Extended Reality (XR) - Page 18

Vertigo Games is getting ready to release its next VR game, After The Fall, and the development team is starting the stir up the hype. A new preview real explains a bit more about the backstory and the enemies you face.

After The Fall is a 4-player co-operative multiplayer VR shooter set in a fictional post-apocalyptic world that collapsed decades ago, and it is now overrun by terrifying zombies.

"The difference between After The Fall and other VR zombie shooters is that you can play it together with your friends. So it's all focused on 4-player co-op," said Richard Stitselaar, Vertigo Games Studio Director. "It's crucial for any team member to work together by healing each other, sharing ammo, sharing weapons. This is the only way you can survive in After The Fall."

During a live AMA session on Instagram Wednesday evening, a viewer asked Zuckerberg what Facebook is doing to lower the barriers to emerging technologies like augmented reality. Zuckerberg's response was surprisingly candid and it revealed highlighted why Oculus will remain a dominant brand in the XR space for years to come.

Zuckerberg is on a mission to put as many people as possible in XR devices in the next 10 years, and he's ready to lose money to make it happen. Like the console market has historically done, Facebook will forgo up-front profits on hardware sales, and may even sell devices at a loss, with the expectation of coming out ahead through software sales.

Zuckerberg said he believes that making XR devices accessible requires two things: A high-quality wire-free experience, and a cost that consumers can afford. There may always be tethered headsets, but Zuckerberg thinks those devices will remain niche products.

Big Box Games has a significant hit on its hands with Population: One. The VR shooter has enjoyed a huge player base for a VR game ever since it launched last fall. A key to its success the developer's continued work to bring new excitement to the game, such as the upcoming team deathmatch event starting this week.

News of the team deathmatch mode coming to Population: One started to trickle out last week, but the developer took to Reddit to lay out some of the details over the weekend. The most notable announcement is the limited time availability of this new mode. Big Box Games said the team deathmatch event would run from June 3 through June 14.

During that time, smaller two-team matches with up to 6-players per team will run in smaller sections of the maps players are already familiar with. Games will have 15-minute timers, but rounds will likely finish quicker than that. The first team to 30 kills wins the game.

The Vive Pro 2is HTC's latest VR headset. It offers a significant resolution upgrade and a refresh rate increase over the original Vive Pro. To accommodate older PC's HTC provides a variety of resolution options.

The Vive Pro 2 is just around the corner, and several reviews have popped up online. Now that reviews are out, we have more details about the hardware and how it works. One of the first things to note is that Vive Pro 2 requires driver software in addition to SteamVR and that software controls the headset's display parameters.

The below screenshot was taken from VoodooDE's Vive Pro 2 review on YouTube shows five different resolution options. The Performance setting cuts the vertical and horizontal resolution in half, from 4896 x 2448 down to 2448 x 1224. At this resolution, the display must run at 120Hz. That would be the best option for hitting high frame rates on underpowered computers. And if you want to use the wireless adaptor, you won't even get 120Hz out of this resolution.

DPVR, a VR headset company from Shanghai, recently launched the DPVR Starlink solution, allowing teachers to run guided training with VR headsets in school classrooms. Starlink synchronizes spectator headsets with the instructor's view to keep students focused on the lesson.

DPVR said it developed the Starlink solution to help schools cut down on the cost of implementing VR training systems. Starlink allows teachers to run a classroom lecture in VR, with the teacher operating a PC VR system while the students watch from a standalone headset. The standalone headsets reduce the cost for schools by eliminating the need for a computer for each student.

The piece that brings this puzzle together is DPVR's P1 all-in-on VR headset, a Snapdragon XR2-based standalone device with a 4K display. The Starlink system casts the view of the PC headset wirelessly to up to 40 P1 headsets. That means every student in a class as big as 40 people would see the same picture the teacher sees at the exact moment the teacher sees it.

After a successful Kickstarter campaign last year, Cybershoes is now ready to sell the Oculus Quest version of its VR shoes on Amazon.com. The company also announced compatibility with a handful of new games.

Cybershoes recently fulfilled its Kickstarter obligations, and the company is now ready to sell the Quest version of the VR shoes to anyone who wants them.

"Launching on Amazon is huge for us because it allows easier access to Cybershoes for Quest gamers who might have been on the fence for our crowdfunding campaigns," said Michael Bieglmayer, CEO of Cybershoes. "Not to mention that fans will have a variety of fantastic games to choose from as soon as our box shows up on their doorstep! We can't wait for a whole new audience of VR gamers to experience what Cybershoes are all about."

Virtuix today announced that more than 6500 investors participated in its recent SeedInvest Series A-2 financing round, raking in $19 million to help Virtuix bring its first consumer product to the market.

Virtuix kicked off the latest round of funding last year when it revealed the Omni One, the company's first consumer-focused home VR treadmill. Virtuix founder and CEO Jan Goetgeluk offered investors a slice of his company for as little as $1000, and more than 6500 people took advantage of the offer.

"We're impressed by the outpouring of investor support for Omni One," said Goetgeluk. "More than two million players have experienced the thrill of walking around inside videogames at our commercial venues around the world. Given our success in the out-of-home market, our investors believe we're well-positioned to bring our popular gaming experience to millions of homes around the world."

Get ready to hit the virtual slopes. Carve Snowboarding debuts this Thursday on Oculus Quest.

Chuhai Labs today confirmed that Carve Snowboarding is coming out this week. The indie developer announced on Twitter that the game would be available on Thursday, May 27.

Carve Snowboarding is Chuhai Labs debut VR game but the team behind Carve Snowboarding is no stranger to delivering games. The creator of 1080 Snowboarding for the Nintendo 64 is the CEO of Chuhai Labs (and he just did an AMA on Reddit), which means there are few studios with the know-how to build this game.

One of the best horror games on the Oculus platform is now available on SteamVR.

Wraith: The Oblivion - Afterlife is no longer an Oculus exclusive title. Fast Travel Games released the SteamVR version today, giving Vive and Index owners a chance to play the game.

Wraith: The Oblivion - Afterlife is a story-driven horror game that relies on tension and suspense to give you the chills rather than cheap jump scares. The game is set in the World of Darkness universe, the same universe as Vampire: The Masquerade. You play the role of Ed Miller, a photographer who met his death during a seance, and you must uncover the mystery of how you died.

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.

Bionik today announced two accessories for your VR headset. The company is preparing to release a hypoallergenic face cushion for the Oculus Quest 2 to keep your headset clean. It also announced an update to the Mantis VR headphones that work with almost any VR headset.

Bionik's Face Pad VR is a direct replacement for the factory face cushion. The company said the cushion is made of "soft, absorbent, hypoallergenic materials." Bionik's product designers also added vents to the frame to give the headset extra ventilation for extended use.

Bionik's Mantis VR headphones are an accessory for almost any VR headset. These clip-on headphones give you better audio for your VR experience without the need to mess with a separate pair of headphones. The Mantis VR has a universal clip that attaches to the side strap of your headset to give you high-fidelity over-the-ear audio.