Category: Unity Engine

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Update: Unity’s Carte Blanche VR Creator Releases In October

Update: Unity’s Carte Blanche VR Creator Releases In October

Update: Unity has been in touch to clarify a few things about its Carte Blanche showcase, which actually was livestreamed on Unity Japan’s Twitch account. The company specified that Carte Blanche is currently an ‘experimental prototype’ and not a platform, and will not feature the ability to share experiences.

Original Story: Unity had some big VR news to share at its Unite Tokyo conference earlier this week.

According to tweets from the event, which wasn’t livestreamed, the engine maker showcased the latest progress with its Carte Blanche VR creation suite during the show. Not only that, but Unity’s Timoni West confirmed the platform will release to the public this October.

For those that don’t know, Carte Blanche is different to Unity’s Editor VR, which lets developers jump into their games through headsets to edit scenes and use specialized third-party tools. The hope is that, one day, Editor VR will let experienced Unity developers create even better experiences while a new wave of developers are attracted to the platform. Carte Blanche, meanwhile, wants to get everyone creating in VR regardless of skillset.

To do this, the platform presents a simplified UI with a wide range of pre-made assets. As can be seen in images of West’s demo, in which the developer appeared to make a cake-themed world, the user jumps into VR and then picks up cards the represent objects like platforms to stand on. These objects can then easily be placed in the game world, represented on a board in front of the user. As they build, the user can jump into these worlds at human scale to play through their levels and test them out.

The result is an accessible world-building system that might not give creators a huge amount of personalization in terms of look and feel but still gets them making VR content faster than they ever have before.

It’s great to hear that Carte Blanche is finally nearing release, though there’s still much to learn about the platform, like how we’ll share our experiences and implement different kinds of mechanics. Ultimately, Unity CEO John Riccitiello sees the platform as something similar to Sony’s LittleBigPlanet franchise in terms of accessibility, though also thinks that truly unique accessible VR creation may need both Editor VR and Carte Blanche to hand.

Unite comes to Berlin in June, so it’s possible we’ll hear more about the platform around then. As for release, we wouldn’t be surprised if the platform launched during Unite’s LA coference in late October.

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Unity Is Creating VR Ads For A New Film In The Saw Horror Franchise

Unity Is Creating VR Ads For A New Film In The Saw Horror Franchise

Various industries are regularly embracing VR’s potential to expand their business and film has been heavily active in a variety of ways. In addition to several tie-in VR experiences we’ve seen, the dawn of immersive VR ads are now a thing as well. Today, we’ve learned that Lionsgate is embracing that concept by partnering with Unity to promote a new entry in the Saw horror franchise.

Arriving in theaters on October 27th this year, Jigsaw is the 8th film in the Saw franchise which was born back in 2004. The Jigsaw VR ad experience, releasing before the film, will be in the form of a “Virtual Room” which is a new tool Unity wants to use to showcase VR’s growing potential for advertising. Within the Virtual Room, users will interact with objects, learn about the upcoming film, and then have to figure out how to save themselves in a “truly visceral and entertaining experience” as so put by Lionsgate’s SVP of Digital Marketing David Edwards in the announcement’s press release.

“At Unity, we want to redefine how people consume advertising,” says Agatha Bochenek, Head of Mobile and VR/AR Advertising at Unity Technologies. “To grow this emerging form of advertising entertainment, we are taking the guesswork out of the biggest hurdles in a new medium — production and distribution. Our goal is to enable advertisers to build high-quality, engaging content quickly which will create memorable experiences, and can seamlessly reach users across all VR platforms.”

With the nature of the Saw franchise revolving roughly around “escape room” horror scenarios, this partnership with Lionsgate for Jigsaw is a seemingly perfect launching point for Virtual Room considering there’s plenty of source material to provide unsettling and memorable set pieces and moments for Jigsaw VR.

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What was Showcased at Unity’s 2017 Unite Conference in Amsterdam

Conferences are always full of speakers, talks and demos, but Unite feels a little different compared to your usual conferences. Despite the rainy weather, Unite managed to create a very relaxed, casual bar-like atmosphere. The great choices of food and drink helped to keep everybody upbeat, excited and positive outlook on the future. Under the easy going hum of geeky conversation VRFocus attended various talks related to virtual reality (VR), augmented reality (AR) and mixed reality (MR). Unity makes it very clear that they’re intent on creating a creative and safe environment for experimenting and building for immersive futures with their software.

At Unite there were several virtual reality (VR) videogames that weren’t finished, but had all been built in Unity. Many of them were still in the beta or experimental stages, and this wasn’t a problem at all. Instead it seemed to help encourage young developers to try and build a VR game themselves. Young developers would come up to software devs showcasing their videogame and ask questions about the videogame, software and hardware. This face-to-face interactivity and genuine conversation from dev-to-dev must be a great way to inspire and ask for help for anybody attending. The various talks discussed mobile VR, VR for advertising, the future of the market, the technical problems you could face as well as live demonstrations on how to create and build in Unity for VR. Microsoft was keen in explaining how mixed reality (MR) was going to change the game when it came to building or creating for various industries whilst Ubisoft showcased some of the MR videogames they’d been experimenting with – explaining why and how things worked when building for augmented reality (AR) and MR.

Stay tuned to VRFocus to see what was being showcased and see how Unity plans to help provide support for developers planning to build for VR, AR and MR.

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Learn To Create Full VR Experiences In Unity With Our 10-Week Intensive Night Course

Learn To Create Full VR Experiences In Unity With Our 10-Week Intensive Night Course

At Upload, we believe in education that prepares you for the real world. Our skills-based learning approach includes a focus on maximizing learning retention, exposure to real client projects and programs to help you build a powerful professional network.

To that end, we have gathered some of the brightest talent in the VR world to share their expertise and knowledge.

Learn More About The 10-Week Course And See The Syllabus

We are offering a 10-week intensive night course at our campuses in both San Francisco and Los Angeles to teach you how to create full VR experiences from the ground up in Unity. This weekly night course is perfect for beginners who want to invest in learning how to create professional VR experiences.

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Apelab and Technicolour Team For Development of VR and AR Content

The Technicolour Experience Center and Apelab are partnering together in order to make the future of virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR) content even easier to achieve for new developers, with the launch of SpatialStories, a full production suite for VR and AR content. Hopefully this will ease more curious content creators into the world of VR and AR development.

SpatialStories is being launched to make VR and AR development creator-friendly, aiding the creation of both VR and AR content for a variety of head-mount displays (HMDs).

Brian Frager is the Lead VR and AR producer at the Technicolor Experience Center, and he believes education on VR and AR is the way forward; “A large part of the Technicolor Experience Center’s mission is to educate the community on this brave new world of immersive media.”

Frager continues; “In order to thrive, VR and AR must have a wide diversity of voices contributing content and pushing the boundaries of creative possibility. We are thrilled to partner with apelab on their SpatialStories platform because it promises to democratize interactive content creation and make these tools accessible to anyone with a story to tell.”

Apelab’s SpatialStories SDK is available now for Unity and offers a simple interface that eases VR and AR content creation. Using it you can create VR and AR apps from within your HMD – removing the boundaries that usually hamper VR and AR development.

Developers interested in the SpatialStories suite and SDK should head on over to their website.

For more on the latest in VR and AR creation tools, be sure to stick with VRFocus.

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Upload LA Education: Learn Unity for Vive And Oculus June 16 – 18

Upload LA Education: Learn Unity for Vive And Oculus June 16 – 18

Start your journey as a VR creator! In just 3 short days from June 16 – June 18 you’ll learn how to build a VR experience from scratch using the Unity game engine. You’ll get to work directly with instructors, hear from two industry experts, and meet the local community. Whether you’re exploring a career in VR, want to prototype an idea or just want to learn something new, this workshop will equip you with the key skills to start creating.

Learn More About the Los Angeles VR Weekend Workshop and Sign Up to Attend

WHAT’S INCLUDED

  • 2 Days of Intensive Skills Training & Networking Dinner
  • HTC Vives & Oculus Rifts for Project Testing
  • Access to Work with Instructors one-on-one
  • One Week Pass to Upload SF or Upload LA
  • Healthy Lunch & Refreshments

UPLOAD LA WEEKEND WORKSHOP FULL SCHEDULE

Friday, June 16th (6:30pm-9pm)

    6:30pm: Dinner, drinks and play VR games in our Holodeck Rooms
    7:00pm: VR Weekend Talk
    7:20pm: Icebreaker
    7:30pm: Intro to the VR Industry: history, design contraints, how VR works
    8:00pm: Intro to Unity | Building your first VR Experience & Selecting your project
    9:00pm: Light drinks and hanging out then we’re done for the night! Get some rest for a big day tomorrow!

Saturday, June 17th (10am-6pm)

    10:00am: Meet and greet and play VR games in our holodeck rooms
    10:30am-12:30pm: Learn to make your first VR game: Shooters Game, Debugging Methods
    12:30pm-12:50pm: VR Weekend Talk
    1:00pm: Lunch
    2:00pm-6:00pm: Finish making your Shooters Game, Paper Prototyping, Create Challenges

Sunday, June 18th (10am-6pm)

    10:00am: Doors open, Learning How to Learn on your own in Future
    11:00am: Continue building Shooters Game and add on Individual Challenges, Showcase Work
    1:00pm: Lunch
    2:00 – 4:30pm: Game Development Process, VR Design Principles Analysis, How to Get Started on Your Own
    4:30pm-6:00pm : Continue building challenges, Share your work, Game testing and playing in VR
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Unity CEO Wants ‘Equivalent of LittleBigPlanet’ Made In VR

Unity CEO Wants ‘Equivalent of LittleBigPlanet’ Made In VR

User-generated content might be a common feature of many games these days, but you could argue that its inception was kick started by Sony’s LittleBigPlanet series. Unity is hoping that, one day, something will do the same for VR.

Unity CEO John Riccitiello said as much to UploadVR in an interview at this week’s Vision Summit. We asked Riccitiello about the company’s two experimental in-VR development tools, Carte Blanche and EditorVR. The latter is already available in an early state, and allows you to edit scenes from within VR, accessing some of the features available to Unity developers on a traditional screen. Carte Blanche, meanwhile, largely remains under wraps but looks to be a simplified way of quickly assembling virtual worlds that anyone can get to grips with.

We’ve seen with straightforward creation software, like Google’s Tilt Brush, that almost anyone can learn how to use the ever-improving toolset and sketch out something in VR. With some serious skill, programming and additional tools, though, you can even use elements created in VR as the pieces for a game. Meanwhile, Mindshow lets people intuitively make cartoons using their  voice and body movements. There’s also Medium, Tvori, Quill, Gravity Sketch and many more projects in development all centered on unleashing creativity through intuitive VR tools. None have yet to find a sweet spot, though, where anyone can use them to jump into VR and make a highly interactive virtual world they can then invite other people to play inside.

Unity may be the company to make it happen. At least, that seems to be the plan according to Riccitiello.

“I want to try and create a world where there can be…as many creators as consumers. I hate the fact that most people are on the outside looking in when it comes to creating technology products. I think that sucks,” he said. “So we’re doing a lot with Unity to make it simpler to use and a lot with Unity to create sort of training materials.”

Riccitiello noted that “obviously Carte Blanche is much easier to use than EditorVR. I think in the fullness of time EditorVR gets there earlier than does Carte Blanche, but Carte Blanche I think most people will probably use that one of two ways.” One of those ways, the CEO says, will be building the platform out to almost make developing a game a game inside itself, just like LittleBigPlanet.

“Somebody is gonna go out and build with Unity the equivalent of LittleBigPlanet,” Riccitiello said. “So here is 100 assets or 1,000 assets and you can import them and build your own game out of that in Carte Blanche. But if you’re really going to get down and edit the actual pieces, you’re going to need some level of Editor capability that’s probably beyond Carte Blanche — so you’re gonna have to intersect with the two.”

When asked when we might see that start to happen, he replied: “We’re working on it now, and it’s not that far from true now. You can use the Editor, then EditorVR to do what I’ve just described. I would say late this year for Carte Blanche having somebody using it to create what I’ve talked to you about, maybe early next year.”

If Unity has its way, the barriers to game development could soon be broken down with the help of VR. That’s an exciting thought.

Senior Editor Ian Hamilton contributed to this report. 

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GDC 2017: Google Daydream Support Coming To Unity On March 31st

GDC 2017: Google Daydream Support Coming To Unity On March 31st

At GDC 2017, Unity held a keynote discussing their impact on the gaming industry, future updates to the engine, and much more. The Unity engine and titular company have been very accommodating when it comes to VR development, having added a feature that even allows developers to work within VR and provided the framework that makes it easier to develop for VR in general. Thus, it’s no surprise that the new 5.6 update to the engine included a couple announcements that benefit VR platforms. The update itself also now has a release date.

The focuses on stage were the fixes for the NavMesh and the progressive lightmapper that adds improved lighting workflow with path tracing solutions & flexible ways to merge shadows. In between details on features, they brought up surprise guests to demo the new Power Ranger Legacy Wars mobile game. The original Green Ranger himself, Jason David Frank, and the Black Ranger in the new film, Ludi Lin. The two played a match against each other, which was won by the Green Ranger of course, and then they shared another announcement for Unity 5.6. For Android and iOS, 5.6 adds support for Google Daydream and Google Cardboard and the full launch of the update will happen on March 31st.

Unity 5.6 also will ship with support for the Vulkan API, a GPU standard from Khronos Group who announced updates to the API and the new VR/AR standard OpenXR at GDC this year. The demo shown on stage was for a mobile game which showed 10%-15% reduction in power consumption when using the Vulkan API over OpenGL|ES. Hopefully, with the added VR extension for the API, immersive experiences will see a rise in efficient computing for the highly demanding virtual experiences.

If you’d like to get early access to Unity engine features, you can join the beta via their website with 5.6 as part of the beta as of today. Stay tuned to UploadVR for more news from GDC 2017.

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Unity CEO Predicts Progress But Not ‘Explosive Growth’ For VR in 2017

Unity CEO Predicts Progress But Not ‘Explosive Growth’ For VR in 2017

As CEO of Unity Technologies, John Riccitiello leads one of the most important companies in VR’s future, but he doesn’t expect the industry to see “explosive growth” next year.

Riccitiello said as much during a Reddit Ask Me Anything session this week. One user asked the CEO about the “gap of disappointment”, a term he had coined back at the Vision Summit in February to describe enthusiasm around VR technology not necessarily reflecting early sales statistics, and how journalists might interpret that.

Asked if he thought this gap would increase or decrease in 2017, Riccitiello said that we was “convinced” that the future for both AR and VR headsets would be huge, but it would still take a few years for audiences to reach in the “10’s or 100’s of millions” of users. “2017 will be a growth year, but likely not explosive growth,” he said. “Watch for big / massive games in 3 to 5 years.”

Another user asked the CEO when he thought VR would be truly mainstream, to which he replied: “I think VR will be mainstream — meaning 100m consumers using the tech regularly — by 2020. And, i [sic] believe that within 10 years we will see > 1B consumers globally using VR apps.”

Despite the long-term prediction for mass VR adoption, Unity is making big moves in the industry already. While it continues to add headset compatiblity to its ever-popular development engine — the most recent being Google Daydream — last week saw Unity launch a free experimental build of Editor VR. Right now, it allows developers to edit and layer virtual scenes from inside VR using assets and tools like Tvori. Going forward, Unity has ambitions to let people make entire games within the system.

The result could be a VR engine that lets the millions of users Riccitiello predicts headsets will have in a few years just as easily make VR experiences as they can play them. What’s there right now is just a start; Unity has a lot of work to do in the next three or four years if it’s going to get there.

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