Today Microsoft has launched a new tool for HoloLens developers called Spectator View, thus enabling them to demonstrate their applications to an audience.
Whether its virtual reality (VR), augmented reality (AR) or mixed reality (MR) for people to understand the technologies the issue has always been about user interaction, getting someone to try it is usually easier than explaining it. For Microsoft and its MR headset HoloLens the company created Mixed Reality Capture (MRC) to aid in the visualization of holograms to let an audience see what the presenter on stage can see, but this was only from a first-person perspective. With the Spectator View tool this now becomes third-person.
The tool is actually part software, part camera system in which a HoloLens is mounted to a DSLR. Using a special bracket – which can be 3D printed – the headset then connects to a PC wirelessly with the camera outputting via HDMI to a capture card. It’s then a case of starting up the Spectator View software to test it out.
As explained in Microsoft’s blog: “A spectator view camera will allow your audience to do more than just see what you see when wearing a HoloLens. Yes, it allows others, who aren’t wearing HoloLens, to see the holograms you would see if you were wearing the device, but it also allows you to see what the people wearing HoloLens are doing and how they are interacting with their mixed reality experience.” Checkout the blog for all the official documentation needed to get you started.
For all the latest HoloLens news, keep reading VRFocus.
During the Sundance Film Festival last month Jaunt and RYOT debuted Bashir’s Dream as part of a continued collaborative effort between the two companies. Today they’ve now launched the 360-degree film via Jaunt’s VR app.
Bashir’s Dreamtells the story of Qusai Bashir Masaama, a 14-year-old Syrian refugee living in Jordan who was shot in the back by a sniper while walking to buy a candy bar. Using a combination of live action and animation from Director Angel Manuel Soto and Designer and Animator Fernando Rodriguez, the film was shot entirely in Jordan. Masaama narrates throughout talking about his dreams of playing basketball and traveling abroad for better care and education.
Alongside the release of Bashir’s Dream, 11 other experiences have been uploaded to RYOT World within the Jaunt app. These include The State of Standing Rock, a first-person glimpse into the acts of violence the water protectors at Standing Rock are subject to on a daily basis as they peacefully demonstrate to protect the natural resources of 18 million Americans, and Mongolia: The Ancient Art of Eagle Hunting, a look at the ancient tradition of hunting with eagles that continues to pass from generation to generation.
The Jaunt app for iOS, Android, Samsung Gear VR, PlayStation VR, Google Daydream, Oculus Rift, HTC Vive and major desktop browsers is free to download and start watching.
For all the latest Jaunt and RYOT news, keep reading VRFocus.
Some days the sun shines, birds sing and everything is right in the world. But other days, clouds loom, birds leave a mess and the world goes sideways and you feel like knocking something over. Boston-based developer Fire Hose Games made King Kaiju, which left Steam Early Access Jan. 31, for the latter kinds of days — when you want to break things.
King Kaiju is a first-person standing and room-scale sandbox that puts you in the hands and head of a Godzilla-sized monster in a fully destructible town filled with buildings, cars, pedestrians, and planes. You can smash houses, pick up objects, and throw things until the semi-urban landscape is destroyed, which offers moments of catharsis.
But King Kaiju is at its best when you play as Megacat, the game’s second character that you unlock after finishing every level, which should take around an hour.
And why is Megacat the best part of King Kaiju, you ask? The answer, my fellow gamer, is laser eyes. Yes, the behemoth kitty sports eye-born lasers, which — for reasons still unknown to science — are more satisfying with which to destroy things than the main character’s mouth-born fire. Someday, science will solve this laser > fire mystery. But until then, Megacat will reign supreme.
Whatever the character, King Kaiju supports the HTC Vive and the Oculus Rift and works with both system’s tracked motion controllers. To move within the virtual world without walking in room-scale, you can teleport, which is point-and-click straightforward. Additionally, you can teleport onto pedestrians and cars directly to crush them, which satisfies.
However, you can’t change your orientation when teleporting like you can in games such as The Gallery – Episode 1: Call of the Starseed or Arizona Sunshine, so playing King Kaiju sitting down or facing in the same direction is a bit of a challenge because when you teleport your point of view will always face the direction you are in the real world.
In-game, the controllers transform into your character’s hands or paws. But King Kaiju isn’t a hardcore simulation by any means. It’s more of a whimsical cartoon fantasy. For example, the game presents a bird’s-eye view of the action on the secondary monitor in a news-style presentation with comical remarks in a scrolling ticker.
“Experts say the monster is collecting ‘points’ like it’s in some kind of video game,” the ticker says.
Meta.
Additionally, there’s no story — just destruction. However, the game does offer four levels, three of which have score-based objectives. The last level is an open sandbox with no objective.
As for the graphics, the arcade-style textures won’t blow you away with their cartoony looks, but they fit the game just fine. The sound design, with screaming pedestrians, buzzing airplanes, and annoying ice cream trucks — oh, how I want to destroy those blaring ice cream trucks with their soul-grating music — also fits the game’s casual style.
The audio plays back in binaural virtual surround over stereo headphones, which makes pinpointing the location of attacking planes and fleeing pedestrians easy. However, the game outputs stereo only through surround speakers, which is a bit of a disappointment.
On the other hand, stability isn’t an issue because King Kaiju doesn’t crash on my Rift-based test system, which has two Oculus Sensor IR trackers, an AMD RX 480 graphics card and Windows 10. However, the Rift displays an otherwise game-breaking double image when anti-aliasing is enabled in King Kaiju. Thankfully, disabling anti-aliasing fixes the problem. I don’t know if this is also an issue with the Vive.
Final Score:6/10 — Decent
King Kaiju offers an hour or two of casual motion controller-based gameplay in a destructible sandbox environment. If you’re looking for the second coming of Pacific Rim, then save your money and wait for Pacific Rim: Uprising. But if your world has gone sideways and you want to unleash your inner monster for an hour or two, then King Kaiju is worth a look.
King Kaiju is available on Steam for $4.99 with support for HTC Vive and Oculus Rift. Read our Game Review Guidelines for more information on how we arrived at this score.
Though the entertainment possibilities of augmented and virtual reality are the more immediately intriguing experiences, both forms of tech present a lot of potential in many other industries as well. Augmented reality overlays our surroundings with data and digital imagery, bringing additional layers of information in a convenient way. Virtual reality offers near limitless virtual space to recreate almost anything you can imagine and immerses users into environments they may not be able to experience otherwise. If you combine both of those, you have a malleable palate for education and a new facility in Tulsa, Oklahoma will be taking advantage of this.
“We like working with universities that have a forward-looking approach to education,” said CEO of EON Reality Mats W. Johansson in a press release. “They’re the perfect match for the transformative power of Augmented Reality and Virtual Reality education. As the demands of students change, EON Reality’s AVR platform and software will help match their needs by empowering professors and administrators in delivering innovative and relevant interactive Virtual Reality and Augmented Reality content to the classroom.” Utilization of AVR also provides an opportunity to reach out to students that can’t make it to the physical location for whatever reasons.
The facility will be powered by EON’s AVR, a learning library that utilizes gamified VR and AR modules across various subjects. As noted in an article about two teachers’ breaking down a VR curriculum, there are legitimate benefits to having a facility centered on immersive tech. Mathews claims that AVR is the first digital and mediated-technology proven to impact students at every level so it will be interesting to see what the long-term effects of the GLU will be as EON Reality also works to establish new facilities in New York and the Dominican Republic.
NieR: Automata's latest trailer shows an Earth destroyed by machines, but human-serving androids haven't given up on the planet yet. The game is scheduled to arrive on PlayStation 4 next month.
Razer unveiled the 2017 update to its popular Razer Blade lineup on Friday and the new notebooks are just packed with high-end hardware. The new 14-inch Razer Blades come in two flavors, starting at $1,900.
Modder Ed Zarick has showcased two brand new portable versions of current-generation video-game consoles, this time turning his attention to the PlayStation 4 Slim and the PlayStation 4 Pro.
Most gamers of any age will likely know that videogame movie tie-ins are ropy at best. Whether it’s a film created from a game or the other way around, there’s been a constant struggle to get the two entertainment worlds to successfully coalesce. The world of virtual reality (VR) is no different with this month seeing the release of John Wick Chronicles, coinciding with Keanu Reeves’ John Wick: Chapter 2 in cinemas. So has this been a successful partnership, well yes and no.
Created by Starbreeze Studios in collaboration with several other developers, John Wick Chronicles is what you’d expect, a gun filled, bullet flying, extravaganza of carnage and action. The infamous Continental hotel serves as the hub for the title, with the lobby and concierge accurately reproduced for that air of authenticity. It’s this attention to detail that can be seen across the entire production, whether its the graphics, gameplay or gun mechanics, John Wick Chronicles has been built to AAA standards.
You’ll be able to start off nice and easy, heading to the training room to get acquainted with shooting unlimited rounds of ammo at targets. This is all standard fare with duel wielding pistols, SMG’s, a shotgun and a sniper rifle with which to hone those aiming skills. After which you’ll want to get straight into the action and begin the first level, pitting you against waves of enemies armed to the teeth with guns, grenades and anything else they can throw at you.
It’s here where all that polish starts to come a little unstuck. That’s because John Wick Chronicles is a wave shooter, nothing wrong with that per se, but with such a high profile title using a gameplay mechanic so widely used in VR its certainly feels somewhat lacklustre that you’re essentially nailed to the spot. Using the HTC Vive’s room scale system does allow for duck and cover mechanics which certainly aid immersion, although this can be somewhat hampered depending on real world floor space.
Each level does its best to switch up the gameplay by having enemies appear all the way around you, at different levels and distances, requiring inventive use of the resources that are available. Do you stick to just pistols and try to take out long range enemies with a very good shot or switch to the sniper and then back again which can cost valuable time and life. This can involve some hectic fraught decisions during the intense gun battles but opponents generally come from one area at a time, so you’re not having to consciously keep track of every area. This is made even easier with the concierge continuously saying ‘check left’, ‘check right’, and so on. While helpful it can get annoying.
But the biggest issue with John Wick Chronicles is that of content. Aside from the training area there are only three levels available, which most players will probably get through in under an hour if they have a good run through – the second level is certainly tricky – making it feel somewhere between a tech demo and a fully fledged experience.
If John Wick Chronicles had been released in the middle of 2016 it could’ve been a showpiece for VR, expertly produced with taught gameplay and beautiful design. Coming out now though its almost having to play catch up, without offering anything new. With the likes of Raw Data on the market – which allows for movement and multiplayer options – for HTC Vive, the experience seems somewhat lacking. You’ll play it and enjoy it the once but that’ll be it, only starting it up again to showcase VR to your mates.
TrackMania Turbo erschien im März 2016 für den PC, die PlayStation 4 und die Xbox One und sollte an die alten Erfolge der Reihe anknüpfen. Bei der TrackMania-Reihe geht es um Geschwindigkeit, Loopings, Überkopf-Fahrten und ein gutes Gedächtnis. Besonders der Multiplayer-Modus in den TrackMania-Spielen bietet immer einen gewissen Suchtfaktor. Denn was ist spannender, als die Jagd nach der besten Zeit auf extrem kurzen und wahnsinnigen Strecken? Aber passt dieses Konzept auch in die virtuelle Realität?
TrackMania Turbo mit PSVR
In TrackMania Turbo erhaltet ihr keinen VR-Modus der das komplette Spiel in ein Virtual-Reality-Abenteuer verwandelt, sondern ihr könnt nur einen ausgewählten Bereich nutzen. Dieser Bereich umfasst 40 Strecken, wobei die meisten Strecken zwischen 20 Sekunden – 40 Sekunden Rennspaß versprechen. Theoretisch ist dies nicht wenig Content, doch Ubisoft beschränkt diesen Modus auf eine „Karriere“ und einen Arcade-Modus. Hierbei tretet ihr aber nur gegen euren oder den Geist eines KI-Spielers an oder ihr füllt die lokale Highscore-Liste.
Wenn man die Fehlversuche mit einberechnet, kann man mit TrackMania Turbo in VR gut ein bis drei Stunden füllen. Der Schwierigkeitsgrad ist relativ niedrig und somit sollten auch unerfahrene Fahrer schnell die Goldmedaillen für die einzelnen Strecken erfahren. Diese Medaillen werden im VR-Modus benötigt, um wiederum neue Strecken freizuschalten. Doch wenn ihr alle Strecken freigeschaltet habt, dann gibt es nichts mehr zu entdecken und einen wirklichen Grund zum erneuten Spielen gibt es auch nicht. Zwar wird nach dem Rennen angezeigt, wie gut andere Fahrer in der eigenen Stadt waren, doch der Funke will nicht so recht überspringen. Wir wollen die anderen Fahrer direkt sehen und uns live mit diesen messen! Ohne VR Brille geht es doch auch!
Falls ihr dachtet, dass Ubisoft die Maps so auswählt, dass ihr entspannt ein paar Runden drehen könnt, dann habt ihr euch leider getäuscht. Zwar gibt es einige Maps die relativ unspektakulär sind, doch dafür haben es andere Strecken faustdick hinter den Ohren und geizen nicht mit Loopings und Beschleunigungsstreifen.
Optik, kleine Fehler, keine Optionen
Grafisch ist TrackMania Turbo sicherlich kein Überflieger, aber die Gestaltung wirkt auch in VR gut und fast alle Strecken machen eine absolut passable Figur. Gleichzeitig ist der VR-Modus aber nicht immer wirklich sauber integriert. So kann man hin und wieder durch die Straßendecke blicken, wenn man sich überschlagen hat oder das Bild wird erst ausgeblendet, wenn die schlimmsten Szenen des Unfalls uns schon durchgewirbelt haben. Auch die Steuerung kam uns in VR wesentlich schwammiger vor als auf dem Fernseher, aber der Eindruck kann auch durch die unterschiedliche Perspektive täuschen.
Bei den Optionen lässt uns Ubisoft auch keine großen Freiheiten. Besser gesagt: Es gibt keine Optionen. Ihr müsst das Spiel so spielen, wie Ubisoft es will. Die Kamera wird dynamisch geändert (Third-Person und Cockpit) und es gibt auch keine Verengung des Sichtbereiches bei scharfen Kurven oder waghalsigen Manövern.
It doesn’t looks like there’s going to be much in the way of new games for PlayStation VR (PSVR) this week, but there is a new video app debuting today for those interested.
Lens, as the app is called, is a free platform for watch both 2D and 3D 360 degree content, available now from the PlayStation Store in the EU. There’s no word on if it could come to the US just yet. It looks largely similar to other 360 degree apps, offering short experiences that you can immerse yourself in and look around as if you were really there. The app is also available on pretty much every other VR headset out there right now.
Alongside a range of generic 360 videos, Lens is pushing Remember, a Chinese-made series that tells the story of a grieving mother using VR to relive moments of her life. It’s a rare look at story-driven 360 degree content, which is a format that filmmakers still haven’t perfected, but holds a lot of promise for the future. Only the first episode is available right now, but it’s one of the longer VR videos you’ll find at 19 minutes in length.
Overall the app has a few problems; at one point I couldn’t get Remember to play in its entirity, instead only playing the trailer, and every time I tried to back out to the main menu the app crashed.
Now that YouTube is available on PSVR we question how necessary apps like this really are. Some apps like Jaunt and Within has exclusive content that help them stand apart, but you could argue YouTube’s already found its VR and it’s, well, YouTube.
Still, as we said, there isn’t really anything else coming to the headset this week other than some new DLC for Resident Evil 7, so you might want to get it out all the same.
