Virtual & Augmented Reality News - Page 4

Facebook has gobbled up yet another top-tier VR developer. This time, BigBox VR, the studio behind the increasingly popular VR shooter, Population: One, was the subject of Zuckerberg's sights. The studio is now part of the Oculus brand.

Population: One launched just nine months ago, but in that short period the studio has captured the hearts of many VR gamers. The studio has continued to pour resources into the game's development, and it regularly adds new content for its continuously returning player base. Evidently, Facebook's executives took notice and liked what they saw. On Friday, BigBox VR gave up its independence to become part of Facebook's team.

With Facebook's resources behind the game, Population: One is sure to continue to grow and likely in ways that wouldn't have been possible independently. With the resources of Facebook and Oculus Studios behind them, BigBox VR should be able to pour gas on the fire and accelerate the growth path for the game.

Schell Games revealed the sequel to I Expect You To Die with more elaborate puzzles and even more sticky situations to get yourself out of. The next edition is coming out this summer.

I Expect You To Die is one of the oldest VR games on the market, and to this day, it remains an excellent source of entertainment. If you like puzzles, especially of the escape room variety, I Expect You To Die, and its upcoming sequel I Expect You To Die 2: The Spy and the Liar, are sure to tickle your fancy.

I Expect You Tu Die 2 adds new missions in new locations but keeps all the danger. One wrong move, and as the name suggests, you're not going to make it. Every puzzle in this game has fatal consequences for every mistake.

Aldin dropped a surprise announcement about its flagship game, Waltz of the Wizard, over the weekend. The game's next expansion, Natural Magic, brings more than just new spells to learn. The developer has added "hours of entertainment" to Waltz of the Wizard, giving you new locations to explore, and enemies to put your new skills to the test.

Waltz of the Wizard is one of the most successful VR titles, with over 400,000 unique players. Aldin has created a unique interactive experience in Waltz of the Wizard, that lets you experiment with spell craft and magic casting. The new expansion, Natural Magic, takes you out of the wizard's quarters and into the world where you must put your magic powers to practice.

The new expansion includes an exterior courtyard where you can explore the new "natural magic" skills the expansion brings to the table. Once you've learned the basics, you can put your new magic powers to the test against magical enemies in a mysterious hidden fortress.

Ming-Chi Kuo, an analyst at TF International Securities who monitors Apple's supply chain, predicted that at least three new XR devices from top tech companies would hit the market in 2022. Kuo derived his opinion from his knowledge of the lens industry.

Ming-Chi Kuo recently released a research report which analyses orders for lenses that Taiwanese lens manufacturer Yujingguang (also known as Genius Electronic Optical) expects to deliver this year and next year. According to Android Central, Kuo's report states that Yujingguang will build the lenses for a future Oculus Quest headset and Sony's upcoming PSVR2. Based on the order details, Kuo expects the headsets to land next year.

Kuo's report also suggested that the lenses for these new devices would be more expensive than current generation lenses. However, they should provide an increased field of view and improved image clarity. Yujingguang currently builds 50% of the lenses for Facebook's Quest 2 headset, and the company expects to continue that rate next year, with an expected supply of 22 million units delivered. The company also anticipates supplying 50% of Sony's PSVR lenses but provided no sales estimates.

According to a report from UploadVR, the next Oculus Quest update will introduce a 50% increase to the maximum area that you can set the guardian bounds.

The Oculus Guardian gives you a virtual boundary to prevent you from walking into a wall or your TV. Currently, the Oculus Quest can address up to 10m x 10m of useable place space, which is a lot more space than most people have available. However, there must be at least a subset of users who desire more trackable space because Oculus is reportedly going to increase the maximum to 15 meters square when version 30 of the Oculus Quest OS rolls out later this year.

Oculus told UploadVR that it expects the increased size to "benefit a variety of apps." Which apps need more space remains to be seen. We would imagine it would mostly be custom applications for location-based entertainment facilities and training solutions for businesses that would most benefit from the increased tracking space.

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.