VRChat – Page 10 – Augmented & Virtual Reality Confabulation

February 1, 2017

VRChat Partners with Morph 3D for VR Avatar Engine

Morph 3D has today announced its partnership with VRChat to offer access to the Ready Room platform; a suite of tools designed to allow users to easily create unique and personalised avatars for their virtual identities. Aiming to increase the adoption of virtual reality (VR) as a social medium, VRChat will offer users access to the avatar creation tools upon its Steam Early Access launch today.

VRChat screenshot

Creating a personalised avatar typically isn’t an option for those without advanced 3D skills. As social VR continues to evolve, Morph 3D expects that users will want to represent themselves with more personalised avatars and will need easily accessible tools and content to do so. Morph 3D’s Ready Room integration with VRChat lowers the barrier of entry for their users to create and manage their virtual identity.

“We are big fans of what VRChat is doing to revolutionise social VR, and are thrilled to help their users express themselves,” said James Thornton, CEO of Morph 3D. “At the heart of social VR is the ability for us to communicate and enjoy shared virtual experiences with people all over the world. The starting point of this experience is being able to create a virtual identity that best reflects who you are, just as you do in your day-to-day life.”

According to Morph 3D, this partnership will allow every day users will be able to create VR avatars feature dynamic lip sync, eyes that track, hand gestures, full-body IK and speech that uses spatial audio. These tools will lower the barrier for entry to a much larger group of users in social VR.

VRChat screenshot

“As one of the leading platforms in social VR, we are very selective in identifying partners that align with our vision,” said Graham Gaylor, Founder and CEO of VRChat. “Our avatar system is state of the art, featuring dynamic lip sync, eyes that track, hand gestures, full body IK and speech that uses spatial audio. Morph 3D was a natural fit from the beginning because they take full advantage of these systems. We love that their tools and content offer our users an unmatched level of avatar personalization.”

VRChat will launch via Steam Early Access today, and will be free to download. VRFocus will keep you updated with all the latest details on VRChat and other social platforms within VR.

January 26, 2017

Get Social in VR When VRChat Launches in February

If you’ve got a virtual reality (VR) headset you’ll likely have tried some of the social apps such as vTime and AltspaceVR for example. For those users looking for the latest way to communicate in VR, next month sees the launch of VRChat across a range of headsets.

Set to launch via Steam Early Access on 1st February for HTC Vive, Oculus Rift and OSVR, VRChat joins a genre that’s rapidly growing and will face some stiff competition. To that end the company has ensured the app includes a myriad of features, keeping users entertained as well as offering plenty of options to personalise the experience.

VRChat screenshot 2 - Fire

Users will be able to create their own full body avatars, with lip sync, eye tracking/blinking, and complete range of motions using its Unity SDK. This can also be utilised to build worlds or even start an event.

Or friends can just hangout for a chat in a wealth of different environments, watch YouTube videos, paint and sculpt. Or for the slightly more active there are video games like Capture the Flag, Battle Discs and Bowling as well as community built games.

Created as a passion project by founders Graham Gaylor and Jesse Joudrey, VRChat first appeared over two years ago via the Oculus VR Share Beta platform that existed at the time. Since then the team has grown to include Chief Creative Officer Ron Millar who worked at Blizzard on Warcraft and Starcraft, whilst picking up investment from HTC, GREE VR Capital and others.

The team hasn’t stated how long VRChat will be in early access, but on the Steam listing they do say that: “We’ve not set a time limit on that yet but as we move forward we’ll keep everyone updated with our progress.” Adding: “Many of our core systems are in place.”

For all the latest updates on VRChat, keep reading VRFocus.

January 25, 2017

Social App VRChat Launches Next Week With Multiplayer Games And Unity SDK

The social VR race heats up next week as a new challenger looks to take on the likes of High Fidelity, AltSpaceVR and vTime.

VRChat will be releasing on Steam in Early Access on February 1st 2017. The platform will support the HTC Vive, Oculus Rift, and OSVR and is free-to-play. Founders Graham Gaylor & Jesse Joudrey plan to keep it that way for the “foreseeable future”. Like other social VR experiences before it, the app will allow friends to meet up online in virtual environments with personalized avatars and talk, share videos and more.

At this point, if you want to stand out in the social VR space, you have to offer a bit more than the basics. The VRChat team, which raised $1.2 million late last year with help from the likes of HTC, certainly seems to be doing that. On top of casual hangouts, users will be able to play community-built games. As you can see in the trailer above, these range from Western-style first-person shooters to even a Tron-like game dubbed Battle Discs, which looks similar to CCP Games’ upcoming Project Arena.

Simple meetups, meanwhile, are enhanced with tools that allow you to draw, sculpt and more. Environments invite sandbox-style madness; at one point in the trailer a bowling game is abandoned as two groups of friends instead start to hurl balls at each other.

VRChat also aims to offer deeper user customization with integration with Unity. You can create your own avatars from scratch, meaning users won’t conform to a particular style like they do in other social platforms. You could create a realistic version of yourself, stylize your avatar in any way you see fit, or make something entirely different. Users appear as full body avatars with lip synced speech. The company’s Unity SDK will also let you build your own worlds for others to explore, and it claims there are already “hundreds” available.

A scroll through the company’s Medium blog reveals yet more ambitions, like bringing sculptures from Oculus Medium into the experience.

The developers haven’t set a final release date for the full version of VRChat yet, as it’s intended to be a constantly evolving platform, but they do note the Early Access release has many of the “core features” of the platform.

Social VR is set to be a powerful use for the technology as it improves, so we welcome the addition of new, more ambitious platforms to the genre. It remains to be seen, however, how apps like VRChat will compete with upcoming offerings from bigger companies, like Project Sansar from the creators of Second Life, or Facebook’s own VR experience demonstrated at Oculus Connect 3 last year.

Tagged with: social vr, VRChat

October 6, 2016

Social VR Platform ‘VRChat’ Raises $1.2M Seed Funding

VRChat, a social VR platform that allows users to create, publish, and explore VR worlds, have announced a $1.2 million seed investment round. Investors include HTC, Rothenberg Ventures, GREE VR Capital, and Brightstone Venture Capital.

Supporting Oculus Rift and HTC Vive, VRChat currently offers over 200 user-created worlds, everything from simple environments to some of the most complex creations currently in social VR. Unlike ready-made social platforms though that feature limited avatar selections and only a few virtual spaces, VRChat maintains a DIY vibe that tends to attract more of a Maker crowd. In fact, if you know your way around the Unity game engine, you can even design your own custom avatar and virtual environment from the ground up and share it with everyone.

VRChat most notably features a weekly round table discussion called Gunter’s Universe—something of a live podcast which regularly hosts devs, industry professionals, and fellow VR enthusiasts.

gunters universe vr chat — Gunter’s Universe

“We offer users one application with infinite social VR experiences. We empower users to create their own social VR experience, where users have the freedom to easily create their own avatars, worlds, hangouts and games, and then explore that content with their friends. We’re working hard to build that platform, and this capital helps us get there faster,” said Graham Gaylor, Founder/CEO of VRChat. “We’re excited to have a syndicate of partners on board that provide us with not only capital, but also vast strategic experience in the VR ecosystem.”

VRChat says financing will be used to fund the platform’s continued expansion and for further investment in product development, with more hardware integrations planned throughout 2017.

The post Social VR Platform ‘VRChat’ Raises $1.2M Seed Funding appeared first on Road to VR.

October 4, 2016

VRChat Gets $1.2 Million in Seed Investment By HTC and Others

The success of the virtual reality (VR) social platform VRChat has proved itself worthy of lots and lots of investment, and HTC as well as other companies have given that funding to it.

The other companies who have also lent a hand in the seed investment worth $1.2 million (USD) were Rothenberg Ventures, GREE VR Capital, and Brightstone Venture Capital, and the funding will be put towards the expansion and of the platform.

vrchat campfire

“HTC has been at the forefront of consumer VR, pioneering several ground breaking technologies and working tirelessly to deliver the best VR experiences on the market, winning multiple awards and receiving critical acclaim from media, consumers and the industry,” said Joel Breton, VP of Global VR Content at HTC, in a press release. “With our investment in VRChat, we look to further our ultimate vision: to bring VR into the lives of people around the globe so they can experience immersive social VR in a way that fires the imagination and truly changes the world.”

“We offer users one application with infinite social VR experiences. We empower users to create their own social VR experience, where users have the freedom to easily create their own avatars, worlds, hangouts and games, and then explore that content with their friends. We’re working hard to build that platform, and this capital helps us get there faster,” said Graham Gaylor, Founder and CEO of VRChat. “We’re excited to have a syndicate of partners on board that provide us with not only capital, but also vast strategic experience in the VR ecosystem.”

For more on the latest development in VR, as well as all the news, updates, and features, make sure to check back with VRFocus.