Unreal engine – Page 4 – Augmented & Virtual Reality Confabulation

April 9, 2020

Unreal Engine Creators can Visualise Their 3D Creations Using Looking Glass Factory’s Holographic Display’s

To view 3D content without the need for glasses, virtual reality (VR) headsets or any other face-base contraption you’ll need a holographic display like The Looking Glass. Today, Looking Glass Factory has announced that its displays will now support those working in Unreal Engine (UE4), Epic Games’ popular videogame development software.

Looking Glass Factory

In collaboration with Epic Games, Looking Glass Factory has released a UE4 plugin so that content creators can visualise their designs using these holographic displays. The new feature can be used for a range of industries not just videogames, such as automotive, architecture, mapping/GIS and medical imaging.

The Unreal Engine plugin feature list is as follows:

Real-time 3D view of content in Unreal’s Game View
Holographic 3D visuals in the editor and in builds
Support for buttons on Looking Glass displays
One-build deployment for 8.9″, 15.6″, and 8K units
Adjustable camera for clipping planes and FoV
Support for default image effects from Unreal, or customizable effects
Windows only (Linux/Ubuntu coming soon)
Leap Motion Controller support

“Having access to a glasses-free holographic display is a massive breakthrough, and presents an exciting prospect for teams working in immersive computer graphics, visualization and content creation,” explained Kim Libreri, CTO, Epic Games in a statement. “The Looking Glass holographic display provides a stunning level of realism, and we look forward to seeing the innovations that emerge with the support of Unreal Engine generated content.”

“Every day since we launched the Looking Glass in 2018, more and more engineers and designers would reach out and ask when we would support Unreal Engine,” adds Shawn Frayne, CEO & co-founder of Looking Glass Factory. “That’s why we’re so excited to announce the UE4 plugin for the Looking Glass today. Now studios around the world can make holographic experiences that go beyond anything ever seen before.”

Looking Glass Factory’s holographic displays start from $599 USD for the 8.9″ model with 15.6″ and 8K displays also available. They allow multiple people to view content thanks to the light field technology generating 45 distinct and simultaneous perspectives. For further updates on Looking Glass Factory, keep reading VRFocus.

December 12, 2019

Mechwarrior 5: Mercenaries Developer ‘Interested’ In VR, But ‘No Plans’ Right Now

Good mech games and VR go together like racing sims and wheel accessories — it just makes sense. But don’t hold your breath for VR support in MechWarrior 5: Mercenaries, at least not yet.

Over three years ago back in 2016, MechWarrior 5 developer Piranha Games showed interest in VR support for its combat-focused mech simulator. Back then, the President of the company stated that it was “designed” to support VR and they actually held a single demo for the game’s VR support at and industry event leading up to release. A programmer even stated that “native VR support” was one of the reasons they picked Unreal Engine for the game. But now that release has come and gone on the Epic Games Store, there is no peep of VR support at all.

We reached out to the developer for comment on the topic and received the following statement from a spokesperson on behalf of Piranha Games:

“Officially, Piranha is still interested in VR as a platform, but no plans to consider implementation until next year.”

So that’s not a “No,” but it’s also not a “Yes!” either. My reading of this means that they’d love to get it working well without sacrificing resources for the core game, but it’s not a priority and if it does happen it won’t be for a while. That’s just my assumption on things, though.

Currently the top of the pile in terms of VR-focused design for a mech combat game is Vox Machinae, which has an elaborately intricate cockpit rife with interactions using tracked motion controllers. But even simple head-tracking support to play with gamepad, keyboard and mouse, or a flight stick-style setup would be better than nothing for VR and mech fans.

MechWarrior 5: Mercenaries released this week and is receiving mostly positive reviews across the board, sitting at a 75 average on Metacritic after 16 officially syndicated reviews, including an 81/100 from IGN.

Would you play MechWarrior 5: Mercenaries in VR? Let us know down in the comments below!

The post Mechwarrior 5: Mercenaries Developer ‘Interested’ In VR, But ‘No Plans’ Right Now appeared first on UploadVR.

August 6, 2019

Unreal Engine Adds Oculus Quest Vulkan Support, Unity To Follow ‘Later This Year’

The latest version of the Oculus Unreal Engine Integration adds support for Vulkan on Oculus Quest and Oculus Go. Unity told us they will add the same “later this year”.

What Is Vulkan?

Vulkan is a low level graphics API developed as a successor to OpenGL, which was originally released in the early 90’s. Vulkan was developed by The Khronos Group, a non-profit industry consortium which includes major tech companies like NVIDIA, AMD, Microsoft, Facebook, Google, and Intel.

Vulkan on Android has the same advantages as DirectX 12 on Windows or Metal on Apple operating systems. It is the official LLAPI for the Android OS, used on Oculus Go and Oculus Quest.

Vulkan

By giving developers lower level access to the GPU, engines can achieve better performance because there is less CPU overhead for each draw call. Additionally, Vulkan allows engines to properly take advantage of modern multi-core CPUs, which were not a relevant factor when OpenGL was created.

On Oculus standalone headsets, this could allow developers to add more detailed scenes, use larger draw distances, or just increase battery life. It should also allow for significantly faster initial loading times thanks to precompiled shaders.

Vulkan On Oculus Standalones

During a talk at GDC 2018 in April, Oculus told the crowd that Oculus Go would get Vulkan support thanks to custom GPU drivers made in a partnership with ARM and Qualcomm.

In August 2018, the Oculus Mobile SDK added basic support for Vulkan. However, it did not yet support anti-aliasing or fixed foveated rendering.

These features were finally added late last month, paving the way for game engines to add support for Vulkan on Oculus standalone headsets. This may have been spurred by the recent release of the Oculus Quest, the first consumer standalone headset with room scale tracking and Touch controllers.

Almost all Oculus Quest and Go apps are made with Unity or Unreal Engine. The latest version of the Oculus Unreal Engine Integration for Unreal 4.22 adds support for Vulkan on both headsets.

Facebook claims that on Epic’s Sun Temple engine sample Vulkan reduces frame times from 16ms to 13ms, a roughly 20% improvement. The company also explained that Vulkan allows for HDR rendering.

We reached out to Unity to ask when they would follow suit, and they told us the feature will be released “later this year”.

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August 5, 2019

Epic MegaGrants Allows Virteasy Dental to Develop a VR Simulator

Epic Games launched its $100,000,000 USD Epic MegaGrants initiative to support Unreal Engine developers earlier this year, no matter what field they worked in. Virteasy Dental, a company specialising in educating university students via a haptic simulator has just received a grant to help it develop the platform for Unreal Engine including virtual reality (VR) support.

Virteasy Dental - Plateau Dents

Currently, the Virteasy Dental uses a 3D HD screen with a haptic arm and dental grip. This allows students to sit at a work station, don a pair of 3D specs and then work on CGI characters to improve their skills. With the grant, Virteasy Dental will continue to develop a VR prototype already in the works which has been combined with a haptic device to simulate drilling.

“This is a huge day not only for Virteasy but also for haptic and VR simulation in dentistry in general. A huge sign of confidence in the growing market of advanced haptic simulation within universities and could offer unbelievable benefits for both existing and new customers of Virteasy Dental,” said James Markey, Head of Sales and Product Owner for Virteasy.

“By combining our existing haptic skills and software with the power of Unreal will really open up the potential for our dental simulator and all existing clients will benefit from this. Furthermore, if our developments continue to progress this well with the virtual reality headsets this could open up Virteasy to new markets and make dental haptic simulation much more widely accessible.”

Virteasy Dental

“The MegaGrant not only gives us much welcome finance to take advantage of Unreal as our new engine but gives us access to contacts within Epic Games who have been incredibly helpful in supporting us to integrating haptic devices and the sense of touch into the virtual world.”

Virteasy Dental also hopes to update its simulators with the following improvements:

Enhanced lights / shadows for increased depth perception
An upgraded virtual scene
A new virtual patient
Interactions within the scene (change the inclination of the dental chair, move the patient light etc)
Unparalleled customisation of the virtual patient to match the real patient whose scans are being used

As Virteasy Dental continues to expand into VR, VRFocus will keep you updated.

June 28, 2019

Axon Park and Survios’ CTO to Teach Unreal Engine VR Masterclass

A couple of days ago VRFocus reported on John Moores University in Liverpool, UK, announcing plans to launch an MA in Immersive Arts later this year. Which is fine if you happen to live or plan to move to the UK. Not everyone does or can, which is why remote, online courses are popular avenues for learning. This week virtual campus Axon Park has revealed it’ll be running a full semester course taught in virtual reality (VR).

Axon Park image

Axon Park has begun a strategic partnership with VR First with the Unreal Engine VR Masterclass being the first endeavour. They’ve brought on board Survios CTO and Co-Founder Alex Silkin to teach the course who will also be supported by the Unreal Engine Team. Survios is well known for a number of VR titles including Raw Data, Sprint Vector, Creed: Rise to Glory and Electronauts, as well as upcoming projects Battlewake and The Walking Dead Onslaught.

Starting on 4th September and running for 14 weeks until 11th December 2019, the course is designed for expert-level developers used to Unity (or other engines) who want to learn Unreal Engine 4 of VR. Classes take place two times per week with the curriculum being project-based. Prerequisites include 3D linear algebra, C++ and access to a VR ready PC and Oculus Rift/Rift S.

“This is not just a simple online class,” commented Silkin in a statement. “This is the first class of its kind. We’ll meet twice a week in virtual classrooms and build amazing virtual reality content together. I feel very fortunate to have had the opportunity to work with VR since 2012 and contribute to the development of many innovative VR systems over these years. I want to share my experience with the community to make it easier for newcomers to break into the VR industry. I am beyond excited to help students invent their solutions for the still relatively untamed landscape of VR development.”

Raw Data Saija BotGardens

Thanks to the partnership Axon Park and VR First are also announcing a needs-based scholarship program providing students with low cost or free access to VR hardware and resources through their partner network of 850 universities.

“We are inviting organizations and public institutions internationally to build custom in-VR training with VR First and welcoming our VR/AR experts to become the first generation of certified Axon Park trainers,” adds Rahel Demant, COO & Academic Relations Lead at VR First. “We have already started to prepare a diverse range of in-VR courses to be available in Axon Park starting in 2020.”

Head to the Axon Park website for further information on the course. As more VR courses are created VRFocus will let you know.

April 29, 2019

Magic Leap und Epic Games verschenken 500 AR-Brillen an Entwickler

Im Zuge der Epic MegaGrants stellt Epic Games 100 Millionen US-Dollar zum Support von Devs, Kreativen und Medienschaffenden bereit. Zusätzlich verschenkt das Unternehmen dank einer Partnerschaft mit Magic Leap insgesamt 500 Magic-Leap-One-Brillen an Entwickler. Interessierte können ab sofort eine der AR-Brillen beantragen.

Magic Leap und Epic Games – Epic MegaGrants zur Unterstützung von Devs & 500 AR-Brillen for free von Magic Leap

Mit der Initiative Epic MegaGrants möchte Entwicklerstudio Epic Games Support für Kreativschaffende, welche mit der Unreal Engine arbeiten, vergeben. Insgesamt 100 Millionen US-Dollar werden dafür bereitgestellt, wie es auf der offiziellen Webseite heißt:

“Epic Games stellt 100 Millionen bereit, um Spieleentwickler, professionelle Unternehmen, Medien- und Unterhaltungsentwickler, Studenten, Pädagogen und Toolentwickler zu unterstützen, die mit der Unreal Engine erstaunliche Dinge tun oder Open-Source-Funktionen für die 3D-Grafik-Community verbessern. Zeigen Sie uns Ihre Projekte und Sie können einen finanziellen Zuschuss erhalten, der Ihren Erfolg fördert!”

Neben der Finanzspritze sorgt zudem eine Partnerschaft mit Magic Leap für die kostenlose Vergabe einer Creator Edition der Magic Leap One. Die Kooperation wurde auf der Unreal Engine Build: Detroit 19′ bekannt gegeben.

So findet Simon Jones, Director, Unreal Engine Enterprise bei Epic Games, optimistische Worte zur Zusammenarbeit:

“Wir freuen uns sehr, dass Magic Leap das Epic MegaGrants-Programm mit diesem großzügigen Geschenk von 500 Magic Leap One Creator Edition-Brillen unterstützt […] die Option, diese Hardware als Teil des Epic MegaGrants zu erhalten, bedeutet, dass Entwickler mehr Mittel für andere Bereiche zur Verfügung stehen und dadurch mehr finanzielle Flexibilität und Freiheit erhalten.”

So können sich Entwickler aus verschiedenen Bereichen ab sofort für eine der AR-Brillen bewerben. Egal ob Gesundheitswesen, Entertainment-, Automobilindustrie oder völlig anderer Bereich, auf der offiziellen Webseite erhält jedes Projekt eine Chance auf die Hardware. Eine Deadline gibt es nicht, die Brillen sind jedoch in limitierter Anzahl vorhanden.

(Quellen: Unreal Engine MegaGrants | Magic Leap)

Der Beitrag Magic Leap und Epic Games verschenken 500 AR-Brillen an Entwickler zuerst gesehen auf VR∙Nerds. VR·Nerds am Werk!

April 2, 2019

Unreal Engine 4.22 Adds HoloLens Remote Streaming Support

When it comes to the development of videogames and virtual reality (VR) experiences in particular, for most indie developers there’s a simple choice when it comes to game engines. Either Unity or Epic Games’ Unreal Engine 4. For those working with the latter, they’ll be pleased to know that Unreal Engine 4.22 has just arrived, adding all sorts of new features.

Unreal Engine

When it comes to specific virtual reality (VR) or augmented reality (AR) features in Unreal Engine 4.22, Epic Games has added support HoloLens Remote Streaming which: “allows Unreal applications to run on a Windows desktop PC and stream the rendered result wirelessly to HoloLens over a Wi-Fi connection in real time.”

When it comes to building awesome looking virtual worlds Unreal Engine 4.22 will enable developers to do so thanks to early access support for real-time ray tracing, the technology Nvidia has been shouting about ever since it introduced the RTX series of graphics cards. Ray tracing is a technology being employed in videogames to provide natural realistic looking lighting effects in real-time, making images like those above look almost photorealistic without being too resource intensive. It’s not something you’re going to see in VR titles just yet, but it’s an eventuality. This was showcased at the Game Developers Conference (GDC) 2019 with Troll (trailer at bottom of the article).

Another important step in Unreal Engine 4.22 is the reduction of build times. Epic Games has optimized UnrealBuildTool and UnrealHeaderTool to make C++ iteration times up to 3x faster it claims, releasing the following stats:

Full build (UE4Editor Win64 Development):


	Unreal Engine 4.21	Unreal Engine 4.22	Improvement
Total Build Time:	436.90	326.81	30% faster
Compiling UnrealHeaderTool:	46.12	46.30
Generating headers	25.05	15.50	60% faster
Compiling UE4Editor	323.15	257.97	25% faster
UnrealBuildTool overhead	42.58	7.04	600% faster

Incremental build (UE4Editor Win64 Development):


	Unreal Engine 4.21	Unreal Engine 4.22	Improvement
Total Build Time:	7.47	2.14	340% faster
Compiling UE4Editor	1.19	1.08
UnrealBuildTool overhead	6.28	1.06	590% faster

Epic Games’ other big announcement recently was the $100,000,000 USD Epic MegaGrants initiative, which aims to assist videogame developers, media and entertainment creators, enterprise professionals, students, educators, and tools developers who are working with Unreal Engine 4.

To learn more about Unreal Engine 4.22 head on over to the Unreal Engine blog. As the company continues to release further improvements VRFocus will keep you updated.

March 26, 2019

Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney On AR: ‘We’re Going To Need Very Strong Privacy Protections’

I spoke to Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney at the Game Developers Conference last week. Sweeney declined a full interview but agreed to answer one question about the VR and AR market on the record.

Sweeney is, of course, the CEO of the company behind Unreal Engine, Fortnite, Epic Games store and more. A team at Epic built Robo Recall for Oculus Rift and the company’s development tools are designed to support the OpenXR specification for cross-platform development. Beyond that, though, how Sweeney views opportunity in these markets could be helpful to developers.

‘You can quote me on this’

He spoke for nearly two minutes about how he views VR and AR:

VR and AR will transform the future of entertainment and Epic is investing heavily in it. A lot of our investment is the enterprise side where customers all over the world are doing amazing things to visualize products and do virtual production on movie sets and other things like that.

I think our recognition now is we’re still — despite a lot of early hopes — we’re still sort of in the Palm Pilot phases of this revolution rather than the smartphone era of the revolution. So we’re investing heavily but its…going to take years before it develops into a market that changes the world for everyone.

But I do believe in this future of the world in which billions of people are wearing AR hardware, AR glasses are their everyday life and I believe that’s the entertainment platform of the future. And we’re gonna be there.

And we’re very very happy to see Microsoft announce the HoloLens and all their future AR efforts will be treated as open platforms. I think that’s an incredibly important thing for the future of the industry. AR especially, you’re talking about hardware that’s going to present unparalleled visual fidelity — imagine 8K per eye filling your entire field of view — and imagine sensors constantly picking up your facial movement and the world around you to digitize it.

We’re going to need very strong privacy protections and very strong guarantees of open platforms and open access to platforms so that we don’t end up in some sort of surveillance dystopia as you might see in science fiction.

Tagged with: Epic Games, Fortnite, Tim Sweeney, Unreal engine

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March 20, 2019

Epic Games to Award $100 Million to Devs with New ‘MegaGrants’

Epic Games today announced at GDC that the company is set to turbo-charge their long-running developer grant initiative with ‘MegaGrants’ and the largest pool of funds yet, $100,000,000.

Epic have been running developer-focused funding initiatives for many years now, with the original ‘Unreal Dev Grants’ fund announced back in 2015. Since then, VR developers have featured prominently among the fund recipients awarded—many of which we’ve covered on this very site. In many ways, those grants have reflected Epic and Unreal Engine’s early and consistently prominent support of VR since the early days of VR’s latest resurgence.

Now, possibly reflecting the company’s bulging coffers, swelled by the ultra-successful battle royale shooter Fortnite, the company has now announced its first ‘MegaGrants’ initiative. The program now boasts a vast loot pool totaling $100,000,000—all of it potentially up for grabs for budding developers who make the grade, VR devs among them—should you choose to use Unreal Engine to power your project.

Interested? As a guideline, Epic Games have release key submission categories for the Epic MegaGrants which include:

Game Developers: UE4 dev teams of all sizes can apply for an Epic MegaGrant to help make their projects succeed. Developers can also apply for a grant to help transition existing or in-development games to UE4.

Media & Entertainment: Individuals or teams applying UE4 to film, television and other visual media, location-based entertainment, and live events are eligible to apply for an Epic MegaGrant.

Enterprise: Innovative teams and individuals leveraging UE4 in other non-gaming verticals, including architecture, automotive, manufacturing, simulation, product design, advertising and other areas, may apply for an Epic MegaGrant.

Education: Students and educators can earn funding for Unreal Engine research, curriculum, student projects and university programs. Grants will also be given to schools implementing Unreal Engine into classrooms and programs.

Grants to developers range between $5,000 and $500,000 for each award and “cover a variety of endeavors to further ignite creativity and technological advancement within the 3D graphics community.”

Importantly for those developers wary of inadvertently losing control over their precious gaming concepts, Epic Games clarifies that “All grant recipients will continue to own their IP and will be free to publish however they wish.” Also, Epic Games is giving itself leeway for the time frame that these funds will be doled out stating “Submissions will be evaluated, and grants awarded, on a continual rolling basis as funds allow, with no firm deadlines to submit.”

Developers who bravely decide to step into the still budding VR industry fray still face uphill challenges making their projects profitable, or even getting funds to make them happen in the first place. Epic’s MegaGrants could offer small startups and indie developers wanting to build their VR project the cash-fuel required to start, or to keep going. And if there’s one thing the entire VR community can agree on, it’s that influx of original, quality VR content that’s sorely needed to accelerate interest in VR gaming and entertainment, and see the industry grow.

Epic Games’ CEO Tim Sweeney said of the announcement “At Epic we succeed when developers succeed. With Epic MegaGrants we’re reinvesting in all areas of the Unreal Engine development community and also committing to accelerate the open sourcing of content, tools, and knowledge.”

To read more on the MegaGrants initiative, head to the Epic Games website here.

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March 20, 2019

Epic MegaGrants is a new $100,000,000 Initiative by Epic Games

Epic Games has just held its annual State of Unreal showcase at the Game Developers Conference (GDC) 2019 and the company has a few things to shout about. A couple of days ago the company awarded its final round of grants for its Unreal Dev Grants programme. Today, Epic Games has taken that idea to the next step, announcing Epic MegaGrants. a new $100,000,000 USD initiative.

Epic Games

Just as before, Epic MegaGrants aim to assist videogame developers, media and entertainment creators, enterprise professionals, students, educators, and tools developers who are working with Unreal Engine 4. Epic Games will award creators with grants that range from $5,000 all the way up to $500,000, plus they will continue to own their IP and will be free to publish however they wish.

“At Epic we succeed when developers succeed,” said Tim Sweeney, founder and CEO of Epic Games in a statement. “With Epic MegaGrants we’re reinvesting in all areas of the Unreal Engine development community and also committing to accelerate the open sourcing of content, tools, and knowledge.”

Grants will be awarded on a continuous rolling basis as funds allow, with no firm deadlines to submit. Simply head to the Epic MegaGrants website for additional details on eligibility and how to apply.

Epic Online Services

In addition to helping developers with financial grants, Epic Games has now launched Epic Online Services, a set of free tools and services. Designed to work with any engine – not just Unreal Engine 4 – Epic Online Services was originally built for Fortnite. It can offer developers easy access to key services such as game analytics and customer support tools all through a single SDK and developer portal.

“Building a game is only the beginning for developers. We know from experience that successfully managing and scaling your game requires a robust infrastructure, with numerous back-end services. With Fortnite we are now operating these services at an enormous scale, and we are glad to start opening them up to the game development community at large in order to make it easier for teams of all sizes to succeed,” Sweeney adds.

There’s going to be plenty more news coming from the Game Developers Conference (GDC) 2019 this week, so keep reading VRFocus for the latest updates.