Category: Thomas Gere

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Join VRFocus For A Post Gamescom XR Review This September

Events are tricky, sometimes there’s just only so much you can do to get to them or see everything there when you do. The next major event on the horizon is, of course, Gamescom next month and after a somewhat lackluster feeling E3 earlier this year, there’s a lot of expectation going in to it. 

Realities Centre Huckletree WestFor those not able to get to this year’s Gamescom event, taking place from August 21st 2018 through to the 25th in Cologne Germany, VRFocus is giving members of the UK XR community an extra opportunity to check out in person some of the virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR) experiences that will be shown.  We’ve teamed up once again with the team at Realities Centre to present what is being called “The Post Gamescom #XR Review” – a chance to demo, connect and discuss everything to do with immersive technology that Gamescom reveals.

Amongst those currently confirmed as attending are Cherry Pop Games with Football Nation VR, Dream Reality Interactive and Rebellion’s physics-based platform title Arca’s Path VR and The Persistence,  Firesprite’s roguelike horror for PlayStation VR. Along with the opportunity to play the videogames on show there will also be a number of speakers and a panel discussing VR and AR’s role at this year’s Gamescom event and the latest in immersive technology news. Led by VRFocus‘ Editor and CEO Kevin Joyce and Nina Salomons who’ll be familiar to regular VRFocus readers from our regular interview videos.

“Gamescom is always a highlight in the annual videogames event calendar, and over the years has become one of the biggest showcases for new and exciting hardware and software.” Says Joyce, “Working with UK developers to bring their titles back to UK audiences is exactly the kind of opportunity that VRFocus was always designed to provide.”

“The UK XR community is hugely passionate, and the Realities Centre is keen to enable everyone access to all the latest developments whether or not they have the budget to attend international trade shows. Partnering with VRFocus for the Post Gamescom #XR Review enables Realities Centre further reach into the UK community and to attract the biggest names in XR.” adds Thomas Gere, Realities Centre CEO.

The Persistence
The Persistence

The event takes place on Thursday, 6th September 2018, at the Realities Centre at Huckletree West, Mediaworks, White City in London. Applications for tickets can be made at https://www.eventbrite.com/e/vr-gaming-showcase-with-gamescom-review-in-association-with-vrfocus-tickets-45551446603. Regular tickets are free, and demos and talks will begin at 7PM. Those who purchase a VIP ticket however will be able to gain access to the demos an hour earlier. Please see the Eventbrite listing for further details.

VRFocus will, of course, be keeping you fully up to date on all the VR and AR news over the Gamescom period. We also announced another event yesterday, the third VR Diversity Initiative (VRDI) meetup which is taking place at the end of this month. You can find out more details about that, here.

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The Realities Centre on Supporting the VR Diversity Initiative

The Realities Centre is a space dedicated to accelerating virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR) for start-ups and corporates. Based in London they have two locations where they regularly host events, hackathons and showcase VR. Previously they have done a Post-CES event with VRFocus and showcased nominated VR films from Sundance Film Festival’s XR Awards in Huckletree West. VRFocus spoke to Thomas Gere, the founder and CEO of the Realities Centre about how they are also supporting diversity.

Realities_Centre

The VR Diversity Initiative 2018 VR Kick-Off! was hosted by Hobs Studio, the largest 3D printing company in the UK that utilises VR, AR and 3D printing for large projects. Having their own academy, and supporting Hobs Studio with their academy, the Realities Centre supported the VR Diversity Initiative with hardware, set-up and making sure everything worked during the event. All of the PC’s were provided by BlueHire whilst the Realities Centre helped provide some headsets.

“We are joining VRFocus and Hobs Studio and lots of other amazing supporters for their virtual reality diversity initiative, which is something that is very close to our hearts. There’s a lack of talent in virtual reality,” says Gere. He believes there’s a real potential for individuals to get jobs in sectors or roles that they’re unaware of such as 3D artist or 3D printing artist. The Realities Centre and Academy Class have a VR bootcamp already, and are helping support Hobs Studio with their #FutureSkills programs.

“We’re looking to have a lot more events like this ourselves at the Realities Centre, we also have an academy where we have been teaching how to use VR and AR, and how to make applications such as there’s Hololens as well which is the mixed reality (MR) one, and we’re looking also to grow the VR Diversity Initiatives and help people,” Gere confirms.

To find out more watch the video below.

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Raindance Film Festival Announce Raindance 2018 VR/AR Awards

The Raindance Film Festival, which celebrated 25 years in 2017, has become one of the world’s largest independent film festivals. Originating in the UK, with London being one of its main bases, it operates in a number of major cities around the world. And much as with other film festivals around the globe, it has begun including pioneering immersive works, with the very best experiences celebrated in the Raindance VRX Awards. The 2018 edition of which was recently opened by Raindance, with submissions in virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR) experiences now being accepted.

2018 is the first year that Raindance Film Festival is accepting AR experiences, now added to the categories in the newly rechristened Raindance 2018 VR/AR Awards. This comes after the showcase of Duncan Walker of Trashgames’ AR film, NEST, in 2017 that was created using an iPhone and ARKit.

At an event in White City, London, Raindance Film Festival did a recap of last year’s VRX Awards and gave attendees the opportunity to view the experiences again if they missed them. Thomas Gere, Founder and CEO of the Realities Centre gave VRFocus a tour of the space where they helped showcase three HTC roomscale experiences in the VR Studio that were around 15-20 minutes long. As well as seven other experiences that were on the PlayStation VR, Oculus Rift and other mobile VR platforms. The event was organised in slots, and tickets or time slots had to be pre-booked and bought before the event. For those walking around the event, an iPad was being passed around where attendees could also try out AR videogame Orbu.

Elliot Grove, Founder of the Raindance Film Festival spoke to VRFocus about the changes. “I think that VR, AR, MR and XR is the biggest thing that’s happened to cinema since the marriage of sound to pictures over a hundred years ago. and it’s taking a long time for the so-called visual ‘flatty’ content creators to embrace VR and that’s because it’s a whole new medium, and it’s a whole new [set of] rules. What works in traditional filmmaking does not translate that easily into this amazing new technology – and so accessible too. Even every month it seems that prices of headsets come down, new software, new hardware, it’s just exploding like mad.”

Grove hints at interesting categories and discusses the exciting new format of AR films coming to the contest. He also advises filmmakers to learn from gamers, saying that part of this year’s Raindance Film Festival will focus on gaming.  When asked about the coming of 3D 180 stereoscopic cameras that are coming out this year such as the Lenovo Mirage Camera, the YI Horizon VR180 or Kodak’s unnamed fold-able camera Grove responded with saying, “180 3D, I think will be a fad.” However, he still thinks it’s interesting to see how storytellers are learning how to play with new technology.

Last year Raindance saw the return of the VR Arcade, where attendees could book slots in order to experience 20 VRX Award shortlisted experiences on the Oculus Rift, HTC Vive, Google Daydream, PlayStation VR and Samsung Gear VR. With over 100 submissions, 40 experiences were shortlisted with four per award category, which included such classifications as ‘Best Sensual VR Experience’.

To find out more about the Raindance 2018 VR/AR Awards watch the video below.

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How to set-up TPCast Wireless Adapter for Oculus Rift

If you bought the recently released TPCast Wireless Adapter for the Oculus Rift and can’t wait to make your virtual reality (VR) experience untethered – but you can’t find a video guide on how to set it up, then you’re in luck. VRFocus has created this little guide and accompanying video to help get you set up and on your way.

TPCast_Oculus_Rift

The first step is obviously to unbox it, and VRFocus has made a little video for that too here. (Note: During the unboxing the PC transmitter rod and PC transmitter base weren’t found). After that however it’s on to the main event:
Installing the Right Software
  1. Install the TPCast Software for the Oculus Rift on your computer. Restart your computer.
The PC Transmitter
  1. Screw the PC transmitter rod and base together. Attach the PC transmitter onto the support rod and have it face the gaming area (similar to the Oculus sensor).
  2. Plug the PC transmitter power adapter DC plug into the DCIN interface. Insert one end of the HDMI cable into the PC transmitter’s HDMI port and the other into the PC’s HDMI port.
Connecting the Oculus Rift
  1. Taking out cables of the original Oculus Rift by removing the foam bracket.
  2. Plug the HMD strap through the tail end of the helmet’s receiver and out from the front end marked with the letters “TPCAST”. Then, pass  it through the helmet’s wire hole and secure it tightly.
  3. Insert the connectors of the long cable with the Oculus logo into the interface of the Oculus Rift. Plug A1 and A2 connectors into the corresponding interfaces, double check they are secured and plugged in. Re-attach foam bracket and ensure the cables are fit to the user.
Powering up Your Power box
  1. Connect the B1 and B2 plus into the power supply and HDMI ports of the power box (they’re labelled to make it easy).
  2. Plug the battery to the power box. The blue batter light indicates the remaining battery power level (disconnect the batter if it is not being used).
  3. Put the power box with the battery in the portable pack and attach to the strap.
Getting to the Router of Things
  1. Connect the router power adapter and confirm that the the power indicator at the front of the panel is on.
  2. If the PC is connected to the network via the Ethernet port, disconnect the cable from the PC Ethernet port and connect it to the router’s WAN port. Connect the LAN port of the router to the PC through the supplied network cable.
  3. In the PC’s network connection settings in a Windows system, select ‘Local connection’ to connect to the router. Change the connection of the TCP/IP settings to automatically obtain an IP address and DNS server address.
Double, Triple check everything is connected.

TPCAST_CONNECTED

  1. Run the “wireless adapter connection assistant”.
  2. When the wireless connection finishes and reports positive connectivity, launch the Oculus home software.
  3. Enjoy untethered wifi.

If this guide wasn’t clear, VRFocus recruited Thomas Gere from the Realities Centre to set it up and we’ve created a video guide of how to put it together.

 

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What are Investors Looking for in Virtual Reality?

The biggest problem facing start-up companies working in virtual reality (VR) is finding the money to fund their projects. VR is expensive and to get an experience made requires high-end PC’s or laptops, expensive head-mounted displays to test prototypes on, developers that comprehend videogame engines such as Unreal or Unity and with no real proper distribution model for 360 films that can be monetized, the waves are rather rocky and VR is a risky investment. VRFocus speaks to Thomas Gere, there CEO of the Realities Centre in London about investment for VR projects.

Those who are on the ‘in’ within the VR London scene are aware of the Realities Centre, an incubator space for augmented reality (AR) and VR. The Realities Centre has two different spaces dedicated to new immersive technologies. The first centre is located near Moorgate and focuses on training as well as remote collaboration for corporate whilst the second centre is based in Huckletree West in White City, which helps content creators in the creative industries. Since it’s existence last year, the Realities Centre has hosted 18 events. Each event focuses on a particular aspect such as retail or artificial intelligence (A.I.) and links a hackathon as well in order to feel what developers and investors are interested in. This puts Thomas Gere in a position where he can see what investors are looking for and where technology is lacking.

Gere explains that in the last two years he grew frustrated with so many events around VR being so broad, with no real focus to expanding or building upon the existing VR hardware and software. With the Realities Centre he has built a community of over 150 developers, the involvement of 25 corporate companies and over 30 mentors. It doesn’t stop there. The Realities Centre also have an acceleration programme called the Vision Programme. This has been specifically created to improve VR and AR experiences by bringing together innovators that work in the medical or Fintech industries together with start-up companies to share their knowledge on machine learning, computer vision and A.I. to help incubate ideas and potentially spin off new technologies. The programme is starting later this year and in quarter 1. Besides the hackathons and events, the Realities Centre also have academy courses which help introduce the concept of AR and VR to coporates or anybody interested really into making VR or AR applications. They are also starting Microsoft hololens courses, to future proof developers and corporates for mixed reality (MR).

What are investors looking for?

When it comes to B2B investors are looking for any type of technology that is involved in training and education. This is cross media and can range from areas such as medical to engineering.

For longer term projects, investors are looking for applications in retail and mixed reality. In other words the future of user experiences, lighter head-mounted displays, hardware technology or cloud computing.

With regards to content, investors are looking at seriable content that can bring in brand loyalty or returning customers. This can be five to ten episodes that have interactivity inside of them and can bring people wanting to come back for more.

Where can UK companies find funding for their projects?

At the moment it is easiest to get money from the US when you are based in the UK. Most early stage investment come from companies such as BoostVC or the VR Fund. It’s taking a little longer to gain traction here in the UK, because going through the traditional routes of finding investment in Tech or Media do not comprehend the technology as it is disruptive or think it’s still too risky. Gere admits this is slowly changing and is happy to see that Digital Catapult and the Arts Council have started to acknowledge the new forms of content with the Creative XR Programme that offers £20,000 to fund a prototype in immersive technology. At the moment this is a small step into the right direction, Gere explains that in Europe and specifically France finding public funding is a lot easier to find due to its structure.

How much can I ask for funding for a VR project?

Besides the £20,000 offered in the Creative XR Programme mentioned above, it’s good to start with £100k – £200k in the UK. This is through traditional early stage VC’s. Gere says that angel groups are not interested in AR and VR, but their funds might be interested. If a project is over £300k it will require going across the Atlantic and bringing in several investors.

The Realities Centre have been working together with various investors in the US, sharing pitchdesks and aiding companies that want incubation with the Realities Centre. Gere says that he has also been working to get Chinese investment. The first centre is located in a Cocoon building – owned by the Chinese, and China has a long history of investing in media companies.

Find out more in the video below where Gere discusses the future for investment next year and how SteamVR is the key to making your VR experience cross-platform.