Category: Sky VR

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Britannia VR: Out of Your Mind Takes You Inside Sky Atlantic’s Anarchic Drama

Outside of virtual reality (VR), horror experiences like Syren and ABE, British developer Hammerhead VR does a lot of work in the commercial sector alongside sister company Dimension. Examples of this include Virtual Viking – The Ambush for The Viking Planet Centre Oslo. The most recent was for a collaboration with Sky VR to create an immersive experience based on Sky Atlantic’s 2nd series of Britannia.

Britannia VR: Out of Your Mind

Using the same detailed volumetric capture technology seen in the Viking experience, Britannia VR: Out of Your Mind takes fans of the show inside this anarchic drama. To get a realistic look Dimension using photogrammetry to capture actors MacKenzie Crook, Liana Cornell, Ben Bailey Smith and Steve Pemberton, as well as the props and set.

Britannia VR: Out of Your Mind is an interactive experience where you’ll need to make decisions to see different parts of the story. You can choose to be immersed in a world of Druid magic and mysticism or enter an intoxicating world of Roman imperialism by drinking wine from a Roman goblet or inhaling the magic smoke from a Druid bowl.

“We are delighted to bring the world of Britannia to life through this truly immersive interactive VR experience. By blending cinematic and game production techniques, we are able to truly showcase the epic scale and ambition of Britannia,” said Neil Graham Executive Producer for Sky VR and Sky Cinema in a statement. “Working together with Vertigo and Hammerhead we are extremely proud of what we’ve been able to create together.”

Britannia VR screenshot 1

“Britannia VR continues our work creating highly realistic and emotive immersive experiences – bringing fans into the world of Britannia to interact and experience the drama and magic as though there themselves. Sky’s pioneering approach to new volumetric production techniques helps connect fans with the characters and their stories in powerful new ways and we’re thrilled with our latest collaboration,” adds Simon Windsor, Joint Managing Director, Hammerhead & Dimension.

Britannia VR: Out of Your Mind is available to download now for free via Steam, supporting Oculus Rift, HTC Vive and Valve Index headsets. An Oculus Store version will be launching soon. For further updates from Hammerhead VR, keep reading VRFocus.

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Sky Series Britannia Gets Free VR Tie-In With Impressive Volumetric Capture

Sky’s bloody historical drama, Britannia, is returning for a second season today. And, oh look, there’s a new VR experience to tie-in with it.

Britannia VR: Out Of Your Mind was developed by Sky VR and Hammerhead VR, the team that runs the Dimension volumetric capture studio in London. Sure enough, the experience displays impressive use of the format. Volumetric capture is a process in which an array of cameras capture an actor’s performance from all angles. The results are then stitched together to make a realistic 3D model of that performance.

Here it’s used to bring you closer to some of the characters from the world of Britannia. The series itself centers on the Roman conquest of Britain. The VR app lets you experience that conflict from two different sides. First, you can join the Druids and take part in a psychedelic rave. You can also visit the Roman empire to worship gods and more.

The volumetric capture brings real-life actors including MacKenzie Crook, Liana Cornell, Ben Bailey Smith and Steve Pemberton to virtual life. It’s one of the more impressive displays of this technique I’ve seen, with highly detailed character models and less of the fuzziness you can find in other volumetric experiences. In fact, the entire experience is richly detailed, with crisp environments captured with photogrammetry. There’s even some fun interactive elements. I personally know very little about the show, but I found this to be just as engaging as a historical VR experience.

Take note that there’s some hefty requirements to run the experience, though. It requires 13GB of space (which is almost as big as Stormland). The app’s currently available on SteamVR for free with support for most PC VR headsets and will be coming to the Oculus Store soon.

The post Sky Series Britannia Gets Free VR Tie-In With Impressive Volumetric Capture appeared first on UploadVR.

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David Attenborough’s VR Experience ‘Hold the World’ Lands on Rift

Hold the World (2018) is an educational VR experience from Sky that lets you come face-to-face with Sir David Attenborough, the English broadcaster and world’s foremost naturalist, as he teaches you about a number of species going as far back as the Trilobite and as recent as the flea.

The interactive experience takes you to London’s Natural History Museum, and puts you in reach of a few rare specimens from its world-famous collection, letting you handle and resize the objects while Attenborough teaches you important facts about how the animals must have lived, ate, breathed, and more.

Attenborough is presented to the user by way of high-quality volumetric video capture, and he takes you behind the scenes to a few areas out-of-bounds to the general public. Like the items themselves, the environments have been captured using photogrammetry, allowing you to truly feel like you’re in iconic museum’s geology library, fossil lab, and herbarium.

 

Skeletons and fossilized specimens come to life as well, showing you a true 1:1 scale of how a Pterosaur must have flown, or how a dragon-fly independently controls each of its four wings as it makes its long migratory trips across the world.

At $4, the experience is undoubtedly one the best price to value ratios out there; everything is lovingly reconstructed to maximize for realism, truly making you feel like you’re sitting across the table with the affable and always knowledgeable Sir David Attenborough. It took me about an hour to complete, going through every animal presented in the experience and taking the few quick quizzes to go along with it. It’s truly something that could be made into a larger series, as I found sitting across from Attenborough and learning with the object in hand to be a really effective way of absorbing the information.

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Hold the World features no artificial locomotion (it’s a 100% seated experience) and comes with intuitive hands-on Touch controls which really makes the experience perfect for VR first-timers and experienced users alike.

If you’re a Sky customer and enrolled in the free Sky VIP loyalty program, you can access Hold the World for free via the Sky VR app in UK, Ireland, Germany, Austria and Italy. If not, you can purchase the experience on the Oculus Store.

The post David Attenborough’s VR Experience ‘Hold the World’ Lands on Rift appeared first on Road to VR.

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This Week In VR Sport: Boxers, Dehydration And VR Arcades

With the Easter weekend in full swing it is time to say goodbye to March as April is almost here so to see the month off VRFocus is here to bring you another edition of This Week in VR Sport. With a number of sports related virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR) stories, this week has a number of topics that you are sure to find interesting. From boxers fighting themselves in VR to tabletop soccer getting the VR treatment, this week is packed with plenty to discover.

Anthony Joshua Fights Himself In VR

Anthony Joshua VR Capture

Ahead of the fight between Anthony Joshua and Joseph Parker in a world heavyweight fight in Cardiff, Sky Sports have shown off Anthony Joshua fighting himself thanks to VR. Thanks to 360 volumetric capturing Anthony Joshua has been fully recreated in the digital world and motion capture technology has allowed for users to put on a headset and go up against the fighter. Of course, that also meant that Anthony Joshua himself had to have a go. By using a green screen and a camera, viewers that then see what the user sees on a larger screen offering an insight into the fight of the year as Anthony Joshua goes up against Anthony Joshua. 

Sky Sports VR has been continuing to develop new VR solutions as a way to engage their audience and bring the sports they love closer to them. Back in 2016 the company released a dedicated Sky VR app which gives uses access to immersive, 360-degree videos and VR experiences right in the palm of their hand. For now, those who want to go up against Anthony Joshua will have to wait a bit longer for the product to (hopefully) be made available for home use. Elsewhere, Sky Sports Box Office will exclusively show the Anthony Joshua v Joseph Parker unification fight on 31st March with repeats running on 1st April. Tickets for the fight are able from the Sky Box Office website here.

Gatorade Using ‘Beat The Blitz’ VR Title To Educate About Dehydration

Beat The Blitz Screenshot 01

The Gatorade Company, one of America’s leading manufacturer of sport-themed beverage and food products, is taking to VR to help tackle the issue of dehydration in sports players. Using the Gatorade brand and a new VR videogame title called ‘Beat The Blitz’ the company is hoping to tackle and educate players on this issue. The title challenges players to throw footballs at targets, avoiding would-be tacklers and even score the odd trick shot now and again. All of this is delivered by former NFL All-Pro and Super Bowl champion, Peyton Manning. Thanks to the real-time tracking that is delivered by the VR solution players get to experience an authentic simulation of throwing a football.

On a more education side of things, ‘Beat The Blitz’ also includes a number of simulations that take the user inside the human body as show what happens to an athlete once dehydration sets in. This is shown in the title by having a players vision become impaired along with other symptoms of dehydration manifested through VR. Designed for HTC Vive and Microsoft Mixed Reality headsets, ‘Beat The Blitz’ debuted at South by South West (SXSW) and the NFL Combine in Indianapolis and is now available on Steam. You can see it in action for yourself below.

Koliseum Soccer VR Brings Tabletop Soccer Into A New Reality

Koliseum Soccer VR Public Demo 01

If you enjoy playing tabletop soccer with your friends then you will be happy to her that Switzerland based developer Kynoa is working on a VR tabletop soccer experience. The fully-integrated solution is designed for an out of home VR experience that mixed the nostalgia of the arcade with the thrill of the latest technology. The spectacular VR competitive tabletop arcade title puts players up against each other in the usual tabletop soccer way only this time it is brought to life thanks to the head-mounted displays (HMDs) that each player is wearing, opening a window into a futuristic game of soccer where robots rule the pitch.

Players will still make use of the traditional arcade design by pulling the controls that most will be familiar with as they try to score against their opponent. Pull and push the bar to position your players and snip it to block, shoot and hopefully score. Kynoa hope to see Koliseum Soccer VR installed in out-of-home locations such as entertainment venues, shopping mails, cruise ships and more with the goal of bringing the arcade into a new era. You can check out a video of Koliseum Soccer VR in action below.

That is all for this week in the world of VR Sports. For more on immersive sport news keep reading VRFocus and remember to check back next week for another This Week In VR Sport.

Posted on

This Week In VR Sport: Boxers, Dehydration And VR Arcades

With the Easter weekend in full swing it is time to say goodbye to March as April is almost here so to see the month off VRFocus is here to bring you another edition of This Week in VR Sport. With a number of sports related virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR) stories, this week has a number of topics that you are sure to find interesting. From boxers fighting themselves in VR to tabletop soccer getting the VR treatment, this week is packed with plenty to discover.

Anthony Joshua Fights Himself In VR

Anthony Joshua VR Capture

Ahead of the fight between Anthony Joshua and Joseph Parker in a world heavyweight fight in Cardiff, Sky Sports have shown off Anthony Joshua fighting himself thanks to VR. Thanks to 360 volumetric capturing Anthony Joshua has been fully recreated in the digital world and motion capture technology has allowed for users to put on a headset and go up against the fighter. Of course, that also meant that Anthony Joshua himself had to have a go. By using a green screen and a camera, viewers that then see what the user sees on a larger screen offering an insight into the fight of the year as Anthony Joshua goes up against Anthony Joshua. 

Sky Sports VR has been continuing to develop new VR solutions as a way to engage their audience and bring the sports they love closer to them. Back in 2016 the company released a dedicated Sky VR app which gives uses access to immersive, 360-degree videos and VR experiences right in the palm of their hand. For now, those who want to go up against Anthony Joshua will have to wait a bit longer for the product to (hopefully) be made available for home use. Elsewhere, Sky Sports Box Office will exclusively show the Anthony Joshua v Joseph Parker unification fight on 31st March with repeats running on 1st April. Tickets for the fight are able from the Sky Box Office website here.

Gatorade Using ‘Beat The Blitz’ VR Title To Educate About Dehydration

Beat The Blitz Screenshot 01

The Gatorade Company, one of America’s leading manufacturer of sport-themed beverage and food products, is taking to VR to help tackle the issue of dehydration in sports players. Using the Gatorade brand and a new VR videogame title called ‘Beat The Blitz’ the company is hoping to tackle and educate players on this issue. The title challenges players to throw footballs at targets, avoiding would-be tacklers and even score the odd trick shot now and again. All of this is delivered by former NFL All-Pro and Super Bowl champion, Peyton Manning. Thanks to the real-time tracking that is delivered by the VR solution players get to experience an authentic simulation of throwing a football.

On a more education side of things, ‘Beat The Blitz’ also includes a number of simulations that take the user inside the human body as show what happens to an athlete once dehydration sets in. This is shown in the title by having a players vision become impaired along with other symptoms of dehydration manifested through VR. Designed for HTC Vive and Microsoft Mixed Reality headsets, ‘Beat The Blitz’ debuted at South by South West (SXSW) and the NFL Combine in Indianapolis and is now available on Steam. You can see it in action for yourself below.

Koliseum Soccer VR Brings Tabletop Soccer Into A New Reality

Koliseum Soccer VR Public Demo 01

If you enjoy playing tabletop soccer with your friends then you will be happy to her that Switzerland based developer Kynoa is working on a VR tabletop soccer experience. The fully-integrated solution is designed for an out of home VR experience that mixed the nostalgia of the arcade with the thrill of the latest technology. The spectacular VR competitive tabletop arcade title puts players up against each other in the usual tabletop soccer way only this time it is brought to life thanks to the head-mounted displays (HMDs) that each player is wearing, opening a window into a futuristic game of soccer where robots rule the pitch.

Players will still make use of the traditional arcade design by pulling the controls that most will be familiar with as they try to score against their opponent. Pull and push the bar to position your players and snip it to block, shoot and hopefully score. Kynoa hope to see Koliseum Soccer VR installed in out-of-home locations such as entertainment venues, shopping mails, cruise ships and more with the goal of bringing the arcade into a new era. You can check out a video of Koliseum Soccer VR in action below.

That is all for this week in the world of VR Sports. For more on immersive sport news keep reading VRFocus and remember to check back next week for another This Week In VR Sport.

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This Week In VR Sport: Explore the Roots of New Zealand Rugby and Intel’s Olympics Technology

It is the weekend, and that means Sports are on the agenda here at VRFocus. This week Sky Sports are creating a documentary looking at the roots and culture surrounding New Zealand rugby and Intel are going to be providing technology to the Olympics. How does this involve VR? Read on and see.

New Zealand Rugby In 360-Degrees

Sky VR and Sky Sports have teamed up to provide rugby fans with a documentary that takes a look at New Zealand rugby. The New Zealand All Blacks are one of the world’s premier rugby teams, and are known for performing a ‘Haka’ before every game, a Maori cultural tradition that has become tightly intertwined with rugby in New Zealand.

The documentary is titled ‘Finding Haka’ and follows a young Maori man as he explores the culture and traditions around rugby in New Zealand and learns how it relates to his own history. The film is available via the Sky App, which is free to download on Google Play Store and Apple App Store.

The film’s award-winning VR director, James Hedley, commented: “I wanted to create a powerful and important film that highlights the significance of preserving cultural identity and heritage. The power, the rawness and the eruption of emotion of the Haka is overwhelming; it begged to be explored in VR. I hope the film will resonate with not only sports fans but also detached youths and history fantastic around the world.”

Intel To Provide VR and 360-Degree Technology To Olympics

Intel have struck a deal with the International Olympic Committee to provide telecommunications infrastructure and virtual reality (VR) technology for the Olympics up until 2024. The first event to feature Intel technology will be the Olympic Winter Games Pyeongchang in South Korea in 2018. Intel will be providing streaming for 360-degree video content, allowing fans to be closer than ever to the events.

Other technology will be gradually rolled out to other Olympic events, such as 5G technology, drone-based ‘light shows’ in a sky above the Olympic venues and 360-degree replay technology to capture footage and let fans relive the most exciting moments of the sporting event.

“We are excited to join the Olympic Movement and integrate Intel’s innovative technologies to advance the Olympic Games experience for fans around the world,” said Intel’s Chief Executive Officer Brian Krzanich. “Through this close collaboration with the Olympic family, we will accelerate the adoption of technology for the future of sports on the world’s largest athletic stage.

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Sky Gets Into VR With the Launch of a Dedicated App

Sky has announced this week that the media company is getting in on the virtual reality (VR) surge with a brand new dedicated app. Sky VR will be showcasing a range of immersive, 360-degree videos from Sky, and the best content from Sky’s partners.

As part of the app’s launch Sky has revealed two brand new VR experiences, Sky Sports: Closer, featuring David Beckham and the first of a series of Sky exclusive commissions – a performance from English National Ballet’s production of Giselle ahead of its forthcoming UK tour. The former is available now while the latter is coming later this month.

Sky VR app

David Beckham said in a statement: “It was great to work with Sky and Google on this film to launch the new Sky Virtual Reality app. The team from the Sky VR studio came up with an incredible concept that shows the range of sport Sky offers. Being able to take other sports fans on a journey into some of the world’s biggest sporting events was a unique opportunity.”

For the launch the Sky VR app will feature 360-degree video content from Sky, Disney, Fox Innovation Lab, Warner Brothers, Baobab Studios, Jaunt, Innerspace and Surround Vision. These include: Star Wars: Red Carpet, Anthony Joshua: Becoming World Champion, Paul McCartney: Dance Tonight, Baobab Studios’ Invasion, F1 – Team Williams, Suicide Squad: Squad 360 and many more.

Gary Davey, Managing Director, Content at Sky, commented: “Interest in VR content is building, generating more excitement every day.  We are just at the beginning of our VR journey at Sky, launching Sky VR studios earlier this year and we are already breaking new ground.  Now comes the creative challenge of deploying this immersive experience with engaging story-telling. I am a big believer.”

The Sky VR app was first announced in July, and supports iOS, Android, Oculus Rift and Samsung Gear VR platforms. VRFocus will continue its coverage of Sky VR, reporting back with any further updates.