Starting this Friday, January 19th, the PC closed beta for Survios’ Sprint Vector will officially happen and lasts until January, 28th.
Sprint Vector sort of reminds me of that new food you tried at a restaurant once, unsure if you’d like it, but ended up loving it. In this way it can feel both brand new to your palette, but at the same time feel like it’s always belonged. Like it’s the game that you never knew you wanted.
This closed beta period represents the first time the game has been playable with its full complement of eight total players all racing online against one another. The limited demo environments we’ve seen it in thus far have only been with a single player against AI or just a pair of people racing against each other.
Since it’s just a closed beta, players won’t quite have access to the entire game, but it will include plenty of content between the three different maps and tutorial levels, all characters with default skins, all power-ups, two challenge maps, quick play and private lobbies, as well as up to eight player multiplayer during the pre-designated “online” hours listed below for each of the next two weekends:
If you’ve got a Rift or Vive and want to try out the closed beta over the next week or so, you can sign up for a chance right here. We’ll also be holding our own beta code giveaway at UploadVR soon as well.
Let us know what you think of the game from what you’ve seen down in the comments below!
Survios, the studio behind Raw Data (2017), today announced closed beta testing for Sprint Vector, its multiplayer competitive foot racing game. The closed beta will start January 19th and go through January 28th.
Update (1/20/18): The Sprint Vector closed beta has begun and runs all week until January 28th. We’ve got 20 keys granting access to the closed beta through Steam (which supports both Vive and Rift).
We’re not going to make you sign up for anything to get them (though if you aren’t already following us on social media, feel free to link up with us on Facebook and Twitter); the keys are hidden in the screenshots in this article, use these instructions to redeem your code through Steam. After you’ve redeemed your code, it would be mighty kind of you to drop your code as a reply in the comments below, that way your fellow readers don’t waste their time trying to redeem codes which have already been claimed.
Original Article (1/16/18): The beta, which will include up to 8-players in competitive racing matches, will be available through both Oculus Home and SteamVR. Survios is now accepting beta signups here.
The full release of Sprint Vector is slated to launch globally in Q1 2018 on PSVR, Oculus Rift and HTC Vive.
The beta will include access to three competitive maps, a number of different playable characters, and all of final game’s power-ups. The studio is also debuting a challenge mode featuring two single-player maps with “unique challenges,” arriving alongside quick play and private lobbies.
Sprint Vector Closed Beta Schedule
While the solo portion of the game will be open to beta testers throughout the 10-day period, Survios will only be opening multiplayer servers during the weekends from 5:00 PM to 8:00 PM PT in the US, and from 18:00 to 21:00 CET in the EU.
Featuring a unique locomotion scheme dubbed ‘Fluid Locomotion’ which requires you to pump your arms as if you were actually running, our hands-on with Sprint Vector proved to be extremely comfortable despite the fast-paced nature of the game. By fast-paced, I mean zipping through a Mario Kart-style track while making a 40-foot jump, all at an unbelievably blistering speed.
We’ve been following Sprint Vector since it was first teased early last year, and hope to see just how the game has shaped up in the meantime. We’ll be bringing you our impressions in the next few days, so check back soon.
With day two of CES 2018 behind us, we take a look at some of the bigger news to come out of the show in today’s news roundup: Pimax 8K impressions, Pico Neo brings Viveport mobile out of China, Blade Runner: Revelations to include 6DoF tracking for Daydream, and a hands-on with Survios’ upcoming music tool Electronauts.
The 6DoF Pico Neo VR headset and 6DoF controllers are coming to the West, and the Chinese company has announced its intentions to ship the system globally with Viveport mobile, HTC’s mobile app store that once looked like it might be a China-only operation. Road to VR took a brief hands-on with the Pico Neo, noting good ergonomics and visual clarity, but also some tracking issues with both the headset and controllers.\
‘Blade Runner: Revelations’ Coming to Daydream with 6DoF Tracking
‘Electronauts’ Makes You Suck Less at Music Creation
image courtesy Survios
Road to VR’s self-entitled ‘non-musician’ Scott Hayden checks out Electronauts, and comes away impressed with the ‘good-sounding’ music he generated using the streamlined creation tools. The system caters to beginners with the magic of quantization, essentially a musical autocorrect, which ensures beat-matched sounds. Electronauts is the latest project from Survios, the studio behind action game Raw Data (2017), and is due to launch this year.
– – — – –
Check back tomorrow for our ‘day three’ round-up off all things augmented and virtual at this year’s CES.
Survios, the studio behind Raw Data (2017), is getting into the music business with their upcoming music creation tool/experience Electronauts.I got a chance to go hands-on with an early version of Electronauts at this year’s CES, and I left feeling hope for my budding carrier as an EDM artist.
Firstly, I’m not an un-musical person. I make up stupid songs for my wife; I beatbox in the shower. While I can appreciate music and even reproduce things that might be construed as music by sentient lifeforms (and probably some more musical animals), I am by no means a musician. Stepping into Survios’ hotel suite at the Mirage in Vegas, I was expecting to walk out humbled by my lack of skills. After all, as a non-musician, I shouldn’t be able to actually make good-sounding multi-layered music. That’s where I was wrong.
image courtesy Survios
Speaking to Survios’ Marketing Director Hunter Kitagawa, I learned Electronauts not only makes music creation easy, but it actually caters to talentless turds such as myself (my words, not his). The system is entirely quantized, meaning every time you activate an instrument or loop a track, it automatically clicks on beat, making music creation insanely easy. That certainly doesn’t mean you’ll be able to make something listenable on your first try, as there are about a dozen different tools, all with their own options and sounds to try out, but it does help a great deal having even the simplest arrangement sound basically good.
You can loop samples, layer filters, arrange sounds, stems, loops, tracks, effects and remix it on the fly. For the demo though, I was thrown into a song selection that had a finite number of these things, although the system will effectively be open so users can import their favorite tracks, sounds, etc. To that effect, Survios is also adding in a greater selection of music from top artists thanks to a partnership with Stargate, the legendary Norwegian record producing and songwriting team behind music from pop sensations such as Michael Jackson, Beyoncé, Rihanna, Katy Perry, and Coldplay.
image courtesy Survios
What struck me the most about my 15-minute demo with Electronauts was how truly native it felt to VR. Flying on a musical spaceship through a neon world, which looked heavily inspired by Tron, my mixing board featured a number of tools represented as interactive objects. The UI isn’t dominated by buttons either, offering things like throwable ‘beat grenades’ and an orb-shaped drum set which lets you record your track to a sequencer. More talented users can go deeper into the music creation process by directly editing sounds on the sequencer though.
Electronauts also lets you record your music as an audio file, or record/livestream your entire set via video so you can show off your moves as you create. A multiplayer function is also on the roadmap so you and a friend can collaboratively create music.
image courtesy Survios
As a first timer, I was left feeling a little overwhelmed by the amount of options at my disposal, although I’ve admittedly never had the opportunity to play around with actual DJ’ing equipment. Even then, I think more-able musicians will still appreciate the hands-on nature of the experience which really made it feel like I was accomplishing something grand.
The studio hasn’t announced a firm release date yet, although they told me it’s slated to arrive sometime this year. There’s already a Steam page, and Survios is currently entertaining applications for their ‘Creator Beta’ which will launch soon for Vive and Rift owners.
– – — – –
We have feet on the ground at CES this year, so check back for more hands-on, previews and all things virtual and augmented.
Unity Technologies has announced that the Unity development engine is now fully functional for development of virtual reality (VR) videogames and experiences on the new iMac Pro. The company worked with Apple, AMD, and Valve to ensure optimal integration for Unity development and performance on the Metal graphics API and Apple hardware.
The first of these immersive VR experiences, Electronauts and Gravity Sketch, were announced last week and are demonstrations of the ways that Unity developers can unleash their creativity on macOS.
“The release of the iMac Pro puts virtual reality into the hands of even more consumers and creators. With Apple’s history of making new technologies mainstream, this is an exciting time for Unity and our developers,” said Tony Parisi, Global Head of VR/AR Strategy at Unity Technologies. “The future of VR has never been brighter. Now is the time to dazzle, surprise, and immerse an entirely new audience into the world of VR.”
Electronauts, created by Survios, is promising to deliver an immersive music creation experience empowering all music lovers to DJ, perform and produce music. The Electronauts experience envelops the user in a world of audio, experienced and powered by VR. It is designed for users of all levels, and it empowers all music lovers to DJ, perform and produce great music.
“Electronauts‘ development process was one of near-constant creative experimentation and Unity allowed us to iterate quickly on our designs and rapidly prototype new ideas as the experience evolved,” said Nathan Burba, Cofounder and CEO of Survios.
Gravity Sketch is a multi-platform 3D creation tool which gives industrial designers, automotive designers and to create 3D objects in a VR environment. Unity’s flexibility enabled the team to optimise Gravity Sketch for the iMac Pro.
“When we met with Unity we were blown away by how optimised Unity 2017 was for macOS,” said Daniel Thomas, CTO of Gravity Sketch. “It was easy to get Gravity Sketch up and running on Apple hardware. Thanks to Unity we are now able to reach an entirely new segment of creators, making it easier than ever for them to turn their ideas into reality.”
Unity is the world’s most popular real-time development platform, with more than 60% of the world’s VR and AR creations developed on the platform. VRFocus recently interviewed Parisi, and will bring you more details on the future of Unity’s AR and VR development platform later this week.
Das Entwicklerstudio Survios ist eigentlich bekannt für Actiontitel wie Raw Data oder Sprint Vector. Doch die amerikanischen Entwickler können auch anders, wie sie mit ihrem neuen VR-Musikprojekt Electronauts beweisen. Der für 2018 angekündigte VR-Titel soll nicht nur ein einfaches Musikspiel sein, sondern als immersives Tool zur Kreation von elektronischer Musik dienen und dabei jede Menge Möglichkeiten bieten. Electronauts ist dabei nicht nur für PC-Headsets angekündigt, sondern auch für die PSVR.
Electronauts – Immersives Musiktool für PlayStation VR und PC-Brillen
In Electronauts dürfen die Spieler in ein virtuelles Tonstudio eintauchen, um dort aus spielerische Weise Musikcontent zu erschaffen. Egal ob zur Entwicklung eigener Kompositionen, für den Griff zum virtuellen Instrument oder zum Remix eines bekannten Musiktitels, der Kreativität sollen dabei kaum Grenzen gesetzt sein.
So dürfen die Spieler mithilfe der Motion Controller verschiedene Instrumente spielen und dadurch ihre eigenen Musikstücke aufnehmen. Zudem kann man die geschaffenen Aufnahmen mit verschiedenen Mischpulten durch Loops, Filter und weitere Optionen verändern. Weiter soll im VR-Titel eine große Auswahl an bekannten Musiktiteln von berühmten Künstlern zur Verfügung stehen.
Das VR-Musiktool entsteht in Zusammenarbeit mit dem norwegischen Produzentenduo Stargate, die bereits mit hochkarätigen Musikern wie beispielsweise Coldplay zusammenarbeiteten.
Mikkel Erisken von Stargate ist begeistert vom gemeinsamen VR-Projekt: „Noch nie zu vor konnte man auf diese Weise Musik schaffen und damit gleichzeitig auf immersive Art interagieren. Das ermöglicht ein komplett neues Level an kreativem Freiraum und kann sowohl als Inspiration für erfahrene Musiker, wie auch für Amateure dienen. Dadurch ist zukünftig jeder in der Lage, magische Momente zu erzeugen.“
Eine Anmeldung zur Creator Beta ist bereits jetzt auf der offiziellen Webseite von Survios möglich und richtet sich an alle, die Musikinhalte erstellen und veröffentlichen wollen.
Electronauts is a music creation tool built within an “interactive sonic environment” where users can make, remix, and perform music, regardless of skill level. This is the third VR project from California-based developer Survios, creators of VR action games Raw Data (2017) and the upcoming Sprint Vector.
Scheduled for release in 2018, Electronauts is a radical departure from Survios’ previous work. Described as “the next generation of music creation”, this built-for-VR software aims to give the user the ability to produce slick beats “without needing any prior musical knowledge, skill, or experience.” The title is planned to support SteamVR, HTC Vive, PSVR, and Oculus Rift.
Image courtesy Survios
As the music can be manipulated in real-time, it has strong potential as a live performance tool, allowing users to blend and shape tracks like a DJ. It also features “uniquely designed electronic instruments” that can be played directly, and functions as an elaborate music visualiser. This is achieved with their ‘Music Reality Engine’ that is a form of sequencer, but with non-traditional features optimised for VR.
According to a hands-on from Inverse, the player stands in front of three virtual DJ tables, and the motion controllers become virtual drumsticks. The sticks can be used to hit drum pads directly, but also function as pointing devices to interact with the sequencing tools. “You can interact with the music in a myriad of ways: play instruments, record loops and sequences, layer filters, rearrange pieces, and straight-up compose new parts of the songs,” writes Corey Plante for Inverse. “You can even change the speed at which you slide through the virtual world or adjust the color scheme on the fly.”
Image courtesy Survios
Music creation isn’t a totally new concept for VR. Indeed Inverse compares Electronauts to existing VR visualiser Fantasynth: Chez Nous (2017), and VR musical sandboxes EXA: The Infinite Instrument (Early Access, 2017) and SoundStage (2017). However, Survios’ brings a sizeable studio backed by significant funding to the genre, and is using that weight to attract established musicians and producers to collaborate.
Grammy award-winning music producers Stargate are already on board, with more high-profile collaborations to come, the company says. According to the announcement on Survios’ main site, Stargate will help them “incorporate the music of A-class artists, producers, and DJs” into the software, allowing users to “remix songs and engage with these top artists’ music in a brand new way.”
Image courtesy Survios
Applications for the upcoming closed beta can be submitted on the official Electronauts website, which hopes to encourage musicians to produce music that could be featured in the full release.
“Never before have you been able to create music and interact with sound in a truly immersive way. This opens up for a totally new level of creative freedom and will inspire both seasoned artist and musicians as well as people with no musical training. Anyone can instantly create magic,” says Stargate’s Mikkel Eriksen. “The fact that you can play with material from today’s most talented artists makes it even more compelling. I truly believe Electronauts is groundbreaking, and a game changer in music creation.”
Survios, the L.A.-based virtual reality (VR) developer most well known for its first-person shooter (FPS) Raw Data and upcoming assault course experience Sprint Vector has announced a new title, Electronauts for VR music lovers.
Electronauts is a music creation tool designed for all ability levels, where users can venture into a surreal sonic experience which they can remix, compose, jam, and perform on Survios’ uniquely designed electronic instruments. To showcase what the experience can actually achieve Survios enlisted Grammy-winning super-producer duo Stargate to incorporate the music of A-class artists, producers, and DJs into Electronauts.
“Electronauts harnesses the power of VR to go inside of a song and feel completely in control of the music,” said Nathan Burba, Survios cofounder and CEO in a statement. “We’re incredibly excited to announce Electronauts alongside a highly anticipated new computer like the iMac Pro, which can easily handle the demands of our high-performance VR software. We are also excited to collaborate with Stargate who share our vision for pushing the creative limits of music using VR.”
Additional participating artists will be announced at a later date, with users able to remix songs and engage with these top artists’ music in an immersive setting.
“Never before have you been able to create music and interact with sound in a truly immersive way. This opens up for a totally new level of creative freedom and will inspire both seasoned artist and musicians as well as people with no musical training. Anyone can instantly create magic,” added Stargate’s Mikkel Eriksen. “The fact that you can play with material from today´s most talented artists makes it even more compelling. I truly believe Electronauts is groundbreaking, and a game changer in music creation.”
Actual gameplay details haven’t been released just yet, so it remains to be seen how Electronauts differs from some of the other music creation/DJ style experiences currently available, such as The Music Roomor Soundstage. There’s also been no word on which headsets will be supported.
Those keen on getting an early peek can sign up to the Electronauts Creator Beta, a closed beta for creators interested in VR music creation. When further details about Electronauts become available, VRFocus will let you know.
Survios, the development studio behind Raw Data and Sprint Vector, announced Electronauts today, which marks their third VR project. Electronauts is an immersive, VR music creation tool with a heavy focus on interactivity. Users will be able to experience music in new, surreal ways by remixing, composing, and performing all while using electronic instruments inside VR.
Additionally, Survios is partnering with Grammy-winning “superproducer” duo Stargate (as well as other unannounced artists) to incorporate well-known, top-tier talent into the experience. The official fact sheet also mentions you can “jam with your friends” hinting at a potential multiplayer feature.
“Never before have you been able to create music and interact with sound in a truly immersive way,” said Stargate’s Mikkel Eriksen in a prepared statement. “This opens up for a totally new level of creative freedom and will inspire both seasoned artist and musicians as well as people with no musical training. Anyone can instantly create magic.”
We still don’t know a whole lot about this new project, so the assertion that users have “never before” been able to “create and interact with sound in a truly immersive way” feels like it might be a bit hyperbolic in the face of existing VR music apps such as SoundStage and EXA. According to press materials, it reportedly utilizes a new “Music Reality Engine” that’s been trademarked presumably by Survios for this app specifically.
If you’re a musically-gifted VR artist that wants to get in on the ground floor, you can sign up for the closed Creator Beta right now on the official website. Platforms don’t appear to be mentioned anywhere other than some logos in the bottom corner of the website hinting at potential Vive, Rift, and PSVR support.
Let us know what you think down in the comments below!
Update: This post has been updated with additional context and clarity regarding Mikkel Eriksen’s quote.
Sprint Vector is a quirky little thing. We’ve all played racing games before, but never anything like this. Usually in a racing game like Mario Kart or even Project Cars, you’ll sit behind the wheel of a vehicle and use it to boost around race tracks. In the case of Sprint Vector you don’t have a vehicle — you only have your legs and arms.
By swinging your arms at your sides as fast as possible you simulate the thrill of sprinting around the levels. Pushing off the ground sends you flying into the air and holding your hands out in front of you lets you glide around like a superhero. Watching someone play Sprint Vector might be hilarious, but playing it for yourself is downright exhilarating.
You can watch me making a fool of myself (but winning) in the video above while one of the game’s developers talks about it. Sprint Vector is still in development by Survios, the same team behind Raw Data, so we will have to wait and see how the finished product fairs, but we’re certainly anxious to find out just how much content the developers were able to cram into a seemingly simple concept.
