Tuesday, 31 July 2018
Flight Is A Photorealistic VR App For Fighting Fears Of Flying
I remember the first time I flew by myself, I was terrified. And the funny thing? It wasn’t about the flying, it was about the airport. I was paranoid that I wouldn’t know where to go, wouldn’t be let past security, wouldn’t be allowed onto my flight and be stuck in some strange, alien world I knew nothing about. And that’s not uncommon; I’ve met lots of people that have had similar experiences. That’s what makes the Oculus Start-backed Flight VR so intriguing.
Current in development as a collaboration between VR architectural visualisation company, Visual Lane, and art studio, Chris Bain Design, Flight is a photorealistic experience designed for people that have a fear of flying. It offers a meticulous recreation of an airport and recreates the many processes passengers have to go through before and during boarding as a means of helping people get to grips with it. No detail has been spared, right down to safety instructions displaying on a passenger’s in-flight screen before takeoff.
Flight VR Experience from chrisbaindesign on Vimeo.
“VR is a perfect tool for releaving someone of the acute anxieties caused by flying,” Chris Bain himself told Upload over email. “Traditional exposure therapy can be distressing to the patient and cause even more extreme symtoms such as panic attacks and vomiting. Flight VR allows the user in enter a photorealistic 360 environment and experience air travel procedures, at their own pace, in the comfort of their own surroundings.”
As you can see in the trailer, the experience covers everything from arriving at an airport and checking your flight times to checking your luggage is the correct size for travel and passing through security gates. Eventually, you’ll board an aircraft, find your seat, stow your luggage and prepare to take off. Helpful hints appear along the way to give you as stress-free an experience as possible.
“It’s important the user has exposure to the full flying experience and part of that involves the journey through the airport/security/boarding and the sights and sounds of the airport,” Bain explained. “Many passengers with flying phobias don’t even make it to the aircraft jetway and our Flight VR allows the user to slowly build up the courage and relieve those anxieties.”
There are plenty of VR apps that utilize exposure therapy right now, but Flight easily looks like one of the most polished and intriguing we’ve yet seen.
Right now Flight VR is being developed as part of the Oculus Start program, which is designed to help smaller developers hit the ground running. Bain and co hope to turn an initial prototype into a full experience over the course of 2018, so hopefully we can get a deeper look towards the end of the year.
Tagged with: Flight VR
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Kite & Lightning Showcasing iPhone Motion Capture At SIGGRAPH
VR development studio Kite & Lightning is taking its impressive iPhone-based motion capture pipeline to SIGGRAPH.
We’ve written a couple stories about the system which Kite & Lightning co-founder Cory Strassburger has been putting together mainly on his weekends. Strassburger uses a helmet-mounted iPhone X combined with an Xsens suit for completely wireless full body and facial motion capture. His latest additions smooth out the process even further and, with the Ikinema LiveAction tool, a performance can be brought directly into Unreal Engine in real-time.
“With the facial capture data being only 150kbps, you could easily have a mobile companion app for your game that allows an MC or Commentator to stream their audio and facial capture performance right into a live VR match,” Strassburger explained in an email.
Kite & Lightning is a small studio that developed VR experiences like Senza Peso as early as 2014 to show some very early adopters a true sense of immersion for the first time. Strassburger and co-founder Ikrima Elhassan also sharpened their skills with some work-for-hire VR projects before raising $2.5 million in 2016 with plans to build a game with an unusual premise. In Bebylon, immortal “bebies” regularly do battle in a character-driven VR spectacle.
Strassburger’s iPhone-based capture pipeline relies on face-sensing capabilities to transform his expressions into one of these bebies in real-time. Overall, it shows the potential of using one of Apple’s newest gadgets for decent motion capture at a relatively low all-in price. Strassburger explained in an email earlier this year how this possibility affected their roadmap.
“Having any meaningful amounts of character animation on our game’s early roadmap was a total pipe dream. I knew full well how slow and expensive it was to capture decent facial performances let alone the cost and time involved in simply building the facial rig for a character,” Strassburger wrote. “If Ikrima and I actually had a conversation early on, we would have both logically agreed that a handful of facial expressions would be all we need or could even entertain given the scope of our game. Luckily that conversation never happened because it went without saying! And as the concept for the game started to take shape and the Bebylon world was being born, so was this underlying, powerful desire to see these characters walk and smack talk and tell their stories to the public! The more I started to create and write about these characters, the more their existence became pivotal to the game’s concept of inspiring players to unleash their inner wild child within this crazy virtual game world.”
Capturing performances this way also opens the door to more easily making vignettes, TV shows, movies or other types of productions with the same core content and tools. These tools might not be up to the quality some creators need for their projects, but for those that do find this to be a good enough solution “it would definitely change the scape of creating content for those mediums because it is insanely easy to capture lots of motion capture content.” Strassburger thinks indie developers might be able to approach their projects differently with this type of capture system at their disposal.
“I think it still takes a good level of artistry to make it sing and it has to sing for people to resonate with it. You still need a great story, you still need a great performer driving it,” Strassburger wrote. “You need a great virtual character to embody it, you need a good artist to fill in all the gaps and solve all the visual problems that might try to break the illusion and you still need an animator to expand upon the data for all the money shots. However the true magic to this pipeline is it gets you very far, extremely fast and when you see your characters come to life that much with so little effort, it really really fuels you to push further and put in the manual work to get it over the finish line. Most studios and projects don’t have the time it takes to climb the mountain of good facial and body capture but when a cheap tech gets you near the top of the mountain, you start thinking differently about how you can get the rest of the way.”
Tagged with: Kite & Lightning, SIGGRAPH
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2018 VR and AR Conference, Festival and Expo Schedule
Over the last few years a busy conference circuit has emerged for creators and enthusiasts interested in VR and AR technology, and 2018 is full of events throughout the year.
We’ll update this list of VR and AR-related events from time to time as more dates are announced. If we’ve missed a big one, please email tips@uploadvr.com with information about the conference or event and we’ll periodically update this post.
SIGGRAPH // August 12-16
Vancouver, Canada
Registration: Attendee
Gamescom // August 21-25
Cologne, Germany
Registration: Exhibitor | Attendee
VR/AR Global Summit // September 21-22
Vancouver, Canada
Registration: Exhibitor | Attendee
Oculus Connect 5 // September 26-27
San Jose, United States
Registration: TBD
Unite Los Angeles // October 23 – 25
Los Angeles, United States
Registration: Attendee
XRDC // October 29 – 30
San Francisco, United States
Registration: Attendee
IMMERSED // November 8 – 9
Toronto, Canada
Registration: Attendee
SIGGRAPH Asia // Dec. 4-7
Tokyo, Japan
Registration: Exhibitor
VRX 2018 // Dec. 6-7
San Francisco, United States
Registration: TBD
VR Events In Early 2018
Mobile World Congress // Feb 26 – March 1
Barcelona, Spain
SXSW // March 9 – 18
Austin, United States
IEEEVR 2018 // March 18 – 22
Reutlingen, Germany
GDC/VRDC // March 19 – 23
San Francisco, United States
Laval Virtual // April 4 – 8
Laval, France
NAB // April 7 – 12
Las Vegas, United States
Tribeca Film Festival // April 18 – 29
New York, United States
F8 // May 1 – 2
San Jose, United States
Unite Seoul // May 2 – 4
Seoul, South Korea
VRLA // May 4 – 5
Los Angeles, United States
Unite Tokyo // May 7 – 9
Tokyo, Japan
Google IO // May 8 – 10
Mountain View, United States
Unite Beijing // May 11 – 13
Beijing, China
Future Of Immersive Leisure // May 16 – 17
Las Vegas, United States
VR World // May 22 – 23
London, England
Augmented World Expo // May 30 – June 1
Santa Clara, United States
E3 // June 12-14
Los Angeles, United States
VRTO // June 16-18
Toronto, Canada
Unite Berlin // June 19 – 21
Berlin, Germany
Registration: Attendee
San Diego Comic-Con // July 18-22
San Diego, United States
Registration: Exhibitor | Attendee Badges (Sold Out)
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Oculus Go’s They Suspect Nothing Gets New Games In Free DLC
First you saved serious cash on buying an Oculus Go headset instead of those pricey Rift thingies, and now you’re getting free content for one of the kit’s biggest games. Lucky you!
Coatsink’s frantic minigame compliation, They Suspect Nothing, will recieve a free update named Overclocked on Friday, Agust 3rd, which adds in eight new experiences for players to test their skills against. These games will be split across two new hub worlds added to the game’s robotic city in which humans are strictly banned. These include Arcadia University and the morbidly named Terminal Park. There’s also some extra items to customize your fake-robo character with.
On top of the DLC, the game’s soundtrack will also go live on Spofity, iTunes and Amazon music.
They Suspect Nothing now boasts 20 minigames. It’s an experience that fits in with the core value of the Oculus Go itself; to get people into VR with accessible, engaging hardware and software. That is to say, it might not be the game for hardcore VR gamers, but it’s great for showing off your shiny new VR gear to friends and family. It’s available on both Go and Gear VR for $7.99/£5.99.
Tagged with: They Suspect Nothing
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PSVR’s Blood And Truth Gets Plenty Of New Gameplay In Dev Video
Eager to see more of upcoming PlayStation VR (PSVR) shooter, Blood And Truth? This new video has some tantalizing gameplay snippets.
Shot at last month’s E3, this footage from PlayStation sees developer Sony London discussing the making of its latest VR game with another studio, Flavourworks, which is currently making a title for PS4’s PlayLink platform. London’s Stuart Whyte talks about the challenges of making a VR shooter and delivering a story in a world in which the player has complete agency, and there’s some interesting comparisons between that and making Flavourworks’ smartphone-based adventure, Erica.
Perhaps most interesting is that Whyte reveals London Heist, the story-driven shooter minigame found on London Studio’s PlayStation VR Worlds, was “by far the most popular experience” found in that compilation. Blood And Truth is considered to be a spiritual successor to that experience, retaining the same look and feel though not necessarily starring the same characters. The aim, essentially, is to turn the London Heist demo into a full game.
Gameplay-wise, this clip shows us some new areas of the game that were being shown at E3. You take to the streets of London for gritty shootouts using the PlayStation Move controllers, and we also see players using construction sites to climb and take cover. We still don’t know when the game’s expected to hit, nor if it’s going to support PSVR’s shiny Aim controller, which seems perfectly suited to the experience.
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Beat Saber Could Remake VR Arcades With Tournaments And Mixed Reality
Indie sensation Beat Saber is now officially supporting VR arcades with a commercial license. This means VR arcades can officially start carrying the rhythm slicing game through an agreement with its creators.
Distribution platform SpringboardVR is one of the first partners to get official access to Beat Saber for arcades. While the arcade roll-out is much larger than one single distribution partner, SpringboardVR operates at hundreds of locations around the world and co-founder Will Stackable said they “tracked” four million minutes of usage across their network in June. Those are interesting numbers to take note of as one of the VR’s most exciting games comes to neighborhood arcade locations around the world.
“I think it has the potential to transform the VR Arcade space,” Stackable wrote. “I wouldn’t be surprised if it jumped to a top 10 slot and accounted for 5-10% of our total minutes the first month, which would be between 200k-400k minutes. (A number that would put it in good company with other top titles).”
Stackable offered up several reasons he’s excited to see what Beat Saber’s release in arcades does to shape the VR industry.
1.) It’s A Fun Game
The VOID draws in people with Star Wars while Dave & Buster’s just launched an alluring Jurassic World VR attraction. For VR arcades, Beat Saber might be just the thing to draw people into repeat visits. If the game turns out to be a compelling enough title to transform the scale of SpringboardVR’s business then it will likely also remake the larger VR arcade industry as well.
“Beat Saber is, put plainly, a truly high quality game,” Stackable wrote. “And just as importantly it’s the first quality game that is specifically made for arcade play. VR Arcades are used to taking consumer games and trying to fit them into an arcade play style. This game changes that.”
2.) Beat Saber Looks Incredible On Camera
Springboard is planning to partner with LIV and Virtual Athletics League to host a VR Arcade Tournament at more than 50 arcades with mixed reality broadcasting to show spectators what the game looks like.
“It’s the first VR game that looks as fun to play as it actually is to put on a headset and play,” Stackable wrote. “Mixed reality videos of Beat Saber are blowing up the internet… and we haven’t really seen that yet in VR. VR Arcades (and VR as a whole) desperately needs that. We need a game that people watch a video of on Facebook and say, ‘I NEED TO PLAY THAT!’ Beat Saber is a marketing teams dream game.”
3.) Per Minute Pricing
According to Stackable, SpringboardVR recommended the team behind Beat Saber price their commercial license around 6 cents per minute — a rate Stackable says is emerging as an industry norm.
“This is based partially on what operators are realizing makes sense for them financially,” Stackable wrote. “With their margins, spending approximately 15% of their revenue on commercial licensing makes sense. Above that and it gets tricky. So at $25 an hour, that comes out to $.06. ($25 * .15 = $3.75 an hour / 60 minutes = $.0625) While we are seeing a trend of operators seeking to license content at closer to that .06 mark, we do have a variety of pricing right now on the developer side. And honestly mostly the pricing has been arbitrary. We’ve got top 20 titles everywhere from $.06 to $.11. Early on we had a number of top 20 titles that were even at $.12… but pretty quickly those dropped off the charts as operators realized they couldn’t make the math work.”
Taken altogether, the pricing, mixed reality broadcasting and quality of the game itself might be enough to transform the landscape for VR arcades. We’ll plan to check back in with SpringboardVR in a month or so to see how things are going.
Tagged with: Beat Saber
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