Step Inside Art with VR

Art is a subject area that is a natural fit for VR integration. Not only can students harness creative art tools like Tilt Brush, Masterpiece VR or Quill but there are amazing opportunities for them to visit virtual galleries using platforms like the Kremer Collection (which I recently tested with the Vive Focus in the desert) or The VR Museum of Fine Art. Both of these types of experiences offer transformative learning opportunities in the art classroom as both afford students with the ability to do things that have never before been possible.

There is another strand to virtual art education though and it is perhaps the most unique of all, offering a true redefinition in how works of art are appreciated – from the inside out. This third area of VR Art allows art students and enthusiasts to step inside 3D versions of artwork that are living, breathing canvasses. Obviously there is a degree of creative freedom being taken with each artist’s work – since they didn’t create these new experiences themselves – but that doesn’t make them any less powerful. Elements of paintings can be inspected from new angles, palettes engulf you and the integration of additional multimedia elements like music, narration and animation elevate these applications further.

So let’s take a look at some examples of these types of experiences. Naturally 6DOF, room-scale experiences are more immersive when it comes to this artistic sub-genre but there are a couple of examples available to mobile VR users too.

Saryan VR

This app, available on iOS and Android, was inspired by the painting “Armenia” by Martiros Saryan, recognised as one of the masters of Armenian artwork. It’s a simple experience that places you in a fixed position to look around the vibrant 3D.
rendering of the painting and bask in its vivid colours.

Saryan screenshot

Art Plunge

This app is available on iOS and Android but also via the Oculus Store for the Gear VR and Go. It offers the chance to zoom into five famous works of art (Mona Lisa, Starry Night, The Birth of Venus, The Creation of Adam and Girl Reading a Letter at an Open Window) and as you do, the canvas expands to paint in additional details around the central subject e.g. the room that Mona Lisa sits in. It’s another short experience but well-produced and a worthy download.

Tilt Brush

When it comes to the 6DOF experiences, you can actually start with Tilt Brush as some of its most talented users have recreated several artistic masterpieces including Botticelli’s “The Birth of Venus” and Munch’s “The Scream. You can access many of these from the main gallery menu inside Tilt Brush and of course what makes them even better is that you could even then add your own creative touch to remix them a little!

Eyes of the Owl: Bosch VR

Available via Steam this is a different beast to the previously mentioned Bosch VR on mobile platforms. To be honest I almost didn’t include it as you don’t truly step inside the painting here as much as zoom in for a close look. The artwork does animate though and the framing is quite special in that you begin the experience stood with Hieronymus Bosch himself inside his studio, in front of his infamous epic “The Garden of Earthly Delights.” Bosch then prompts you to inspect the painting using a magnifying glass and as you dive into some of the incredible detail on the canvas, he narrates to explain his intentions, the symbolism used and more. It’s a great experience for art students but for those unfamiliar with the piece, please do note that it is quite explicit in its nature!

Eyes of the Owl screenshot

Dreams of Dali

This multi-award winning offering was produced by The Dali Museum which definitely adds authenticity to proceedings. It allows you to step inside his 1935 painting “Archaeological Reminiscence of Millet’s ‘Angelus’ and as you may expect, it’s quite the surreal experience. As you wander around and climb the towers, you come to realise that it’s an experience that is full of surprises and hidden details. It’s also an excellent example of the power of VR to allow art to be viewed from a new perspective.

Dreams of Dali logo

The Night Café

This virtual ode to Van Gogh is a free download for Vive/Rift that places you inside the striking, unique pallet of his work. You can navigate around the café to find 3D versions of his Sunflowers and several other masterpieces. As the piano player sets the tone, you even around a corner to find Vincent himself – the master inside his own creation. An essential download for any Art Department.

The Night Cafe keyart

I recently recorded a video for my newly refurbished YouTube channel which showcases The Night Café, Dreams of Dali and Eyes of The Owl. You can watch that below and please do subscribe to the channel for more great VR education content.

If you know any other examples of VR experiences where you can step inside artwork, do let me know. You can find me on Twitter via @steve_bambury.

The Top 10 Educational VR Apps of 2018

2018 has been a great year for immersive technology in education. From the launch of the affordable Oculus Go headset to the transition of the Merge Cube from toy to educational tool to the plethora of ARkit and ARcore enabled experiences that launched on mobile devices, there has been a wealth of opportunities for educators around the world to begin integrating AR and VR in classrooms like never before. Whilst mobile developers seem to be focusing more squarely on AR-enabled content, there have been some stellar virtual reality experiences released for the Vive, Rift and even WMR headsets.

Berlin Blitz

I actually produced a “Best of the Year” list last year (which you can find on my site www.virtualiteach.com) but I specifically focused on educational apps for the Vive. For this year’s list, I’m expanding the range to include other platforms as some excellent content has launched outside of the Steam VR Store. I will only be including apps that were actually released during 2018 though and I would highlight the fact that every app on this list was personally selected by me and this list does not represent the views of VRFocus as a whole.

Before we take a look at the Top 10 itself, I want to give honourable mentions to five apps:

Honourable Mentions

Sharecare VR – This excellent app launched late in 2017 but I didn’t try it in time to include it on my list last year. Being able to stand inside a beating human heart is a breathtaking experience that literally echoes the educational future portrayed in Ready Player One.

Kolb Antartica Experience – A great idea and I love the interactivity with the penguins but it only lasts about three minutes at present. I’ll return to this in 2019 to see how it has developed.

Robotics in VR – This app lets you build a giant Lego EV3 robot then program it to move around a warehouse-sized maze. It’s still early-access but well worth a look.

Dreams of Dali – As weird as you’d expect but great for art students looking for a new perspective on the work of Salvador Dali.

1943 Berlin Blitz – Brilliant use of historical recordings to bring this moment to life in VR. It’s annoying that the app insists on the use of a gamepad controller though!

With the honourable mentions out of the way, let’s dive into the actual Top 10:

Top 10 VR Education Apps 2018

1. Number Hunt (Vive/Rift/WMR)

I absolutely loved the Number Hunt concept as it’s an excellent example of gamification in action. Taking the format a first-person shooter, you find yourself hurtling around a range of vibrant arenas that are populated by anthropomorphised numbers. Your aim is to make target totals before your opponents by shooting these numerical NPCs with a gun that can apply each of the four operations (add, subtract, multiply, divide). It’s great fun and a totally unique approach to practising maths.

2. Nanome (Vive/Rift/WMR)

In the popular SAMR model for technology integration on education, the highest level (Redefinition) is defined as “technology allows for the creation of new tasks, previously inconceivable.” Virtual reality seems to achieve this quite easily, especially when using an app like Nanome – one of the most exciting scientific apps to launch in 2018. Nanome allows the user to interact with an enormous range of chemicals and proteins like never before. It supersizes nanotechnology as if the student was Ant-Man and offers huge potential both in the upper levels of schools, higher education and beyond. Best of all it allows for multiple students to collaborate within the same space!

3. Nefertari: Journey to Eternity (Vive)

Ancient Egypt is my all-time favourite topic to teach and so I’m always eager to try new Egypt-themed VR experiences. This one really did raise the bar though. The app allows you to walk through Queen Nefertari’s tomb, guided by some first-rate narration and interaction points teach students about the history, culture and construction of the tomb. It also boasts some incredibly crisp visuals thanks to the use of super-precise digital scanning and unlike some other Egyptian tomb apps, it’s not terribly dark, which can be off-putting to younger students. It really is great to see educational content being produced with such polish and detail.

4. Becoming Homeless (Vive)

I actually had to double check the release date on this one as I was convinced it came out in 2017 (it was actually launched January 2018.) Stanford VR Lab set the benchmark when it comes to empathetic VR experiences and exploring how VR affects us as human beings and Becoming Homeless is a great example of this. It’s a short but potent experience which sees you step into the shoes of someone who can no longer afford a home. As your situation worsens, you experience the harsh realities of life on the streets first-hand. Powerful and moving, this app can easily be used as a stimulus for writing, a discussion piece in the social studies classroom or an experiment in the psychology classroom.

5. Hold The World (Rift/WMR)

Produced by Sky and featuring the living legend that is Sir David Attenborough, this is unlike any other virtual museum app out there in that it focuses on interaction. This summer I took my kids to The British Museum in London and some of their favourite parts were the various stations where you could actually handle artefacts under the guidance of a resident historian who would explain the significance of each object. Hold The World offers a similar experience at London’s Natural History Museum with the unparalleled Sir Attenborough as your guide. Having selected the object you wish to learn more about, you can then focus on specific parts and dive deeper into its story. Incredible and fascinating in equal measure.

6. Google Tour Creator (Web)

Tour Creator is a web-based tool for building interactive, multi-scene virtual tours. Whilst it’s similar to several other pre-existing platforms, it streamlined the creation process (and made it free) so that it is by far the most accessible tool for educators looking to integrate simple 360 tours across the curriculum. Completed tours can be viewed in stereoscopic mode on iOS and Android devices and it also boasts Google Poly integration for easy sharing of projects. Like many other educators, I hope that it will also integrate with the Expeditions platform in the near future. It may be the only app on the list that isn’t a 6DOF, room-scale experience but Tour Creator offers a great stepping stone for educators new to VR.

7. Apollo 11 VR HD – (Vive/Rift/WMR)

I nearly left this high definition re-release of Immersive VR Education’s landmark title of the list since the original version was a launch title for the Vive and Rift back in 2016. I changed my mind though since even those who have tried the original will find fresh awe and wonder in this stunning update that serves as a testament to how far IVRE have progressed in such a relatively short space of time. The addition of new demo modes which allow you to choose specific scenes from the full experience are also useful for educators looking to facilitate larger groups. Essential stuff.

8. Anne Frank House VR (Rift/Go/Gear)
I’m a huge proponent for using VR to allow students to travel in time and walk through history and this is a superb example of just that. Produced in association with The Anne Frank Museum, this richly detailed experience recreates the infamous Secret Annex where Anne Frank and her family lived in hiding for more than two years during the Second World War. Historically accurate and punctuated by quotes from her diary, it is a truly powerful way to engage young historians with one of the most important stories of the last century.

9. The Kremer Collection VR Museum
I love the whole concept of virtual museums and galleries allowing people without the means of visiting the real places to engage with exhibitions like never before. 2018 saw the release of the Kremer Collection VR experience which many feel raised the bar. This virtual gallery contains more than 70 classic works of Old Masters like Rembrandt rendered in stunning detail and allowing you to get closer than ever before. Each is accompanied by both text and audio, a simple but important accessibility feature that enables a broader range of ages to engage with the artwork.

10. HoloLab Champions (Vive/Rift)

I remember watching previews of this Chemistry themed app from Schell Games in 2017 and thinking it looked fantastic and it didn’t disappoint. There are several virtual lab sims out there nowadays but none offer such a student-friendly approach through the clever gameshow framing of the science. Students are challenged to complete experiments quickly but also safely to become a Champion and unlock various achievements. It’s a canny mix of entertainment and education that is often lacking in other more serious titles and it’s an incredibly engaging way to let students hone their practical science skills in a safe environment.

OVERVIEW, The Wizards, Gravity Sketch VR and More Nominated for the Viveport Developer Awards

Last month submissions opened for the 2nd annual Vive Developer Awards (VDA), seeking the best virtual reality (VR) experiences available on the platform. Now the ten nominees have been announced for the five different categories covering the breadth of VR entertainment.

vda trophy image

The five categories are: Entertainment, Education, Arts & Culture, Enterprise and Arcade, with any app considered so long as it was available on Viveport.

The successful nominees are:

Entertainment

Education

Arts & Culture

  • Galactic Gallery
  • The Kremer Collection VR Museum

Enterprise

  • Gravity Sketch VR
  • Primitive

Arcade

OVERVIEW screenshot3

The nominees are now inline for some significant prizes, with the first prize winner taking home $50,000 USD. They’ll also be featured in a studio profile video produced by HTC Vive, get priority access to new developer hardware and of course, a shiny trophy. For those that don’t snag first place, coming in second will still get them $20,000 to spend.

Winners will be announced at a special event on 19th March coinciding with the Game Developers Conference (GDC) 2018.

Last years VDA saw Fantastic Contraption, by Northway Games secure the top spot in the Create category, Apollo 11 VR, by Immersive VR Education Ltd win the Explore category, Cloudlands: VR Minigolf by Futuretown won Connect, while Penrose Studios’ short animation Allumette secured the Experience category.

It’s been a busy year for HTC and HTC Vive, with the company launching its first standalone headset, the Vive Focus in China. While a western release date has yet to be confirmed, 2018 is shaping up to be the year of standalone head-mounted displays (HMDs), with Oculus Go and Lenovo Mirage Solo due out, and the Pico Goblin already available. In China the Vive Focus will have to compete with a new version of the Pico Neo which uses the HTC’s Vive Wave platform, and  Xiaomi/Oculus collaboration Mi VR Standalone.

As for Viveport, the platform recently announced new membership benefits in addition to increasing the monthly subscription price from $6.99 USD to $8.99. When the winning nominees are announced, VRFocus will bring you all the latest details.

HTC Announces 2018 Viveport Developer Awards Nominees, $50K First Prize up for Grabs

Last year marked HTC’s very first Vive Developer Awards (VDAs), which saw tens of thousands of dollars go to VR app developers across a number of categories. Now, HTC has announced the nominees for this year’s VDAs who will be in competition to win $50,000 in first place prize money.

HTC has established 5 categories for this year’s VDAs including entertainment, education, arts & culture, enterprise and arcade. A total of 10 nominees came out of the initial evaluations, a review process held by a panel of HTC employees that looked at the games’ overall virtual reality experience and engagement metrics  such as total downloads, total user sessions and overall time played.

Without further ado, here’s this year’s VDA nominees:

image courtesy HTC

Entertainment

Education

Arts & Culture

Enterprise

Arcade

Winners will be announced at a special event on March 19th coinciding with the Game Developers Conference (GDC).

First place for each category will receive $50k, which includes a studio profile video produced by the Vive team, “priority access” to new developer hardware, and a shiny trophy. Second place gets a financial award of $20,000, and all of the above (besides the $50K of course).

Last year’s first-prize winners included Apollo 11 VR (2016), Fantastic Contraption (2016), Cloudlands: VR Minigolf (2016), and Allumette (2016).

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