Ihr verlasst das Haus, die Sonne scheint, die Vögel zwitschern, eure Apple Watch hat sich gerade mit eurem iPhone verbunden und eure iGlasses zeigen euch den kürzesten Weg zum Ziel, während ihr Aufgaben erledigt, virtuelle Schatztruhen sucht und ein paar Aliens aus dem Gulli erledigt. Zukunftsmusik? Ja! Doch eventuell werden wir diese Zukunft schon in diesem Sommer erleben.
Augmented Reality Brille von Apple
In den letzten Monaten tauchen stets neue Patente auf, die uns verraten, dass Apple an Virtual Reality Brillen und Augmented Reality Brillen arbeitet. Doch nur weil Apple Forschung betreibt, heißt dies nicht, dass auch tatsächlich ein Produkt veröffentlicht wird. Robert Scoble, Blogger und Tech Evangelist, sagt in einem Interview mit Geekwire, dass er davon überzeugt sei, dass Apple in Juni eine Ankündigung machen wird. Scoble geht davon aus, dass Apple die neue Brille in Kombination mit dem Einzug in den neuen Hauptsitz vermarkten werde und direkt veröffentlichen könnte. Außerdem fügt er hinzu, dass in drei Jahren die Brille das Smartphone in vielen Bereichen ersetzen wird.
Apple AR Patent
Tim Cook hat sich bereits in mehreren Interviews zu der Bedeutsamkeit von Augmented Reality geäußert. Das Apple also ein solches Produkt plant, steht außer Frage. Die wichtigere Frage ist, ob es schon eine kleine, schicke und praktische Brille geben kann, denn vorher wird Apple auch nicht mit einem solchen Produkt um die Ecke kommen.
Die Konkurrents steht zumindest schon in den Startlöchern, denn wie ein ehemaliger Mitarbeiter von Magic Leap in einem Interview verraten hat, soll in diesem Jahr das Development Kit für die Magic Leap Brille erscheinen. Ein Produkt für Konsumenten soll nach aktuellen Informationen aber erst im Jahr 2018 auf den Markt kommen. Wenn Apple also tatsächlich in diesem Jahr eine großartige Mixed Reality Brille für Konsumenten auf den Markt bringt, dann könnte sich das Unternehmen als Vorreiter in diesem Segment bezeichnen.
In der neusten Folge des WVRP Podcasts (WHAT VR PLAYING – Der Virtual Reality Gaming Podcast) reden Lars und Lukas über den Early Access Wave-Shooter Sairento VR von Mixed Realms welcher auf Steam für die HTC Vive verfügbar ist.
Mit Sairento VR ins futuristische Japan
In diesem Single-Player-Action-RPG schlüpft Ihr in die Rolle eines SciFi-Samurai mit übermenschlichen Fähigkeiten und versucht einmal mehr das futuristische Japan vor dem Bösen zu retten. Ausgerüstet mit allerlei Waffen im Gepäck und einem Katana, das sogar Kugeln abwehren kann, macht Ihr euch in Bullet-Time auf die Jagd nach fiesen Roboter Samurai und levelt eure Skills Runde für Runde weiter auf.
Wenn Ihr wissen möchtet, wie den beiden das Japan der Zukunft mit all seinen Roboter Samurais gefallen hat, welche Skills es zu Leveln gibt und welche Taktiken am erfolgreichsten sind, dann hört euch unbedingt die neue Folge an und abonniert den iTunes Feed, wenn ihr die Jungs unterstützen wollt!
One of my favourite things about virtual reality (VR) is its ability to take you places you’ve seen or maybe never even heard of before from the comfort of your living room just by snapping on a headset. You’re probably familiar with the term virtual tourism as a result. With companies like YouVisit providing experiences.
For today’s expedition into the world of 360 degree video with Life In 360º we’re putting on our travelling shoes again and heading off to Pisa in Italy. However before you get too expectant on what you’re going to see – namely, towers and their hitherto unmentioned leaning capabilities – Pisa has slightly more to offer than just it’s most famous, and indeed most slanted landmark.
Courtesy of the Jonathation Youtube channel, which specialises in travel videos in 360 degrees we’re off to take in the interior of the Camposanto Monumentale (the “Monumental Cemetery”) or Camposanto Vecchio (the “old cemetery”) which is found on the Piazza dei Miracoli in turn also known as the Piazza del Duomo. Originally built in the 12th century, it is currently going through renovation after losing much of its wooden structure in a fire following an air raid in World War II.
Strangely, a local legend says that claims that any body that is buries within the hallowed grounds of the Camposanto Monumentale will fully rot and decompose within 24 hours. Thankfully that isn’t covered by the four minute video which takes in a variety of locations around the grounds and inside the roofed area.
Where will we end up next on Li360? Come back Wednesday morning to find out.
Earlier this year Oculus began offering additional Sensors for sale along with and their new Earphones. Now all the in-the-box accessories can be purchased as well.
In a recent blog post, Oculus has recommended this third-party HDMI cable, but warns that the Rift isn’t designed to work with longer cables and that they haven’t done enough testing to guarantee it will work. If you’re using an HDMI extension, you’ll also need to extend the USB end of the same cable, for which Oculus suggests (and again, doesn’t guarantee) this USB 3.0 extension cable. USB cable extensions for Sensors are in the same boat, with Oculus giving unofficial recommendations for active USB 3.0 and USB 2.0 cables.
Dave Ranyard war Leiter der Sony Studios in London und begleitete die Entwicklung und die Veröffentlichung der PlayStation VR Brille. Nach der Vorstellung im Jahr 2014 war Ranyard damit beauftragt, die Möglichkeiten von Virtual Reality Spielen zu erforschen und PlayStation VR als erste Virtual Reality Brille für Konsolen zu etablieren. Ranyard war auch für das Team verantwortlich, welches hinter der Sammlung an Spielen in VR Worlds steckt. Nun hat Ranyard sein eigenes Studio gegründet und möchte sich weiterhin auf Virtual Reality fokussieren.
Dave Ranyard gründet Dream Reality Interactive
Laut Ranyard gehe es aktuell nicht mehr darum, ob sich Virtual Reality durchsetzen wird, sondern die Frage sei, wann und wie sich Virtual Reality durchsetzen wird. Selbst er könne diese Frage nicht beantworten, doch nach 17 Jahren bei Sony sei nun die richtige Zeit, um neue Möglichkeiten zu erkunden. Die Unabhängigkeit möchte Ranyard nutzen, um auch mit anderen Plattformen zu arbeiten und alle Grenzen von Virtual Reality auszuloten.
Sony ist derzeit mit der Umstrukturierung der Studios in Europa beschäftigt und im Studio in London wurden einige Stellen gestrichen. Deshalb ist es auch nicht verwunderlich, dass Ranyard nicht alleine das Schiff verlässt. Richard Bates, Artemis Tsouflidou, Albert Bentall und John Foster folgen Ranyard und all diese Personen waren an der Entwicklung von VR Worlds beteiligt.
Dream Reality Interactive soll aktuell schon an diversen Projekten für diverse Plattformen arbeiten. Das Team wird sich aber nicht nur auf eigene Spielkonzepte konzentrieren, sondern auch in Partnerschaft mit anderen Studios Spiele entwickeln.
Sega has reprinted the first four Yakuza games, meaning right now gamers can buy brand new copies of games that were originally hard to find. If reprinting old PlayStation 2 games turns out to be a success, other publishers may follow.
Sandbox action-adventure game Conan Exiles has become an instant hit, selling 320,000 copies in a single week. Developer Funcom saw returns on its entire investment during this time.
After remaining a PSVR exclusive since its November release, Crytek’s gorgeous Robinson: The Journeyrecently popped up on Oculus Home and has now come to Steam. Following the unfortunate lack of VR controller support, a rocky Steam release has been met with a major bug preventing many players from launching the game, and no official support for the HTC Vive.
Robinson: The Journey launched on PSVR in early November, and it seems a brief period of exclusivity has lifted, with the game hitting the Oculus store and now Steam over the last few days. The game is the second full VR title for Crytek, who also developed the Oculus exclusive The Climb.
The title follows a young boy and his robotic AI caretaker who have crash landed on a planet inhabited by lush foliage and dinosaurs both friendly and fierce. While the game’s undeniably gorgeous visuals are an achievement for the young VR market, the gameplay was hampered by the awkward use of a static gamepad to handle many first-person hand interactions (much of which seem to have been purpose-built for motion controllers).
A critical bug is preventing a significant number of users from launching Robinson: The Journey the game on SteamVR at all. The game’s discussion forum is filled largely with complaints of players not able to play the game due to a ‘Platform Error’. Crytek developers have acknowledged the bug on February 10th and purportedly issued a fix, but many players are still reporting the issue as of today.
We downloaded the title to test it and are also unable to launch the game due to the error. Data from SteamSpy suggests the issue is affecting nearly 100% of users, with just 2 users recorded as the game’s all time peak players.
With its launch on Steam, Robinson: The Journey is now available on all three major VR platforms, but only two of the major headsets. That’s because, while SteamVR is designed to be interoperable with many PC VR headsets, the developers have chosen to launch the game on Steam with official support only designated for the Oculus Rift. With the Vive outnumbering Rift users on SteamVR 3 to 2, that leaves the game unsupported by the majority of VR headset users on SteamVR.
In ‘Robinson: The Journey’, you control your hands with a gamepad, not hand controllers.
These issues are underscored by the unfortunate lack of VR controller support in the game, which we elaborated on previously:
Like Robinson, Crytek’s The Climb also initially launched only with support for the gamepad, but that was before Oculus launched Touch. Crytek eventually made a major update to The Climb which brought Touch support to the game which, again, felt made-for-motion-controllers from the beginning. Hopefully Robinson will see the same treatment, but presently there’s no indication of whether or not that will happen.
Gamepad-only support makes a little more sense on the Rift though because every Rift comes with an included gamepad. The Vive however comes standard with motion controls, so even if the game supported the Vive on SteamVR, only players who separately have a compatible gamepad would be able to play (unless the developers took the extra awkward step of allowing the Vive’s motion controllers to emulate a static gamepad).
It’s been a rocky launch for Robinson on PC, which is a shame given that it’s presently one of VR’s most highly produced games, with its AAA graphics looking even more impressive in the PC version.
There was a time when Gunjack was the most polished, lavish VR game available. Initially releasing on Gear VR as one of the first titles from a big studio — EVE Online creator CCP Games — it scratched the surface of what was to come from AAA developers: richly detailed graphics, slick production values, and fine-tuned mechanics, even on mobile VR. It didn’t blow anyone away, but it was a good start.
Gunjack 2 arrives roughly a year on, and expectations have shifted a little. There are now countless games like the original on mobile VR platforms, and a sequel would need to provide a lot more depth to be a worthwhile proposition. CCP has certainly put the effort in to make a worthy follow-up, but the foundation the game’s built upon only allows for so much innovation.
Exclusive to Google Daydream for the time being (the original game came to basically every headset), Gunjack 2 has a few new tricks that are likely a direct response to criticisms of the first game. There are two main modes here, one which offers the same point-scoring arcade gameplay of the original, and a more focused, varied offering for those that tire of straight-up wave shooting.
The latter is the game’s campaign mode, which features nine levels lasting about an hour in total. Yes, that’s shorter than the original, but this is only where fans will be spending a fraction of their time with the game, should they choose to keep playing once the credits role.
While the game initially seems identical to the original, bar swapping out head-tracked aiming with moving the Daydream remote, it quickly starts to differentiate itself. There are cutscenes inbetween levels, for starters, that introduce you to a crew of Gunjacks working aboard the same mining vessel, swapping stories about their most epic encounters, not all of which are entirely factual. The journey they take you on is an amusing tour of the EVE universe, a side to the sci-fi behemoth you likely won’t have seen before.
The handful of missions make a deliberate attempt mix things up level-by-level. While the first few encounters have you taking down perfectly synchronized swarms of ships, later objectives involve blasting away asteroids, gathering materials, and, of course, fighting off giant bosses.
As an experience it’s atmospheric and soberingly isolating. You’ll have constant chatter with your squad on comms but staring out into the depths of space on your own has an element of tranquility. That is until bad guys start shooting at you.
Bolstering the variety is a new loadout system, which gives you three power-ups that you activate by swiping on the touchpad, and a shield that’s activated by tapping it. In the campaign, these are pre-defined and usually consist of repairs, a new weapon type, and a bomb or something of similar effect. Experimenting with new power-ups each level is fun, though they don’t truly mix up the experience in meaningful ways. You’ll have your favorites and be disappointed when a mission doesn’t use any of them, especially the repairs which become a crutch in most levels.
The shield, however, causes real problems. Tapping the touchpad activates it, while clicking the touchpad fires. Putting your shield up takes away your ability to fire, and swapping between them takes a second, which is time you sorely need with your back against the wall. The game really struggles with this input and you’ll regularly find yourself accidentally switching between shields and firing, with frustration following.
Even with these issues, though, there’s only so much fun you can really have with Gunjack 2’s campaign. Removing the score-fueled element of the original makes this a more mindless, less performance-driven experience and some would call that a step back.
Fortunately that style of play is alive and well in the game’s weekly shifts. These are a set of missions that are refreshed every week and push the player to score high by blasting away as many enemies as possible. It’s a great way to extend the life of the game, and you get to choose your own loadouts for this mode. If you enjoyed the more competitive aspect of the original, I’d even recommend skipping the campaign and spending the bulk of your time here.
Final Score:6/10 – Decent
Gunjack 2 is a worthy follow-up to the original game and a rock solid shooter, although it’s still not anything you haven’t seen in a number of other mobile VR apps. It’s been polished until it shines, but is far from the most exciting use of the Daydream we’ve seen so far. Those that enjoyed the point-driven thrill of the first will find more of the same here, but if you’re tired of gallery shooters then you best steer clear.
Today is Sunday. Speaking of Sundays, the most famous work by the French post-impressionist, Georges Seurat is titled A Sunday on La Grande Jatte. I am the king of segues.
Completed in 1884, this oil on canvas work is best known to the art world as a prime example of the post-industrial frieze and a masterclass in fine brushwork. Most of us, however, know it because of this guy:
The world of high-art was introduced to an entire generation of young people in the 1986 film Ferris Bueller’s Day Off. A film about one vice principle’s noble quest to do his job despite the selfish actions of a charismatic truant.
Seurat’s masterpiece is being used once again to bring culture to the masses. This time, however, we’re swapping the emotionally confused adolescent for the immersive power of virtual reality.
VR artist George Peaslee recreated A Sunday on La Grande Jatte usingGoogle’s 3D creation platform Tilt Brush. In Tilt Brush, users can draw, sculpt, color using special hand controllers and a VR headset. You can see the results below along with other notable VR art projects. Feel free to interact with these creations as well using the 3D image hosting capabilities of Sketchab.
VR art is on the rise and, as you can see from the works above, artists are beginning to find their own styles, forge their own voices and bring emotion to their digital masterpieces. We can’t wait to see what they do next.
