Category: Steam Dev Days

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Valve Teases New VR Prototypes at Steam Dev Days

Steam Dev Days, Valve’s annual developer conference, just started and from the tweets we’ve seen (no press allowed!) VR is getting the star treatment this year already.

According to press release sent out yesterday, visitors to Steam Dev Days “will be given a chance to test-drive and provide feedback on new VR prototypes.” So far we’ve seen a few slides come out of the event teasing SteamVR-compatible hand controllers and a new basestation in the works.

AltspaceVR’s ‘Cymatic’ Bruce Wooden got as quick snap of the slide showing what appears to be SteamVR hand controllers in various form-factors, including a very curious controller that seems to wrap around the back of your hand so you can keep your palm open, and not constantly grasping the controller.

PlutoVR’s Shawn Whiting tweeted out a slide about the upcoming (and unrevealed) SteamVR basestation due out sometime in 2017. Could it mean another room-scale headset is around the corner?

We’ll be keeping our eyes out for more tweets and clandestine periscopes of all things VR to come from Steam Dev Days.

The post Valve Teases New VR Prototypes at Steam Dev Days appeared first on Road to VR.

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Valve is Investing in Wireless VR via Video Streaming Company Nitero

Valve’s annual Steam Dev Days event is underway and news about how the company is investing in VR’s future is seeping out. One interesting development is that they’re reportedly investing in 60Ghz wireless video streaming specialists Nitero, with a view to bringing wireless VR to their virtual reality offerings.

There’s no one who could argue that the biggest drag with first generation consumer VR is the bundle of cables that goes with it. This is especially acute when attempting to become immersed in room-scale VR as championed by SteamVR’s first flagship VR system the HTC Vive.

Now, it seems that Valve are actively encouraging a solution to this issue as it’s emerged that the company is investing a “significant amount” in a company which has already demonstrated a wireless 60GHz, low latency video streaming solution that it was targeting at the VR hardware market. Nitero demonstrated a VR-centric version of their wireless video solution at this year’s CES to UploadVR and had since gone awfully quiet. Seems that, among other partners interested in the company, they’ve been deep in discussion with Valve to invest a “significant amount” in Nitero, according to the company’s Co-Founder Sven Mesecke, talking to UploadVR. According to them, early problems surrounding line-of-sight requirements for uninterrupted signal have “been solved” thanks to a “customized beam forming” approach.

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There are a number of other companies racing to see who can produce wireless video streaming which can carry enough data at a low enough latency to delivery a nausea free, clear VR image too. Quark VR, who recently also recently announce they were working with Valve on “a wireless HTC Vive prototype”, and that “It should be ready for testing later this year.” The blog post with that announcement was dated late August, so either Valve is partnering with multiple solutions providers in a bid to reach a usable solution more quickly, or they switched their attentions exclusively to Nitero. Either one is pure speculation at this stage, for the moment at least, Quark VR has remained silent on the development.

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The post Valve is Investing in Wireless VR via Video Streaming Company Nitero appeared first on Road to VR.

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Valve Showcasing New VR Prototypes At Steam Dev Days

Valve Showcasing New VR Prototypes At Steam Dev Days

New VR peripherals will be shown off at Steam Dev Days this week as developers gather in Seattle, Washington for two days of meetings and sessions covering the latest “tools, services, and hardware in production for 2017 and beyond.”

“VR peripheral prototypes will be made available for demonstration and design collaboration with attendees,” a statement from Valve reads.

According to Valve, more than 600 VR experiences have been published on Steam already and more than 300 licensees are working with the company’s innovative SteamVR Tracking system, which could find uses “ranging from entertainment VR to automotive to televisions and toys.” Many of these systems could ship next year. We’ve seen a number of interesting ideas for VR accessories that might work with SteamVR Tracking, but the technology could have a lot of potential beyond VR as well.

Here’s the full statement from Valve about Steam Dev Days:

VALVE HOSTING STEAM DEV DAYS

Summit for Desktop, Living Room, and VR Content Creation

October 11, 2016 – Happening this Wednesday and Thursday in Seattle, WA, Steam Dev Days gives content creators a chance to share their experiences using Steam and attend briefings about new tools, services, and hardware in production for 2017 and beyond.

Celebrating over 10 years since the first third-party title was launched on the platform, developers have published over 10,000 titles on Steam for Windows PC, Linux, Mac and multiple VR systems.

Support for VR was introduced just six months ago, yet developers have already published over 600 VR experiences via Steam for those using multiple VR systems, including OpenVR.

Complementing the title and revenue growth, the adoption of SteamVR Tracking continues with over 300 licensees planning to incorporate the technology for a variety of uses, ranging from entertainment VR to automotive to televisions and toys. Many of these are targeted to ship in 2017.

The two-day event will feature keynotes from third parties and Valve, who will be discussing near-term and long-term expansions to Steam. In addition, new VR peripheral prototypes will be made available for demonstration and design collaboration with attendees.

About Steam Dev Days

Steam Dev Days is a two-day developers’ conference where professionals can meet in a relaxed, off the record environment. Developers will share their design and industry expertise, participate in panel discussions, and attend lectures by industry veterans on a variety of topics. Attendees will also have direct access to Valve’s Steam Team, and will be given a chance to test-drive and provide feedback on new VR prototypes.

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These Are The VR Sessions Taking Place At Steam Dev Days Next Week

These Are The VR Sessions Taking Place At Steam Dev Days Next Week

Developers from around the world will have the rare chance to step inside Valve’s offices next week when Steam Dev Days gets underway in Bellevue, Washington. But what can VR studios expect from the event?

Thanks to the launch of the full schedule through the Guidebook app, we now know. A total of eight VR talks and panels are being planned for the show, which takes place on October 12th and 13th. It will feature in-depth presentations from numerous members of Valve, as well as a handful of developers and even Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney.

Think of this as more of a mini VR developer conference than a consumer-focused show, though. It’s possible that we may get some VR-relevant announcements, but the main aim is to share knowledge between the development community.

If you want to take a quick glance and what’s there, we’ve listed each talk below. All times are in PT.

Philosphy of VR, with Joe Ludwig from Valve
10:45 am, 12th October

Ludwig has been working on VR at Valve for around three years now, so he’s more than capable of talking about the philosophy of VR. He’ll make a case for developing on high-end systems to give people a full VR experience, so this might be one for those currently working in mobile VR to take note of.

The Future of VR and PC Games, with Tim Sweeney from Epic Games
11:15 am, 12th October

Epic Games is heavily invested in VR thanks to deep integration with its Unreal Engine 4 and its own tech demos like Bullet Train. With this knowledge in-hand, company CEO Tim Seeney will discuss “leading-edge” directions in VR such a digital humans, social interaction, user-created content, photorealistic graphic and the barriers between genres. Definitely something any VR developer should watch.

SteamVR Tracking Hardware
1:30 pm, 12th October

Interestingly, this is a talk more aimed at hardware developers than software creators, though both are welcome. There’s no assigned speaker yet, but this session will detail how to integrate devices with the SteamVR tracking systems that we’ve come to know and love through the HTC Vive. Some of the headsets of tomorrow will be born from this tech.

Developing The Lab, with Valve
10:00 am, 13th October

An army of Valve developers are going to be on hand to discuss the creation of its popular VR experience collection. Expect a detailed rundown of how the team went about creating the set of mini-games. Given that The Lab is still one of the best-received VR experiences, there’s bound to be tips and tricks shared here that will be useful to just about anybody working with the tech.

Unity Development for VR, with Corey Johnson from Unity
11:15 am, 13th October

It wouldn’t be a VR developer conference without talks from the two leading engine providers. Johnson will detail how to get your VR project started with Unity and then how to optimize it to make sure it performs as well as possible. If you haven’t already seen similar talks elsewhere, this will be essential for Unity devs.

Delivering Great VR With Simple Graphics, with Nat Brown from Valve
1:45 pm, 13th October

Running VR games is an intensive process. The simpler your graphics, the easier you’ll make it on the PCs, consoles and phones powering them. But that doesn’t mean you have to sacrifice important factors like immersion. That’s what Valve VR engineer Nat Brown will talk about in this session.

Shipping A VR Game With Unreal Engine 4, with CloudGate Studio And Epic Games
3:00 pm, 13th October

After Unity has had its time in the spotlight Epic Games will step up to the stage with the help of Island 359 developers CloudGate Studio. Spread across two parts, Epic’s Wes Bunn will first provide an in-depth overview of combining Unreal Engine 4 with VR. Following that, CloudGate’s Jeremy Chapman and Steve Bowler will discuss how to make VR games with a small team in a short time frame.

VR Content Panel, with Valve, Northway Games, Stress Level Zero, Audiosurf, and I-Illusions
16:15, 13th October

Rounding out Dev Days’ VR sessions, a host of developers will take to the stage to talk about lessons learned from building VR titles. Expect plenty of helpful tips that will give you advice on making successful VR games and developers that have already done so. They’ll be moderated by Valve’s Chet Faliszek.

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Developers have plenty to look forward to next week, then. The rest of us, meanwhile can anticipate the better games and experiences that will come from it.

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Epic Games’ CEO Hosting Keynote Address at Steam Dev Days

Next week Valve will be holding its Steam Dev Days conference, open to any Steam developer around the world. Valve announced the return of the event back in June, with the last on taking place in 2014, and now Epic Games has confirmed it’ll be there with the company’s CEO and Founder Tim Sweeney giving the keynote address.

The two day event takes place on 12th – 13th October with Sweeney’s opening keynote starting at 11:15am on the Wednesday. The CEO will be focused on ‘The Future of VR and PC Games’, talking about leading-edge directions in virtual reality (VR), including digital humans, social interaction, user-created content, photorealistic graphics, and breaking down the barriers between genres.

Tim Sweeney

Then on Thursday 13th, Epic Games’ Sr. Core Rendering Engineer Rolando Caloca along with developers from Nvidia, Valve and Croteam will be holding a Vulkan Graphic Panel. They’ll be discussing the present and future of Vulkan, and how the API provides high-efficiency, cross-platform access to modern GPUs used in a wide variety of devices from PCs and consoles to mobile phones and embedded platforms. The session will be moderated by John McDonald of Valve.

Towards the end of the day there will be an hour long talk on ‘Shipping A VR Game With Unreal Engine 4’. This will be split into two parts, starting with an Unreal Engine 4 overview from Wes Bunn – Sr. Technical Writer, Epic Games, before moving onto a breakdown of how to successfully bring UE4 VR games to Steam. This talk will also feature Steve Bowler – President, and Jeremy Chapman – CCO, of CloudGate Studio.

The Unreal Engine development team will also be providing one-on-one support for developers during the two days, similar to the Oculus Connect 3 Dev Garage VRFocus reported on last week. Those who’ve registered for Steam Dev Days should have received info on securing a one-on-one slot.

For all the latest details on Steam Dev Days and Epic Games, keep reading VRFocus.