Oculus Rooms – Augmented & Virtual Reality Confabulation

December 18, 2019

How To Virtually Hang Out With Friends On Oculus Go Post-Rooms

Facebook shut down the Oculus Go’s built in social platform back in late October. But there are multiple third party alternatives to try.

Oculus Rooms was the Go’s flagship app, allowing people to easily hang out in a virtual apartment by simply being in the same Party.

Facebook shut down Rooms back in October after just 17 months. Worse, there is no replacement announced for Oculus Go, as Facebook Horizon (what the Rooms team is now working on) is not listing support for the budget standalone headset.

If you picked up an Oculus Go on Black Friday or previously used Rooms, here are three alternatives to Rooms. Note that for all three you need to create a separate account, they do not use the Oculus networking system.

vTime XR

vTime was one of the first social VR apps focused on small group conversations. It initially launched back in 2015 for the Samsung Gear VR, but now supports Rift, SteamVR, Windows MR, Daydream, and Oculus Go too.

vTime is arguably the closest direct equivalent to Oculus Rooms because of its relative simplicity and its focus on simply hanging out.

The app’s avatar system has a useful feature that we haven’t seen anywhere else; it allows you to create an avatar based on your existing Oculus Avatar. This means that after you create an account you can be up and running in seconds. However, the account creation itself can be time consuming.

vTime XR on the Oculus Go Store (Free)

Bigscreen

Bigscreen is a social app with a focus on cowatching content. Through Bigscreen TV and Bigscreen Cinema you can hang out with your friends as if you’re actually together.

Bigscreen’s joining experience takes a bit of effort — the host needs to create a room and then send a “room ID” (via Oculus Chat or another IM system) to others who want to join. Bigscreen plans to improve this system in 2020. You’ll also need to create a new avatar from scratch.

Bigscreen on the Oculus Go store (Free)

AltSpaceVR

AltSpaceVR, owned by Microsoft, is the closest thing to VRChat available on Go — a kind of proto-metaverse. The main focus of AltSpace is events with large groups of strangers.

If you enjoyed Ready Player One, this is the closest thing you’ll find on your Oculus Go.

AltSpace also supports small scale private sessions. Unlike vTime and Bigscreen, AltSpace offers games and activities such as Cards Against Humanity, Disc Golf, and a Maze. This means if you’re looking for something to do with friends instead of something to watch, this may be the platform to go for.

AltSpaceVR on the Oculus Go store (Free)

The post How To Virtually Hang Out With Friends On Oculus Go Post-Rooms appeared first on UploadVR.

September 27, 2019

Social VR World Facebook Horizon Coming to Oculus Quest and Rift in 2020

With two big hardware launches, it was unclear quite what Oculus had in store for this week’s Oculus Connect 6 (OC6) event in San Jose. Needless to say, it really didn’t disappoint, with a new hand tracking feature coming next year for Oculus Quest as well as Oculus Link. On the software side, there were a few arrivals, with the most unexpected being social virtual reality (VR) world Facebook Horizon.

Supporting both Oculus Rift and Oculus Quest platforms, Facebook Horizon is the future replacement of Facebook Spaces and Oculus Rooms, with both being closed down on 25th October 2019.

Facebook Horizon is much grander in scale, moving towards the likes of Sansar, Somnium Space and other big social worlds. Designed as an ever-expanding world where people can connect and play together, the centre of this new world will be a town square to meet and mingle. From here it seems there could be no limit, where you can explore; play games like Wing Strikers, a multiplayer aerial experience and eventually create your own experiences.

Just like with most social worlds, you’ll be able to create your own avatar with an array of clothing and body options to suit your own style. After sorting out your avatar it’s time to jump in one of the many telepods (a sort of portal) to whisk you around the world. But there’s not just one Horizon world. Using the World Builder you’ll be able to create your own, from scratch. From a tropical paradise to an interactive action arena, supposedly anything is possible with the easy-to-use creator tools.

If this sounds exactly what you want to dive into using Oculus Rift or Quest then you’ll have to wait as Facebook Horizon isn’t due to launch until 2020. A beta is due to start in early 2020 – which you can sign up to here – so a full launch may happen at next year’s Oculus Connect.

VRFocus will continue its coverage of Facebook Horizon as further updates are released, or take a look at the other news from OC6 like Respawn Entertainment’s first VR title Medal of Honor: Above and Beyond.

May 22, 2019

Facebook Has Four Separate Social VR Apps and None of Them Are on Quest

Facebook’s fragmented approach to social VR hasn’t gotten any better with the launch of Quest. The company now has four separate social VR apps, and none of them are currently available on its newest headset.

With Oculus, Facebook has aimed to build the premiere VR ecosystem, but when it comes to allowing users of the company’s different headsets—Go, Quest, and Rift—to actually interact with one another, it has completely dropped the ball.

Facebook has lofty ambitions for what the far future of social interaction could look like with VR, but between the parent company and the Oculus brand, there’s a confused smattering of different social VR offerings which do a poor job of connecting users across the platform. Let’s review:

Facebook Spaces (available on Rift & Vive)
- Allows users chat and share Facebook content (like photos and videos), draw in 3D, and video chat with non-VR users via Messenger
Oculus Home (available on Rift)
- Allows users build virtual homes and invite friends over to talk and visit
Oculus Rooms (available on Go & Gear VR)
- Allows users to decorate a virtual home and invite friends over to talk and visit, play mini games, share Facebook content (like photos and videos), and launch into other VR apps together
Oculus Venues (available on Go & Gear VR)
- Allows users to watch live VR video content together

As you can see, before Quest came along, there was already a complete division among Facebook’s social VR apps which kept PC users (Rift) and mobile users (Go & Gear VR) completely separate. If you happened to own a Rift and had a friend which jumped into VR with Go as their first VR headset, there’s unfortunately no easy first-party way for you to connect with your friend in VR.

With Quest now on the market, things have only become more fragmented. While it was at least possible for Rift users to connect with other Rift users, and Go & Gear VR users to connect amongst themselves, Quest doesn’t have access to any of Facebook’s social VR apps. We would have expected at a minimum that Quest would get Rooms and Venues to link up with the company’s other mobile headsets—and it might one day—but at launch, Quest is a social island unto itself.

Oculus Quest Social Strategy Unclear Three Weeks Before Launch

The Oculus Quest is less than three weeks away with its May 21 release date fast approaching. The $399 standalone VR headset allows users to freely move around their environments with complete 6DoF head tracking and positionally tracked controllers. At launch it will feature top-rated VR games such as Beat Saber and Superhot as well as new releases like Dance Central, Journey of the Gods, and more.

Facebook is marketing the Quest as a gaming-first platform, similar to the Oculus Rift, but fans of non-gaming media apps like Netflix, multi-user social hangout spaces like Oculus Rooms, or live event social apps like Oculus Venues, are left wondering about the status of those experiences.

In an interview with UploadVR last month, Chris Pruett, the Direct of Content Ecosystem at Oculus, explained the current non-game offerings included on the device as a review unit:

UploadVR: What about non-game apps? Rooms, Netflix, Venues, etc?
Chris Pruett: “You will see a browser, you will see some media apps, you’ll see a few of them in Oculus TV in the device that you get today, but not the complete lineup. We are continuing to experiment with other first party applications, so for now no Rooms and no Venues, but that’s something that we will continue to figure out how we want to do on Quest.”

UploadVR: What about Facebook Spaces?
CP: “That falls into the same group, we have a large group of people that build things like Spaces and Venues and that group continues to be building things but we aren’t ready to talk about yet.”

UploadVR: Will there be word on those things before launch?
CP: “I don’t know the answer to that.”

Based on that language it certainly seems like apps such as Rooms, Venues, Netflix, and even Spaces are being considered for Quest eventually, and may be included in the near future, but none of them are listed on the day one launch lineup published by Oculus this week. Even John Carmack is reluctant to talk about media apps.

Currently the Quest lacks any sort of default social hub. There is no customizable space like Home on Rift or Rooms on Go and you have no way of using your avatar to hang out with friends in VR other than audio chat in a party or playing games like Racket Fury and Creed together. That feels like a major missed opportunity. Granted, we are still basing impressions off of pre-release hardware, but the embargo on official reviews has lifted so I’m hesitant to pull punches if they consider it complete enough to review.

Obviously by the time Quest comes out there will be more options, such as Rec Room, Bigscreen, and VRChat, but the lack of a native social experience feels like a notable omission, as is the reluctance to talk about it.

Let us know what you think down in the comments below!

Tagged with: Facebook Spaces, Oculus Quest, Oculus Rooms, Oculus Venues, social

The post Oculus Quest Social Strategy Unclear Three Weeks Before Launch appeared first on UploadVR.

May 21, 2018

Boggle Launches On Oculus Rooms, More Board Games ‘Coming Soon’

Oculus Go and Gear VR owners should find classic board game Boggle playable with friends in Oculus Rooms today.

Every mobile Oculus user has a room they can decorate and invite friends to visit. From one of these rooms you watch TV together, play a game or find a world both of you can visit. Oculus Rooms already included some basic games, but an agreement with Hasbro promises much more fun with friends. Boggle is the first of several classic board games coming to Oculus Rooms, with Monopoly and Trivial Pursuit “coming soon.”

It’s Boggle time! We teamed up with @HasbroNews to bring some beloved tabletop games to Oculus Rooms on #OculusGo and Gear VR. Starting today, you can challenge your friends to a battle of wits and words—with Monopoly and Trivial Pursuit coming soon! pic.twitter.com/OMOoM7cduN

— Oculus (@oculus) May 21, 2018

Tagged with: Boggle, Oculus Go, Oculus Rooms

May 3, 2018

Oculus Go: Hasbro bringt Boggle, Monopoly und Trivial Pursuit in die VR

Auf der F8 wurde das Update von Oculus Rooms für die Oculus Go sowie eine zukünftige Zusammenarbeit mit Spielehersteller Hasbro vorgestellt. Die Früchte der Kollaboration bringt beliebte Brett- und Gesellschaftsspielen in digitalisierter Form in die VR. Heute gibt es Neuigkeiten, denn Hasbro veröffentlichte, dass die Spiele Boggle, Trivial Pursuit und Monopoly eine VR-Adaption erhalten. Boggle soll bereits im Juni 2018 veröffentlicht werden.

Oculus Go – VR-Adaptionen für Boggle, Trivial Pursuit und Monopoly

In Oculus Rooms können Besucher in einer virtuellen Umgebung gemeinsam Zeit verbringen, TV schauen und Spiele spielen. Die soziale VR-Erfahrung war ursprünglich für die Gear VR konzipiert und soll dank eines Updates in weiterentwickelter Form ebenso für die Oculus Go erhältlich sein.

Die neue Zusammenarbeit zwischen Oculus und Hasbro sorgt zukünftig für eine Verbindung klassischer Brettspiele in der immersiven VR-Umgebung von Oculus Rooms und lässt damit die Herzen von Freunden von Gesellschaftsspielen höher schlagen. Dass diese Kombination gut funktionieren kann, zeigt bereits Catan VR, die VR-Adaption des klassischen Die Siedler von Catan.

Heute verkündete Mark Blecher, SVP Digital Gaming & Corporate Development bei Hasbro, dass man die drei erfolgreichen Spiele Boggle, Trivial Pursuit und Monopoly als VR-Titel in Oculus Rooms umsetzt:

“Spiele sind ein relevanter strategischer Bestandteil unseres Unternehmens und mit der Weiterentwicklung der Gaming-Plattformen sowie der dazugehörigen Zielgruppen freuen wir uns, ab sofort mit Oculus zusammenzuarbeiten, um unsere beliebten Marken auch in der VR zugänglich zu machen. Unsere Kunden sind technisch versiert und wir streben danach, unsere Produkte an diesen Lifestyle anzupassen. Dazu zählen ansprechende Inhalte, weiterentwickelte Spielerfahrungen und digitale Interaktionen. Dementsprechend war es der nächste logische Schritt, die Hasbro Spieleerfahrungen in die virtuelle Welt zu bringen. Wir können es kaum erwarten zu sehen, wie viel Spaß die Leute mit Boggle in VR haben werden.”

Boggle soll bereits im Juni 2018 erscheinen, während die anderen beiden Spiele erst im späteren Verlauf des Jahres veröffentlicht werden.

(Quellen: Oculus Blog | VR Focus | Video: Road to VR Youtube)

Der Beitrag Oculus Go: Hasbro bringt Boggle, Monopoly und Trivial Pursuit in die VR zuerst gesehen auf VR∙Nerds. VR·Nerds am Werk!

May 2, 2018

Hasbro’s Boggle Coming to Oculus Go in June

During yesterday’s Facebook Developer Conference (F8) 2018, Hugo Barra, Facebook VP of VR made several announcements regarding development of social virtual reality (VR). This included updating Oculus Rooms for the new standalone headset Oculus Go. As part of the Oculus Rooms update Barra revealed a collaboration with Hasbro, seeing several board games come to the platform. Today, further details have been announced.

Oculus Go GDC Promo 03

As part of the deal, Hasbro will be bringing popular games Boggle, Trivial Pursuit and Monopoly into VR, with Boggle now confirmed for a June launch. Trivial Pursuit and Monopoly will then be released later this year.

“Gaming is a major strategic differentiator for our company and as gaming platforms and audiences continue to expand globally we are excited to work with Oculus to bring our beloved brands to new audiences in VR,” said Mark Blecher, SVP Digital Gaming & Corporate Development at Hasbro in a statement. “Our consumers are technologically savvy and we strive to provide them with products that fit their lifestyle, which includes, engaging content, enhanced play experiences and digital interaction. Bringing Hasbro Gaming experiences to the virtual world was a logical next step in this evolution. We can’t wait to see how much fun people will have playing Boggle in VR!”

Oculus Rooms was a social app designed for mobile devices, first launched on Samsung Gear VR and now coming to Oculus Go. In the virtual area friends can hang out, play games, and watch TV together. Oculus Avatars are also integrated so that users can create customisable digital personas for their friends to see.

Oculus Avatars

Just like the normal game of Boggle, with Oculus Go users can play with friends and family in this new virtual take on the three minute word search game. Up to four people can enjoy a real-time game of Boggle, connecting letters up, down, diagonally and sideways to make words before opponents. Players with the most points before the timer runs out win the game and there’s also a solo mode to practice on.

As further details about Oculus Go, Rooms and more Hasbro games are announced, VRFocus will keep you updated.

May 2, 2018

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.

November 9, 2017

Oculus’ Latest Update for Gear VR Includes Rooms and Livestream Comments

Earlier today VRFocus reported on the upcoming Oculus Rift 1.20 updates that would include Dynamic Bundle Pricing being introduced. While the PC-based headsets little sibling Gear VR may not be getting that particular feature, Oculus has announced several others specific to the mobile head-mounted display (HMD), such as improvement to Oculus Rooms and Livestream Comments.

In March Oculus added Facebook Livestreaming to Gear VR, allowing players to share their gaming experiences with the world. Now the company has taken that one stage further by allowing streamers to view comments and reactions whilst they’re inside virtual reality (VR), adding for a more dynamic approach to livestreaming. This means that if a viewer has a specific question about the videogame and what it’s like to play streamers can see that and respond.

Oculus Rooms Chess

A bunch of Oculus Rooms updates have been included. Enabling more ways to interact with friends and spend time in Rooms you can now share your photos from Facebook by selecting “My Photos” on Oculus Rooms TV. The function supports both standard 2D images and 360-degree photos.

You now be able to access more Facebook video content, curated into channels like Comedy, Sports, Science & Tech, and more. All accessible directly from the TV in Rooms. Lastly if you want to compete with friends whilst in Rooms why not challenge them to a game of Chess.

On top of all that Oculus has added WebGL 2.0 support for improved WebVR and 3D web content performance, meaning smoother playback and higher quality.

VRFocus will continue its coverage of Oculus and Samsung Gear VR, reporting back with the latest updates.

July 24, 2017

Nate Mitchell of Oculus Talks About Rooms and Parties

There has been much discussion on ways to combat the isolation of the virtual reality (VR) experience A selection of social VR apps have become available, including Feacebook Spaces and SteamVR Home. Oculus Rooms and Parties for Samsung Gear VR were also meant to be an option, but so far, those features have yet to make the jump from mobile VR to the Oculus Rift. Nate Mitchell, Head of Rift at Oculus, discusses why.

The two social features, Oculus Rooms and Parties were launched at the end of 2016 for the Samsung Gear VR. The Rooms app was designed to provide a lobby where players could meet up with their friends to decide what multiplayer title they wished to try together, perhaps even discussing teams and tactics. The Parties function, meanwhile, allowed for global VOIP chat, allowing friends to communicate with each other despite not being in the same virtual area or playing the same videogame. The convenience of the Parties function meant that users didn’t have to take off their VR headset in order to communicate.

Despite the obvious utility, those two apps have yet to make it into the Oculus Rift. Road to VR recently spoke to Nate Mitchell about the reasons for that. He first addressed criticism that Parties and Rooms should have been simple to port to Oculus Rift from Gear VR: “a couple of folks were like ‘Why would they [spend time expanding it on mobile] instead of bringing it over to PC?’. Well, realistically, with a limited team, they’re able to move much much faster on a bunch of features and get more value out to folks on the mobile side by focusing only on one platform rather than trying to bring everything over to PC simultaneously,” Mitchell said.

Then he spoke about what is coming up for Oculus Rift users socially: “We have some bigger sort of plans on the Rift side for the Rift community. There’s some things that our team has been working on for… a while now… that are really sort of the next evolution of where we think the Oculus platform on PC goes. And we can’t talk about too much of it today, but what I can say is that… we have a vision for the Oculus platform really being the epicenter for the VR community,” he said.

So, is Rooms coming to Oculus Rift? The outlook is currently still uncertain: “Rooms may still come to Rift—that’s not out of the question by any means—but I’m not sitting here today saying it’s coming in the next couple of months. So we haven’t ruled it out. I promise you—and [the Rift community] can trust me—that we’re going to be bringing some really great things to the Rift community very very soon, and then down the road Rooms still may come to PC, we’ll see.

VRFocus will continue to bring you news on developments and news about the Oculus Rift.