Virtual & Augmented Reality and 3D News - Page 16

Oculus today started dropping hints about a new Beat Saber update called the Interscope Mixtape, which is due to land on May 27. The tracklist has not been announced yet, but the internet has already put the clues together.

Oculus released a small teaser clip today on its YouTube channel, which gives us a big enough clue to confirm two of the songs on the list. The clip pans over to a speaker with an album jacket for the Interscope Mixtape. As the camera moves closer to the speaker, you can hear Kendric Lamar yelling, "I got... I got... I got. STOP," which tells us we can expect to see Lamar's song DNA in the tracklist. The clip concludes with LMFAO singing "every day I'm shuffling," which means Party Rock is part of the mix.

The rest of the songs are a bigger mystery, but Oculus dropped some additional clues for its loyal fans on Reddit. The official u/Oculus account posted a video clip on the r/Oculus subreddit today, which contains coded messages that expose the complete list of songs coming this week.

Oculus recently rolled out update 1.8 of the Oculus Developer Hub, introducing a handful of new features that simplify the lives of VR developers building content for the Oculus Quest platform.

Oculus Developer Hub 1.8 includes a new home page with developer updates from Oculus. It also has a new App Distribution page, allowing developers to publish in-development apps for limited distribution for testing purposes. The distribution system includes four release channels: Alpha, Beta, and RC for internal testing and Production for submission to Oculus for store approval.

The new Oculus Developer Hub makes it easy for developers to open run the OVR Metrics Tool, which helps developers optimize the performance of their Quest apps. The latest version allows you to record and save the metrics graphs for analyzing performance issues.

The DecaMove locomotion peripheral is an early success for Deca, a new VR hardware company from Singapore aggressively bringing innovation to the consumer VR space. Deca this week revealed that it pre-sold more than 6000 units of its upcoming DecaMove device.

The DecaMove controller is a new locomotion solution for VR shooter games. It enables you to decouple your head and hand position from your movement direction by adding a hip-orientation tracker to your VR system. Deca sent pre-release DecaMove controllers called the Blogger Edition to a selection of VR influencers, and the response from reviewers was largely positive.

After reviews of the hardware started to come out, Deca opened pre-orders for a limited run of DecaMove controllers at a discounted rate, which would ship later this year. The full launch is planned for early 2022.

The creator of the GTA5 R.E.A.L VR mod has done it again. This time he's making Red Dead Redemption 2 playable start to finish in VR. You can try it today if you subscribe to the developer's Patreon account.

Luke Ross, the indie developer who created the R.E.A.L VR mod series, which allows you to step into the worlds of No One Lives Forever 2 and GTA 5 through the lens of a VR headset, today released an early access version of a new mod for Rockstar's other open-world franchise, Red Dead Redemption 2.

The RDR2 R.E.A.L VR mod transforms RDR2 into a fully immersive old west VR experience, allowing you to play the entire game in first-person VR. The mod does not add motion controller support, so you will need a gamepad to play the game this way. If you're susceptible to motion sickness, you probably want to sit this one out, but if you've got a strong stomach, this mod could be the ultimate cowboy experience.

Tundra Labs, the company behind the Tundra Tracker SteamVR tracking puck, must be floating on cloud nine right now. The company's Kickstarter campaign has exceeded all its expectations, including hitting hard limits on some hardware.

Tundra Labs launched the Kickstarter campaign for the Tundra Tracker, a lighter, more compact alternative to the Vive Tracker pucks for accessory and full-body tracking in SteamVR. Tundra Labs first gave a sneak peek of the Tundra Trackers in December to create some hype before the campaign launch.

The plan must have worked because Tundra Labs doubled its intended goal within hours of launching the fundraiser. That was at the end of March, and all through April and into May, the momentum has continued. Currently, Tundra Labs has nine days to go, and it has raised more than five times the initial $250,000 goal.

NVIDIA today announced that a handful of VR titles would soon add support for DLSS, providing a significant performance boost for anyone with a compatible GeForce GPU. No Mans Sky, Wrench, and Into The Radius will offer DLSS support in upcoming updates.

NVIDIA's DLSS, or Deep Learning Super Sampling, is a process to increase performance at high resolutions by rendering at a lower resolution and upscaling the image with a machine learning algorithm. DLSS gives impressive performance advantages when gaming at 4K and higher. In September, NVIDIA offered DLSS to VR developers to help them improve the performance and visual fidelity of their games. We're about to begin seeing the fruits of those efforts finally.

Hello Games, creators of No Mans Sky, is one of the first developers to implement DLSS in a VR-supported game. DLSS is coming to No Man's Sky in the next update, which can nearly double the framerate on a 4K monitor. The title also supports VR headsets, and the DLSS feature will extend to the fully immersive version of the game. NVIDIA said the DLSS doubles the game's performance in VR.

Oculus today revealed that Infinite Office, the company's VR productivity solution, would launch with the next Oculus Quest update. Quest Platform v29 will also introduce new casting features for content creators and add multi-user and app sharing support to the original Quest.

Oculus has been rapidly updating the Quest platform giving it new software features that makes the headset an even better value. The most recent update, v28, enabled 120Hz mode for some games and the ability to pair a Logitech keyboard. The next update doesn't have any significant firmware changes that alter the hardware operation, but Oculus still has a few cool features in the pipeline for Quest owners.

Infinite Office is one of the more significant changes with v29. Soon you'll be able to use your Quest 2 headset to get work done. It gives you a web browser, access to document editing and presentation tools, and gives you a real reason to connect a keyboard to the headset.

HTC announced the Vive Pro 2 this week with a much higher resolution and higher refresh rate than the previous model. The headset supports Display Stream Compression to enable that high-bandwidth signal to pass through a DisplayPort 1.2 cable and work with the Vive Wireless Adapter. Unfortunately, the wireless kit still can't handle the full specs of the new headset.

HTC's Vive Pro 2 has several features that set it apart from the competition. The headset includes dual 2448x2440 120Hz RGB LCDs to give you an ultra-high-resolution VR experience. The new Vive is also compatible with all the existing SteamVR-based Vive accessories, such as the Vive Trackers and the Valve Index controllers. The headset also retains the original Vive Pro's shape, making it compatible with the new Vive Facial Tracker.

Compatibility with the Vive Wireless Adaptor is one of the most significant factors that set the new headset apart from the competition. The Oculus Quest 2 can run PC VR content via a WIFI connection, but HTC has the market cornered if you want the freedom of a tether-free headset and high-precision tracking with accessories.

Orbbec and Microsoft have teamed up to develop a series of Time-of-Flight (ToF) 3D cameras built with Microsoft's 3D sensor technology and Orbbec's embedded computing technology. Orbbec's ToF cameras support multiple ToF Sensors, onboard depth computing, and motion tracking via a 6-axis IMU. The new cameras will also have the ability to run depth vision algorithms through the onboard computing hardware to convert raw data into depth images locally.

"Microsoft is a world leader in high-resolution ToF sensor technology and cloud-based service. Its knowledge and intellectual property allow Orbbec to offer a full range of ToF cameras for the widest possible spectrum of uses," noted David Chen, co-founder and director of engineering for Orbbec. "Orbbec is excited to join the Azure Depth Platform Program, to jointly develop solutions that will enhance the capabilities of both Orbbec and Microsoft's customer and partner ecosystems."

The new cameras, which Orbbec expects to launch in 2022, would have direct integration with Microsoft's Azure cloud platform to enable "device management, data streaming and AI analytics capabilities."

One of VR's most popular shooters just got better. Population: One Season 2 launched on Thursday, with a new Western-themed map, more weapons to blast your enemies with, and even bigger multiplayer matches for even more fun.

BigBig VR launched Population: One in October 2020, the game became one of the most popular titles around. In February, the developer launched Season 1: Uprising, the first update to the game, which introduced five new weapons and launched Battle Pass, a 10-week paid pass that gets you exclusive content and skins.

Season 1 has since concluded, and on Thursday, BigBox VR kicked off Season 2: The Frontier, another 10-week period with an optional paid subscription with extra content. Season 2: The Frontier introduces a new map based in a western town. In the spirit of the western theme, Season 2 also adds the ability to dual-wield the Matador shotguns. BigBox VR added flick reloading so you can add shells without dropping a weapon.