Augmented & Virtual Reality Confabulation
What Augmented Reality and Virtual Reality developers are talking about
The absence of Terminators in 2019 means VR is probably the closest we’re going to get to time travel. But how do we ensure trips to our past are as accurate as possible? NHK Enterprises (NEP) and Rhizomatiks have one idea.
The pair this week announced a new project set to showcase at SXSW next month. Simply named The Time Machine, it will allow audiences to travel back to 1964 Tokyo. Crucially, the Japanese capital has been recreated not through interpretation but by using actual pictures of the city taken from that year. The aim is to provide photo-accurate 3D renditions of sites around Tokyo. Check out the trailer below.
We’ve seen this process, named photogrammetry, used in VR before. It’s being utilized to preserve historic artifacts, for example. But this is the first time we’ll have seen images from the past used to allow people to step back in time. That means that the world you see will be in black and white.
Using an HTC Vive, viewers will find themselves standing at the iconic Shibuya Scramble Intersection in the present day. They’ll then travel back to 1964, visiting sites like Hachiko statue at Shibuya’s JR Train Station, the Tokyo Bunka Kaikan (Tokyo Cultural Center) and Miyamasu-zaka Hill.
Produced by Toshio Tsuchiya, the piece is a part of celebrations leading up to Tokyo’s 2020 Summer Olympics. The games were last held in Tokyo in, you guessed it, 1964.
The Time Machine will be up and running from March 10th – 13th at the Austin Convention Center.
Tagged with: SXSW, The Time Machine, tokyo
The post Ambitious VR Project Restores 1964 Tokyo With Real Images appeared first on UploadVR.
Nintendo has won a copyright case against MariCar, provider of a hugely popular Tokyo tourist attraction that lets you go-kart around the city’s streets wearing costumes inspired by Nintendo’s famous video game characters
The post Nintendo wins battle against Tokyo’s Mario-inspired go-kart tourist attraction appeared first on Digital Trends.
Today, an incredibly short trailer reveals that the Tokyo 42 release date for PC and Xbox One is May 31. PS4 owners will have to wait until mid-July. The game is being developed by SMAC Games and Mode 7.
The post ‘Tokyo 42’ release date revealed in stylish, ultra-short trailer appeared first on Digital Trends.
We see plenty of strange (and sometimes downright creepy) VR games coming out of Japan, but every once in a while there’s one that we can’t help but highlight.
A.I am Monster is one such game. Cave, a studio known for scrolling shoot’em up arcade titles, is working on this bizarre experience in which you play as giant robotic Japanese school girl.We can’t work out much of the story from all the Japanese, but it looks like the protagonist is a normal girl that has the power to transform into this giant because of course. You tower over Tokyo and use position-tracked controls to swat buildings away, pick up military tanks and throw them into helicopters that are trying to bring you down. No, I’m not making any of this up. Just watch the trailer below.
Fair warning: the trailer does have a school girl actually playing the game, but not all is as it seems. Wait until the end of the footage.
Honestly, Tokyo can’t catch a break when it comes to giant monsters that want to destroy everything. You even have a laser beam, which you fire out from your chest to destroy multiple buildings at once. You get points for making as much carnage as possible.
In truth, gameplay looks incredibly rough. The framerate slows to a crawl every time the players topples a building or enters combat, and the textures are bland, blurry, and plain. We’re not sure why Cave is showing the game in such an early state, but we certainly hope the team can dress things up a bit in time for the full launch, which is scheduled for some time in 2017. We’re also not yet sure if it will come to the Oculus Rift and PlayStation VR too.
Kaiju games are already pretty popular in the VR field, with several games that let you destroy cities already available on both the Oculus Rift and HTC Vive. We’re also looking forward to next year’s Giant Cop, which puts a different spin on the genre by tasking you as a giant that protects a city.
Tagged with: A.I am Monster, japan, kaiju, tokyo
Virtual reality (VR) can put you in a location better than than most technologies. It’s why VR has been gaining popularity within the tourism industry for showcasing exotic destinations or luxury travelling. Most recently the Tokyo metropolitan government has opened a website and 360-degree VR movie channel in a bid to promote tourism attractions in the Tokyo and Tohoku, Chugoku and Shikoku regions.
Tokyo will be hosting the 2020 Olympic and Paralympic Games, and in preparation for the event, as well as continued tourism promotion afterwards, the government has created several immersive sightseeing routes for visitors to see prior to arriving.
There are currently ten immersive 360-degree video available, split evenly between Spring and Summer categories. Videos for Spring include Full of Surprises, which looks at cuisine, and Boat Tours, which, you guessed it, are short clips of tours on boats. While for Summer there’s Summer Waters, all about relaxation and keep cool, and Fantastic Fireworks, showcasing some of the displays visitors will be able to see.
There will be more videos added for Autumn and Winter in the coming months, but to checkout the ones already up head to the website or YouTube. Find the 360-degree videos on the YouTube app for smartphones for a more immersive experience using a head-mounted display (HMD) such as Google Cardboard.
For all the latest VR news from around the world, keep reading VRFocus.