oculus connect – Page 14 – Augmented & Virtual Reality Confabulation

August 10, 2017

Oculus to Talk “Breakthroughs in Spatial Audio Technologies” at Connect Conference

Oculus Connect 4, the company’s fourth annual developer conference, is set for October 11th and 12th in San Jose, California. There, Oculus will share with developers some of its latest research and developments, including what’s coming to the company’s VR Audio SDK.

**See Also:** NVIDIA Shows How Physically-based Audio Can Greatly Enhance VR Immersion

Spatial audio is hugely important for creating convincing virtual reality worlds. Traditional stereo audio often sounds like it emanates from within your head. In VR, most sounds need to have distinct sources that sound as if they’re coming from somewhere within the virtual world, just like they would in real life. But simulating realistic sounds in complex 3D environments isn’t as easy as it may seem, especially if you need to do so accurately and efficiently. Many companies have been working on the challenge of spatial audio in VR, with varying degrees of complexity and success.

At Connect 2017 in October, Oculus Audio Design Mananger Tom Smurdon and
Software Engineering Manager Pete Stirling will take to the stage in a session titled ‘2017 Breakthroughs in Spatial Audio Technologies’, to overview the latest spatial audio tech devised by the company.

Get up to speed on key terminology and concepts you need to know, then dive directly into the newest audio tech developed by Oculus. We’ll cover how new techniques and tools like Near Field HRTF and Volumetric Sound Sources help create dramatically increased immersion for people experiencing your game or app. Attendees will also get a first look at what’s coming in the Audio SDK roadmap.

The session description also promises to give attendees a first look at what’s coming to the Oculus Audio SDK, implying that whatever new spatial audio tech the company has cooked up will soon be rolled into the SDK.

The session is among more than 30 expected at the developer conference, 14 of which are now revealed on the Oculus Connect schedule.

The post Oculus to Talk “Breakthroughs in Spatial Audio Technologies” at Connect Conference appeared first on Road to VR.

February 1, 2017

Watch: Epic’s Robo Recall is Coming, New Developer Diary Charts its Evolution

This latest video developer diary from Epic gives a very brief, but insightful overview of how Oculus Touch and Rift tech demo Bullet Train became fully fledged release Robo Recall, and what the developers learned along the way.

Epic‘s Robo Recall is heading to Oculus Rift in Q1 of this year for free, but how did the title evolve from tech demo, Bullet Train, designed to show off Oculus’ long awaited Touch motion controllers to the wonderfully frantic arcade shooter we’ll play soon (Q1 2017 in fact)?

This new developer diary walks you through key lessons learned by the team. The evolution of the teleportation mechanic for example, which began life as a restrictive form of locomotion in Bullet Train but in Robo Recall allows a free choice of destination and orientation all with the minimum of input effort on behalf of the player. They also share an interesting tidbit about the rendering choices made for Robo Recall, specifically aiming for the sharpest, cleanest visuals possible by using a “simplified forward renderer” to apply MSAA (Multisample Anti-Aliasing).

Here’s a snippet from what Ben Lang had to say about his time with Robo Recall after he went hands on with it at last year’s Oculus Connect conference:

With Touch, guns are a natural gameplay mechanic, and Robo Recall is full of them. With Epic’s characteristically impressive design, the weapons you’ll wield in the game are satisfying from their look to their sound, right down to the way they blow enemies to pieces. Waves of killer robots will be on the receiving end of your firepower, but this isn’t the gritty serious action of Call of Duty, it’s an arcade slugfest where a high score underlines the action.