If you love playing virtual reality (VR) videogames and want to show how awesome they are then the best way of doing so is with mixed reality (MR) video. This style of video puts you, the gamer, inside the title to give viewers a taste of the VR greatness you’re playing. While not as easy to record as a Twitch stream, for example, improvements have been made over the years and one of the most popular pieces of software to record MR videos is LIV. VRFocus had a chat with LIV Inc’s. CEO and founder AJ ‘Dr Doom’ Shewki to learn more.
LIV Inc. is part of the Vive X accelerator and showcased its technology during the recent ‘Demo Days’ event in May. Shewki was there to not only demo the software solution and discuss investment opportunities with interested guests, but he also discussed what was next for the application, namely fully launching out of Early Access into version 1.0.
The update is set to introduce the long-awaited Avatar feature. As mentioned, MR videos rely on players actually being seen so viewers can better understand aspects like the motion control mechanics in VR videogames. But this requires greenscreens, depth cameras or an additional web camera. The Avatar feature means you don’t need these extra pieces of hardware, you can just download the Avatar you like and away you go – pretty much.
It uses less CPU and GPU power than regular cameras, plus Avatar perspective is controllable on the fly, with 4 types of viewpoint to choose from: Selfie, Third-person, First-person, and Gamepad.
The LIV tool can be downloaded for free via Steam, supporting over 20 VR titles including Beat Saber, The Wizards, Budgets Cuts, Space Junkies, Electronauts and Superhot. The update hasn’t gone live at the moment, with the studio yet to give a specific release date.
Check out the full interview with AJ ‘Dr Doom’ Shewki below. When VRFocus has further details regarding LIV and version 1.0 we’ll let you know.