OpenXR – Page 3 – Augmented & Virtual Reality Confabulation

October 25, 2020

Unity Promises Initial OpenXR Platform Support By The End Of 2020

When the Khronos Group released OpenXR — a royalty-free standard designed to make cross-platform VR and AR app development easier, supporting multiple platforms — it was backed by many of the mixed reality industry’s biggest names, including Epic Games, Microsoft, Oculus, and Valve, to name just a few. Unity confirmed that its eponymous 3D engine will start supporting some OpenXR platforms by the end of 2020, with a focus on “providing the best developer experience on Unity supported platforms.”

Though Unity publicly backed OpenXR in March 2019 and has actively contributed to the standard, it hadn’t committed to a timeline for actually bringing OpenXR support to the Unity engine, which is used by untold numbers of 3D apps and games, as well as automotive, film, and engineering firms. Mixed reality applications such as Childish Gambino’s interactive music experience Pharos AR have been built using Unity, but until now, might not have easily reached every device a developer would hope to target. Leading PC VR headsets, HoloLens 2, and both Oculus platforms all support OpenXR, which is expected to be the backbone for most future AR and VR devices as well.

From a big-picture perspective, Unity’s promise of OpenXR support means that a significant number of developers will be able to bring previously created mixed reality content to whatever platforms prove popular, and create new AR/VR apps with Unity that work across virtually any XR device. That said, implementation won’t necessarily be exactly the same from platform to platform, and Unity is warning that due to the “unbounded combinations” of possible hardware and software, it can’t test or guarantee optimal performance for every platform out there.

Unity is currently working to support partners’ OpenXR runtimes and expects to offer initial previews of the Unity engine’s OpenXR support on “some” partner platforms before year’s end. The next stage will be early in 2021, when Unity will offer preliminary OpenXR 1.0 specification-compliant support for non-partner OpenXR runtimes and devices, with plans to improve them based on reported issues, sharing test results and spec changes with the Khronos Group.

This post by Jeremy Horwitz originally appeared on VentureBeat.

October 23, 2020

Unity ‘Accelerating efforts’ on OpenXR Support, Preview Expected by End of Year

Unity has long been a public supporter of OpenXR—an industry standard designed to streamline VR development by making it easier for apps to support a wide range of headsets—but the company has yet to deploy support for the standard. As a key figure in OpenXR (owed to it being one of the leading VR game engines), it’s good news today to hear the company affirm its commitment to the standard and say that it’s accelerating work to bring OpenXR to Unity.

OpenXR is a royalty-free standard that aims to standardize the development of VR and AR applications, making for a more interoperable ecosystem. The standard has been in development since 2017 and is backed by virtually every major hardware, platform, and engine company in the VR industry, including key AR players. Earlier this year the standard took a huge step forward by announcing the start of certifications for compliant implementations.

Facebook, Microsoft, Valve, Unreal Engine, and others have been making progress toward supporting OpenXR in their platforms and now Unity says it’s moving to do the same.

“We have been closely monitoring the development of the OpenXR standard. We’re at an inflection point now, where OpenXR 1.0 has been ratified and OpenXR runtimes by various vendors are reaching maturity. This inflection point has accelerated our efforts to enable OpenXR in Unity,” writes Matt Fuad, Sr. Technical Product Manager of AR/VR at Unity.

The company expects to have a preview version of OpenXR in Unity by the end of 2020 which will focus on platforms already supported by the engine (like Oculus, SteamVR, etc), and in early 2021 it plans to roll out experimental support for any conformant OpenXR runtime. Though Faud warns that wider support will take some time to be battle tested.

“Given the unbounded combinations of possible hardware/software configurations, we cannot test or guarantee that all configurations will work optimally. As issues are discovered with runtimes, we will work to contribute conformance tests and specification changes back to the Khronos working group to help the community as a whole. We will also make sure it’s clear to developers which platforms have been fully tested and thus supported by Unity.”

Faud says that Unity plans to implement OpenXR as part of its existing XR plug-in framework so that developers can continue to use many of the engine’s existing development workflows while still creating applications which are OpenXR compliant.

“We’re excited about the progress that has been made and believe this is a significant step towards supporting open standards,” he concludes.

The post Unity ‘Accelerating efforts’ on OpenXR Support, Preview Expected by End of Year appeared first on Road to VR.

July 28, 2020

Facebook’s Oculus Store Now Accepts OpenXR Apps

The Oculus Quest Store and Oculus Rift Store now accept VR app submissions made with OpenXR instead of the proprietary Oculus SDKs.

Most VR games are made in Unity or Unreal Engine. Unity has no announced timeline for using OpenXR, currently focused on its own cross platform in-engine VR framework & tools. Unreal Engine added support for OpenXR in December.

What Is OpenXR?

OpenXR is an open standard for VR/AR. It was developed by Khronos, the same non-profit industry consortium managing OpenGL. The working group includes the major VR companies such as Facebook, Sony, Valve, Microsoft, HTC, NVIDIA, and AMD.

To clear up any confusion: OpenXR is not the same as OpenVR. That was Valve’s API for SteamVR. OpenVR works on all PC VR headsets, but it doesn’t support Android headsets like Quest and (due to Facebook’s policies) cannot be used in Oculus Store apps. In June, Valve announced that new SteamVR features would be “on the OpenXR side”.

The Problem OpenXR Solves

An API (Application Programming Interface) allows software to interact with other software or hardware. VR developers use APIs like Facebook’s Oculus and Valve’s OpenVR to build apps. The API is often part of an SDK (software development kit), and informally these terms are often used interchangeably.

The problem with the Oculus API is apps developed with it only work on Oculus hardware, with the caveat that hacks could make that software run on other systems. In addition, for developers using a custom engine, there are actually two separate APIs between Quest and Rift.

This means that if a developer wants to support all VR headsets, they need to use multiple APIs. This can be time consuming and increase complexity.

Engines like Unity and Unreal make this easier, and both are trying to separately unify VR APIs under their own new engine subsystems, but the problem still exists.

Will These Games Work On Other Headsets?

Microsoft was the first to add support for OpenXR to its Windows MR platform back in July of 2019. SteamVR has ‘preview’ support too.

This raises the obvious question: will OpenXR Oculus Rift Store games run on Valve Index, HTC Vive, or Windows MR headsets without the need for the ReVive hack?

Theoretically yes, but we’ll have to test this once such a game actually releases to confirm.

Developers submitting to the Oculus Store still need to use the Oculus Platform SDK to integrate the entitlement check (a very basic form of DRM, similar to Steam DRM). The Platform SDK is essentially the SDK for the social features, such as leaderboards, achievements and bringing Parties into the same session.

This check isn’t required for apps distributed through unofficial channels such as SideQuest, and can actually be added post-build, so shouldn’t prevent other headsets. It only tries to check whether the app was purchased, not which headset is running it.

Known Issues

Facebook notes the following known issues with the current OpenXR support, which it says will be fixed in future releases:

Grip pose is misaligned.
Action spaces continue to track even when isActive == false, which is conformant but misaligned with other runtimes. This will cause issues if relying on tracking state vs. isActive for rendering hands.
Parent interaction profile bindings are missing for non-natively supported profiles (everything besides the Simple, Touch, and XBox controller profiles)

If you’re developing a VR app in a custom engine, or your own engine, and want to use OpenXR, you can find the Oculus documentation here for Windows.

The post Facebook’s Oculus Store Now Accepts OpenXR Apps appeared first on UploadVR.

July 28, 2020

OpenXR 1.0 Adopter’s Program Launched, Microsoft and Oculus Begin Implementation

The Khronos Group and its OpenXR platform have been rapidly pushing ahead over the past year since the v1.0 specification was established. Today, the group has announced the launch of the OpenXR 1.0 Adopters Program, Microsoft and Oculus officially supporting implementation as well as cross-vendor hand and eye tracking extensions.

With Microsoft’s and Oculus’ support developers are now able to submit their OpenXR apps to the Oculus Store, whilst Minecraft’s new rendering engine RenderDragon is using OpenXR as the basis for its desktop VR support. Plus Microsoft has released an OpenXR-conformant runtime for HoloLens 2.

A royalty-free, open standard designed to make it easier for virtual and augmented reality (VR/AR) developers to make content for a wide range of devices, and OpenXR’s open-source conformance tests help in that process. Published under the Apache 2.0 license on GitHub, the test suite enables any developer to submit conformance test results to ensure their product meets the standard, regardless of being a Khronos member, and become an OpenXR Adopter.

In addition to Microsoft’s and Oculus’ implementation the Khronos Group reveals that open source projects like 3D creation suite, Blender 2.83, Google’s Chromium81 and Varjo have incorporated OpenXR. Additionally, Valve previously released developer preview implementation of OpenXR on SteamVR.

When it comes to the cross-vendor hand and eye tracking extensions this will improve support for both technologies. Ultraleap, for example, has already released preview OpenXR integration for its hand-tracking tech.

“The Working Group has put tremendous effort into OpenXR conformance testing to create a truly reliable cross-platform API. We encourage OpenXR implementers to use the tests in their own development and consider contributing additional tests to help further reduce cross-vendor variability,” said Brent Insko, working group chair, OpenXR Working Group and lead XR architect at Intel in a statement. “With the release of the conformance tests and official launch of the Adopters Program, widening availability of OpenXR across diverse devices, and expanding use in large open-source projects, OpenXR is now ready for the next wave of adoption and deployment.”

“The time to embrace OpenXR is now,” said Don Box, technical fellow at Microsoft. “On the content side, the adoption of OpenXR in Minecraft’s desktop VR product further reinforces Microsoft’s commitment to the success of OpenXR.” This could then eventually see Minecraft VR on more devices.

As OpenXR continues to improve and gain more support, VRFocus will keep you updated on its latest advancements.

July 28, 2020

OpenXR Might Open The Door To Minecraft On Oculus Quest

A potential port of Minecraft to Oculus Quest is more likely after announcements related to the OpenXR industry standard this week from Microsoft and Facebook.

This week Oculus started accepting store submissions supporting the OpenXR 1.0 standard. Meanwhile, Microsoft announced its new RenderDragon rendering engine for Minecraft will support the same industry-wide OpenXR specification.

RenderDragon support for OpenXR means that while graphics features such as VR support need to be reimplemented using the standard in Minecraft, it can be done with a single code base and Microsoft is now “building its desktop VR support using OpenXR.” While Microsoft doesn’t have anything to announce about Minecraft for Quest right now, a reliable source told UploadVR in the past that Quest needed to support OpenXR for that conversation to move forward.

”The Oculus PC and Mobile SDKs will include the resources necessary to use the Prototype OpenXR API for native C/C++ development of Oculus Rift Platform apps and Android apps for Oculus Quest respectively,” Facebook wrote in a post to developers this week. “OpenXR offers an alternative development path that allows developers to create portable code that can be used on devices from multiple vendors.”

There are still big differences between the Android-powered Oculus Quest and Windows-powered PCs, but the idea behind OpenXR is that it is a “royalty-free open standard from The Khronos Group created for the development of high-performance VR applications that run on multiple platforms. OpenXR aims to simplify VR development by enabling developers to reach more platforms while reusing the same code.”

The standard is seeing broad support by a wide selection of industry companies and devices including Microsoft’s Mixed Reality headsets, HoloLens 2, Rift, SteamVR, and Quest, as well as Qualcomm, Google, Epic Games, Arm, Tobii, Ultraleap, and Varjo. In addition, Blender integrated OpenXR and Google’s Chromium uses it to support WebXR, allowing Chrome and Edge browsers to interface with compatible headsets.

“OpenXR is designed to enable VR content compatibility on as many devices as possible, giving developers the confidence of knowing they can focus on one build of their VR title and it will ‘just work’ across the entire PC VR ecosystem,” said Joe Ludwig of Valve, in a prepared statement. “This release is a huge step forward toward that goal, bringing support from two different implementations in the PC ecosystem. With these and more on the way, including our ongoing developer preview in SteamVR, now is the time for developers and engine vendors to start looking at OpenXR as the foundation for their upcoming content.”

Bringing Minecraft to Gear VR back in 2016, of course, required more than just John Carmack’s technical work making the port feasible. Carmack also got the game up and running on Oculus Quest, writing on Twitter recently that he “had it running with full position tracking, but we never got the schedules aligned to be able to take it into production.”

For fans of Minecraft and owners of the Oculus Quest, then, there’s a chance OpenXR support might finally be the thing needed to align those schedules.

The post OpenXR Might Open The Door To Minecraft On Oculus Quest appeared first on UploadVR.

July 28, 2020

OpenXR Now Certifying Headset & App Compliance, Adds Extensions for Hand-tracking & Eye-tracking

Khronos Group, the consortium behind the OpenXR industry standard, today announced that it has begun officially certifying products that correctly implement the OpenXR standard. Additionally, the group has added new extensions to the standard to support hand-tracking and eye-tracking.

OpenXR is a royalty-free standard that aims to standardize the development of VR and AR applications, making for a more interoperable ecosystem. The standard has been in development since April 2017 and is supported by virtually every major hardware, platform, and engine company in the VR industry, including key AR players.

The Khronos Group has announced the OpenXR Adopters Program, allowing any company building an OpenXR product to apply for the official stamp of approval. Once approved, products can use the OpenXR logo on their implementation and also gain patent production under the Khronos IP Framework.

To ensure that companies are correctly implementing the standard, Khronos Group has published the OpenXR Conformance Test Suite, a collection of tests which companies can use to verify that their OpenXR product is correctly implementing the standard.

Oculus Now Accepting OpenXR Apps on Quest & Rift, a Big Step for Cross-platform Development

OpenXR is a widely supported open standard which aims to make cross-platform VR development easier by allowing developers to build around a single API rather than porting their apps to many different APIs. Today the company announced that developers can submit OpenXR applications to be published on the Oculus Quest and Oculus Rift stores.

OpenXR is a royalty-free standard that aims to standardize the development of VR and AR applications, making for a more interoperable ecosystem. The standard has been in development since April 2017 and is supported by virtually every major hardware, platform, and engine company in the VR industry, including key AR players.

Oculus today announced that developers can submit OpenXR apps for sale on the Quest and Rift storefronts which, will run on those headsets as of the v19 version of the Oculus software.

This is a major step for cross-platform VR development because it means that developers building VR applications now have the option to build against the OpenXR standard which will allow the same app to work on other OpenXR supported platforms. Previously, developers have had to build separate versions of their apps for each platform’s API (ie: two different versions for Oculus and SteamVR), which complicates cross-platform development.

OpenXR creates a unified structure between VR engines, apps, and headsets | Image courtesy Khronos Group

Note that OpenXR app support on Oculus stores does not mean that Oculus’ stores will support headsets other than their own. It only means that developers can submit the same app to other OpenXR platforms without needing to specially port the app to those platforms.

Valve is also moving ahead with its OpenXR implementation; the company announced a preview of OpenXR support in SteamVR last month. Once complete, three of the four largest VR distribution platforms (Oculus Quest, Oculus PC, and SteamVR) will fully support OpenXR applications, allowing developers to build a single application which can work across all platforms.

The fourth major VR distribution platform is PlayStation VR. While Sony is a member of the industry group which is building OpenXR, the company has been quiet about OpenXR support on PSVR.

Microsoft has also released initial OpenXR support for both its VR headsets and HoloLens 2.

The post Oculus Now Accepting OpenXR Apps on Quest & Rift, a Big Step for Cross-platform Development appeared first on Road to VR.

June 25, 2020

Valve: Future SteamVR Features Will Be On ‘OpenXR Side’ As Valve Transitions From OpenVR

Valve’s transition toward the open standard OpenXR API from its earlier OpenVR efforts is gaining steam as the company announced they “expect new features on SteamVR to appear on the OpenXR side.”

Valve recently rolled out initial support for the standard in a beta release while saying today that more than 4000 titles released on Steam in the last four years and that “OpenVR applications will continue to work not just on hardware that exists today, but also on the headsets of tomorrow.”

“The challenge we as an industry have faced with many of these titles is that for developers targeting multiple VR platforms, it requires extra time and effort to build polished applications that work across SDKs. In order to solve this and support the next generation of VR applications, we are moving forward to the OpenXR API,” a Valve announcement explains. “OpenXR was created with the goal to enable engines and developers to target a single non-proprietary SDK, easing the friction in creating polished VR experiences. Valve has worked closely with VR hardware vendors, game engine developers, and graphics hardware providers to develop this new API and we believe it represents a big step forward in cross-vendor application support.”

Future “new features on SteamVR” then will utilize OpenXR “rather than as new OpenVR” application programming interfaces, the announcement explains.

Though there are big differences between Android-powered and PC-based VR systems, OpenXR carries wide industry support and should generally make it easier for developers to target multiple platforms with a single API. Facebook’s Oculus Quest Android-based standalone includes “prototype” support for OpenXR and Rift is also expected to gain support for the API as well.

The post Valve: Future SteamVR Features Will Be On ‘OpenXR Side’ As Valve Transitions From OpenVR appeared first on UploadVR.

June 12, 2020

Valve Releases OpenXR Preview for Steam Game Developers

Valve just took a big step in prepping Steam game developers for the full arrival of OpenXR, the new industry-wide open standard for AR and VR headsets. Developers can now download a beta version that will let them start integrating OpenXR apps into SteamVR.

The company has released what it calls “initial support” for the 1.0.9 version of OpenXR. To the VR team at Valve ‘initial support’ means that SteamVR is currently passing “95% of conformance tests,” so the company concludes that it’s come time to “start testing things.”

Valve says in the official announcement that although OpenXR for Steam is not yet enabled for broad general use, interested devs can opt-in from now until September 1st.

Valve Rolls out OpenXR Developer Preview, Another Step Towards Universal VR Support

One of the problems companies working within the XR space have been trying to solve is the issue of platform fragmentation, where developers have to build for each one; taking up time and precious resources. Which is why The Khronos Group in conjunction with Valve, Facebook, HTC, NVIDIA and others created OpenXR. This week Valve announced the launch of an OpenXR Developer Preview for SteamVR.

OpenXR is one of those initiatives which sits in the background unnoticed but has massive implications for the industry. The open-standard allows developers to build their project once and it’ll work across all the various hardware and software platforms available.

In a statement, the company notes: “Valve is releasing initial support for the current 1.0.9 OpenXR release now, to enable developers to begin work implementing OpenXR applications that work with SteamVR, but it is not yet enabled for broad general use.”

It’s still going to be a while yet before OpenXR becomes widely available and implemented as the defacto standard but these are the necessary steps to get there. This announcement follows on from Oculus’ in March when the company mentioned that the Prototype OpenXR API would be madfe available to developers using Oculus PC and Mobile software development kits (SDK).

The news is also important for devs using game engines like Unity. A few months ago when Unity made its High Definition Render Pipeline (HDRP) VR compatible it noted that OpenVR compatibility would be phased out because Valve was working on its own OpenVR Unity XR Plugin for 2019.3.

SteamVR is already fairly hardware agnostic, compatible with Oculus Rift, HTC Vive/Vive Cosmos, Valve Index and Windows Mixed Reality headsets. But there are plenty more devices out there and with more on the way, especially as an influx of Qualcomm XR2 Powered 5G devices are expected to begin arriving by the end of 2020.

As further OpenXR advancements are made, VRFocus will keep you updated.