avatars will be able to follow users to other platforms.

At the Oculus Connect event, Oculus announced that it would be introducing new options for customising user avatars. It will be possible for users to unlock new customisation options by playing certain VR titles, such as the unique Rez Infinite skin, which was created to celebrate the trance shooter heading to Oculus Rift.

In addition, Oculus Avatars will have real-time lip sync, so mouth movements will match what users are saying to their friends. Another new feature is eye-tracking, which will allow the user avatar’s gaze to glance towards interesting features in the environment around them. This also reduces the ‘uncanny valley’ effect by making the avatar look for animated and life-like.

Oculus Avatars GIF

Oculus Avatars had already been ale to follow users between the two Oculus-powered VR platforms, Oculus Rift and Samsung Gear VR, but in a somewhat surprising announcement, Oculus Avatars will soon be able to follow users into Steam VR and event Google Daydream.

Oculus Avatars will be available cross-platform for Oculus Rift, Samsung Gear VR, Google Daydream and Steam VR from 2018.

VRFocus will bring you further information on Oculus Avatars as it becomes available.

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BigScreen Releases Performance Update, Prepares For Version 1.0

It has been a while since we’ve reported on updates on BigScreen since its release almost a year ago, but that does not mean the team at BigScreen Inc have not been busy. The social app, available for free on Oculus Home and Steam allows a desktop to be viewed as a giant screens in a virtual environment, allowing you to work, play videogames or watch videos on Netflix, YouTube or Twitch has been given a ‘huge’ new update as revealed on Reddit by one of BigScreen‘s developers Darshan Shankar.

Shankar, though noting that the update does not add any new features to BigScreen, does confirm a number of significant performance changes some of which had been “silently causing major performance issues” that had been plaguing users – and particularly those who used the Oculus Rift in combination with the app. The update is a stepping stone towards a summertime release of version 1.0, confirmed by Shankar, which seemingly spells the end of it’s period in Beta. 1.0 will be “will be bug-free, high performance, and full of great features”, Shankar assures.

The patch notes are as follows:

  • Major performance bug fixes.
  • Fixed a memory leak inixed crashes in Multiplayer view caused by that memory leak.
  • Fixed bug where BigScreen wouldn’t exit cleanly by the memory leak.
    This resulted in the need to force kill the app via Task Manager.
  • Fixed Asynchronous Spacewarp / reprojection issue.
    ASW always-on caused virtual screen to appear to “tear” and visually glitch, and it cost even more CPU to interpolate the frames (temporary) patch for horrible performance caused by the BigScreen virtual keyboard.
  • Fixed several items that caused crashes.
  • Removed some inefficient code elements.

Additional targets for the development team were also identified in the post, which confirms overhauling multiplayer streaming to provide flawless and optimised HD viewing and well as improvements to the audio.

VRFocus will bring you new of when these updates drop and any further news on the version 1.0 release of BigScreen as the developers release it.

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Hulu Adds Support for Avatars and Rooms in Latest Update

At Oculus Connect 3 last year the company revealed several new social initiatives for Gear VR and Oculus Rift, namely Avatars and Rooms. Today Hulu has announced support for both features. 

At present Rooms has only been made available for Gear VR while Avatars can be used on both systems. Oculus created Rooms for users to hangout with friends, where they can watch TV like Hulu, listen to music and play mini-games with up to eight people. Another feature of Rooms is that users can gather round the app launcher and jump into another social app such as Dragon Front, Casino VR Poker, Ascension VR, Wands, Fusion Wars and more.

So Gear VR users can now jump into the Hulu app in Rooms with their friends and watch Hulu’s content together, including the entire library of premium 360 videos – for free and without a Hulu subscription. Those with Hulu subscriptions can also enjoy Hulu’s entire 2D library together in VR.

Hulu Gear VR - Rooms and Avatars

While Oculus Avatars are all about personal identity in its VR world. The feature enables users to customise their identities with a myriad of permutations, from textures and clothing, to accessories and more. The Hulu app also supports the Oculus Touch controllers so that users can use their virtual avatar hands to control the app and play with objects in the Hulu virtual environments while enjoying Hulu’s entire 2D library.

For any further Hulu updates, keep reading VRFocus.

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Oculus’ Asynchronous Spacewarp Launches to Support Lower End Machines

At the Oculus Connect 3 (OC3) conference the company showcased on of its latest developments, Asynchronous Spacewarp, that allows lower spec PC’s to run virtual reality (VR) experiences. Now Oculus has launched the technique to allow more consumers to try VR.

Asynchronous Spacewarp works by extrapolating frames letting VR titles run at up to half their normal rate. Essentially this means the frames per second (FPS) drop down to 45, so that less powerful machines can render VR, before adding artificial frames in to bring experiences up to the required 90hz required for smooth VR.

Oculus Avatars GIF

On the Oculus blog this week the company has also revealed the Avatars SDK is now available, prior to the full consumer version arriving on 6th, December, the same day as Oculus Touch launches. Another feature announced at OC3, users will be able to customise their identities with more than a billion permutations, from unique textures and clothing, to accessories and more, creating a style that’s entirely their own.

The Oculus Avatars SDK means developers can start integrating avatars into their VR experiences, and titles including Sports Bar VR and Kingspray, will feature full support at Touch launch. Oculus Avatars can already be sampled by Oculus Rift owners using the included Xbox One controller or the Oculus Remote.

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Lastly Oculus has unveiled a brand new experience for the upcoming Touch controllers, First Contact. Designed as an introductory experience for those who haven’t yet tried the motion controllers, First Contact is an 80’s themed sci-fi title in which a friendly robot shows users the basics of interacting with the virtual world. There will be toy guns to fire, float object in mid-air, and 3D print holographic butterflies as some of the activities. First Contact will ship with every order of Oculus Touch next month.

For all the latest Oculus news, keep reading VRFocus.

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Getting Social – Oculus to Offer Persistent Avatars Across Multiplayer Games

Up until now, multiplayer games on Oculus Home have relied on their own individual avatar selectors, meaning you couldn’t have the exact same avatar in two different apps. In an effort to socialize the entire platform, Oculus is introducing an avatar editor that will let you style a single avatar and use it across multiple apps.

Mike Howard, product manager for Oculus Avatars, demoed the editor, changing his virtual appearance through a slider-based system. An interactive virtual mirror renders your new choices before you and even lets you physically swap out accessories using Oculus Touch, the company’s soon-to-release hand controllers.

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The new avatar editor is said to offer “more than one billion permutations,” letting you pick clothing, accessories, hair, face shape, and avatar texture.

From what we’ve seen at Connect, Oculus Avatars doesn’t provide a few things that other avatar editors do like a full body or detailed color options, meaning you’ll have to pick a single texture that will cover your entire avatar—certainly not as detailed as the Facebook social VR prototype we saw only moments earlier on stage.

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Oculus Wants You to Talk With 'Parties' and Play in 'Rooms'

Notably, Oculus Avatars also doesn’t animate any part of the head/upper chest asset, instead opting to light up the avatar momentarily when speaking through the microphone. All of this may be necessary to maintain fluid cross compatibility when the feature launches on both Gear VR and Rift.

The Avatars SDK, according to co-founder and VP Nate Mitchell, “makes it easy to integrate Touch interactions into your game, and additionally, true hand presence. Because it brings people’s avatars into your experience, people can actually feel like themselves and easily recognize their friends.”

According to an Oculus blogpost, Avatars will be available for Rift at Touch launch and for mobile in early 2017.

The post Getting Social – Oculus to Offer Persistent Avatars Across Multiplayer Games appeared first on Road to VR.

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Get Social in Virtual Reality with Oculus Rooms and Avatars

The news has been coming think and fast at today’s Oculus Connect 3 conference keynote, with the company unveiling lots of new little innovations to make virtual reality (VR) more immersive and social. The social aspect has always been a go to topic for detractors but today the company has detailed its plans, with Oculus Rooms and Avatars.

Oculus Avatars are all about personal identity in the VR world. With the new feature users will be able to customise their identities with more than a billion permutations, from unique textures and clothing, to accessories and more, creating a style that’s entirely your own. The feature will be available for the head-mounted display (HMD) at the launch of Oculus Touch in December, and for Samsung Gear VR in early 2017.

Oculus Rooms

Along with Avatars users will also see two more social features coming soon, Oculus Parties and Oculus Rooms. In Parties up to eight people can get together and start a voice call wherever they are, whatever they are doing in VR, accessed right through Oculus Home or in the menu.

But just talking to people in VR isn’t as good as interacting with them in VR, so Oculus created Rooms. When users start a Party they can then head into a virtual room to hangout, watch TV, listen to music and play mini-games with up to eight people. Another feature of Rooms is that users can gather round the app launcher and jump into another social app together. As long as developers integrate the feature into their API users can then enjoy more title together. These currently include: Dragon Front, Casino VR Poker, Ascension VR, Wands, Fusion Wars and many more.

Parties will be available for Samsung Gear VR in a few weeks, while Oculus Rift users will need to wait until 2017. For all the latest Oculus news, keep reading VRFocus.

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Oculus Avatars