Removing and reinstalling games on the Xbox One's hard drive isn't difficult, but it's a process that not everyone is familiar with. Thankfully, our guide will run you through each step so you'll know precisely what to do.
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Pixel Ripped 1989 is finally released today after several years of development. In this quirky VR game you take on the role of a young grade school girl as she plays her Gameboy-inspired handheld console in class, at school, around the house, and in other areas. The game world starts to escape the small screen and merge with her real world (or the VR world) and it’s up to you to battle back the forces of evil.
It’s a really clever and creative game concept that’s got multiple layers. We went hands on with it at GDC earlier this year and came away smiling from the concept and execution, but you’ll have to wait for our full review later this week to see how the full game stacks up.
In the meantime, we’ll be livestreaming Pixel Ripped 1989 on PC today using an Oculus Rift with Touch controllers starting very soon as of the time this is being published (which means we’ll start at approximately 2:15 PM PT) and aim to last for about an hour or so. We’ll be livestreaming directly to the UploadVR Facebook page. You can see the full stream embedded right here down below once it’s up:
Embedded livestream coming soon
You can see our archived streams all in this one handy Livestream playlist over on the official UploadVR YouTube channel (which you should totally subscribe to by the way). All future and current streams will be on Facebook, which you can see a list of here.
Let us know which games you want us to livestream next and what you want to see us do, specifically, in Pixel Ripped 1989 or other VR games. Comment with feedback down below!
Tagged with: ARVORE, Pixel Ripped, Pixel Ripped 1989
The post Pixel Ripped 1989 Livestream: Blast From The Past In A VR Future appeared first on UploadVR.
I could name all of the actually good VR strategy games I’ve played to date on a single hand. Near the top of the list is Brass Tactics, an Oculus Rift exclusive from an experienced team that worked on Age of Empires, then you’ve got a collection of other titles like AirMech Command, Skyworld, and a few God games that don’t really capture the magic of strategy all that well. Final Assault is coming soon, but other than that it’s a bit of a drought. Luckily, MoonStrike is here to fill that gap.
MoonStrike was originally debuted over two years ago back before the Rift and Vive had even officially launched and is finally back in the spotlight after a couple years of extended hibernation and development.
Mechanically, MoonStrike is a very simple game. All you really need to know how to do is click on things, drag them around, and then release. That’s about it. But underneath that layer of simplicity is some surprising RTS-style depth.
There are five factions to pick from all with different unit types and advantages, up to three player multiplayer, AI for single player challenges, as well as a mixture of crafted and randomly generated levels to help mix things up.
MoonStrike is finally releasing this week on August 2nd for Rift and Vive on both Oculus Home and Steam at a price point of $19.99 along with a 15% launch window discount.
Let us know what you think of the game down in the comments below!
Tagged with: Big Dorks, MoonStrike, rts
The post MoonStrike Is A VR RTS From Designer That Worked On Fortnite And Gears Of War appeared first on UploadVR.
4K display tech is here, but there's more to running stuff at such a high display resolution than just handing over the dough for a 4K-equipped display. Here's what you need to run 4K.
The post Here’s everything you need to run 4K games and movies appeared first on Digital Trends.
The next game from the developers of Sprint Vector and Raw Data is releasing sooner than you think.
Survios today announced that its VR music creation experience, Electronauts, will be launching on Oculus Rift, HTC Vive and PlayStation VR (PSVR) on Tuesday, August 7th. The PC VR version will cost $19.99, while the PSVR edition will go for $17.99. A full track list for the game has also been released, which we’ve included below. It includes popular artists like The Chainsmokers (who have their own VR app, in fact) and Steve Aoki.
Electronauts allows players to remix, compose and perform tracks, giving you a heap of tools and virtual instruments to mess around with. As you may have already guessed from the neon-lit launch trailer, its geared more towards dance music instead of the rock songs that games like Rock Band VR have tackled in the past.
Electronauts isn’t all Survios has in the works right now, though. The studio is also developing Creed: Rise to Glory, a VR boxing game based on the popular spin-off to the Rocky franchise.
Full track list:
The Chainsmokers – Roses (ft. ROZES)
ODESZA – Say My Name (ft. Zyra)
Steve Aoki & Boehm – Back 2 You (ft. WALK THE MOON)
Tiesto & John Christian – I Like It Loud (ft. Marshall Masters & The Ultimate MC)
ZHU & Tame Impala – My Life
ZHU & NERO – Dreams
ZHU – Intoxicate
12th Planet – Let Me Help You (ft. Taylr Renee)
Netsky – Nobody
Dada Life – B Side Boogie, Higher Than The Sun, We Want Your Soul
Keys N Krates – Dum Dee Dum [Dim Mak Records]
Krewella & Yellow Claw – New World (ft. Vava)
Krewella – Alibi
Amp Live & Del The Funky Homosapien – Get Some of Dis
DJ Shadow – Bergshrund (ft. Nils Frahm)
3LAU – Touch (ft. Carly Paige)
Machinedrum – Angel Speak (ft. Melo-X), Do It 4 U (ft. Dawn Richard)
People Under The Stairs – Feels Good
Tipper – Lattice
TOKiMONSTA – Don’t Call Me (ft. Yuna), I Wish I Could (ft. Selah Sue)
Reid Speed & Frank Royal – Get Wet
AHEE – Liftoff
BIJOU – Gotta Shine (ft. Germ) [Dim Mak Records]
Anevo – Can’t Stop (ft. Heather Sommer) [Dim Mak Records]
KRANE & QUIX – Next World [Dim Mak Records]
B-Sides & SWAGE – On The Floor [Dim Mak Records]
Gerald Le Funk vs. Subshock & Evangelos – 2BAE [Dim Mak Records]
Max Styler – Heartache (Taiki Nulight Remix), All Your Love [Dim Mak Records]
Riot Ten & Sirenz – Scream! [Dim Mak Records]
Fawks – Say You Like It (ft. Medicienne) [Dim Mak Records]
Taiki Nulight – Savvy [Dim Mak Records]
Jovian – ERRBODY
Madnap – Heat
MIKNNA – Trinity Ave, Us
5AM – Peel Back (ft. Wax Future)
Jamie Prado & Gregory Doveman – Young (Club Mix)
Coral Fusion – Klip [Survios original]
GOODHENRY – Wonder Wobble [Survios original]
Starbuck – Mist [Survios original]
Tagged with: Electronauts
The post Sprint Vector Dev’s Electronauts Releases Next Week, Tracklist Revealed appeared first on UploadVR.
Activision is releasing a special edition of Destiny 2 that bundles the base game, Curse of Osiris, Warmind, and Forsaken for $60. It includes a level boost so you can start playing Forsaken quests when it launches September 4.
The post ‘Destiny 2: Forsaken – Legendary Edition’ brings all four adventures together appeared first on Digital Trends.
The Microsoft HoloLens Developer Kit originally released back in March of 2016. That’s nearly two and a half years ago. At that time it’s limited field of view of only 30 degrees horizontally was seen as a frustrating, but understandable, drawback. Now the Magic Leap One, the severely hyped upcoming AR headset that no one can talk about, only has a 40 degree horizontal field of view according to uncovered developer documentation.
There’s no other way to describe that than as a disappointment.
Source: VentureBeat
In a world where the upcoming Leap Motion North Star headset reportedly has a 100-degree FOV and Magic Leap’s received over $2 billion in funding by comparison, 40 degrees horizontally isn’t much of a “leap” forward at all.
Similar to the HoloLens, using the Magic Leap One will likely instill a “window” effect in your view. Instead of feeling like you’re surrounded by a magical, augmented world such as is shown in all of the promotional videos for the device, it’s more like peering through a tiny window to another world — almost like holding up your phone with Apple’s ARKit or Google’s ARCore.
Granted, I have not personally tried the Magic Leap One, but this statistic is troubling. When you combine this number with the lack of a real, live demo and an incredibly lackluster “rock monster” presentation that doesn’t even feature hand occlusion, it’s all adding up to what will likely be a major disappointment.
Source: Next Reality
The verdict is still out though and we have to wait a bit longer before delivering any real impressions, but our excitement is quickly dwindling. Magic Leap One will start shipping developer kits this summer.
Let us know what you think down in the comments below!
Tagged with: Magic Leap, Magic Leap One
The post Magic Leap One’s Reported Field Of View Leaves A Lot To Be Desired appeared first on UploadVR.
The first talks have been revealed and registration is now open for Oculus Connect 5, being hosted September 26 and 27 in San Jose, California.
The first 18 talks revealed for the two-day event cover a variety of subjects, including porting content to the upcoming high-end standalone headset Facebook is seeding to developers this year.
The talk by Gabor Szauer, an Oculus Developer Relations Engineer, is titled “Porting Your App to Project Santa Cruz” and covers how to bring content to the forthcoming standalone system. The talk will cover “a stable of universal techniques and best practices can help reduce draw calls and hit perf without sacrificing fidelity. We’ll start with an overview of the device and basic considerations, and walk step by step through the process of reviewing and optimizing textures, scene geometry, and lighting. This session will also include a deep dive on engine profiling tools and specific Santa Cruz performance targets.”
This looks like the deep dive developers will be hoping to see about the capabilities of the “Santa Cruz” developer prototype. It is unknown right now exactly how hard it will be for developers to get versions of their PC-based Rift games up and running on the headset and this talk looks like it might answer some of those questions.
Oculus Connect 5: I will be doing me my usual live app reviews and unscripted keynote on day 2.
— John Carmack (@ID_AA_Carmack) July 31, 2018
Here are the other talks Oculus revealed:
Advances in the Oculus Rift PC SDK
Volga Aksoy, Oculus Software Engineer + Dean Beeler, Oculus Software Engineer
The PC SDK is the foundation of performance apps and games. This session will cover our latest features and new runtime advances designed to help you boost visual fidelity and performance.Blood, Sweat, and Tears: A Tale of VR Esports
Christopher K. McKelvy, Oculus Head of Esports
Catch up on the latest and what’s next for Oculus’s journey into VR esports. During this talk, developers and business leaders will learn what makes a great VR esports title and how to capitalize on industry trends. Attendees will leave with a deep understanding of Oculus’ long-term strategy to revolutionize every aspect of esports including gameplay, competition, and viewership.Bootstrapping Social VR
John Bartkiw, Oculus Platform Engineering Manager
The best way to get the real feeling of presence in VR is to share an experience with someone else. In this session, we’ll debunk the myth of how challenging it is to build a multiplayer VR experience. We’ll walk through a Unity sample project step-by-step to help you build with invites and matchmaking, co-ordinated app launch and Avatars, VoIP, and P2P networking.Building Brand + Community (On a Budget)
Lisa Brown Jaloza, Oculus Tech Comms Manager
Come learn about the unique opportunities available to you as Oculus developers and pick up some tried-and-true best practices while you’re at it. From blogs and asset creation to reddiquette and beyond, we’ll help you put social media and the VR community to work for you—without breaking the bank.Evolving Stormland: How Insomniac Draws from the Past to Create an Open-World Structure in VR
Mike Daly, Insomniac Games Lead Designer + Duncan Moore, Insomniac Games Principal Designer
Insomniac Games has a long history of making games with smooth gameplay, player empowerment, and open-world freedom. The creators of Ratchet & Clank, Sunset Overdrive, and The Unspoken will share some of the VR-specific gameplay tips and tricks discovered over the course of developing four VR titles that culminate in Stormland’s free-roaming exploration and combat gameplay, as well as how these aspects enrich the player experience in VR.Fireside Chat: Tender Claws
Samantha Gorman, Tender Claws Co-Founder + Ichha Arora, Oculus Associate Producer
Join us for a chat with Tender Claws, the studio behind Virtual Virtual Reality on Rift, Oculus Go, Gear VR, and Google Daydream and PRY for iOS. We’ll hear about their approach to multi-layered interactive narrative and taking cues from other media to seamlessly blend story and interactivity.The Hierarchy of Being: Embodying Our Virtual Selves
Isabel Tewes, Oculus Developer Relations Specialist + Yelena Rachitsky, Oculus Executive Producer
How do you design an experience optimized for immersion and make someone feel like they’re there? We’ll take an interdisciplinary approach to investigating how the body, movement, and presence of others can deliver immersion across Rift and Project Santa Cruz.How To: Driving Discovery and Engagement Across the Rift Platform
Lucy Chen, Oculus Product Manager
The Rift platform extends well beyond the headset to surfaces online, on mobile, and on desktop. Learn how to put these tools to work to help you distribute and market apps—and engage with your players, fans, and followers in new ways. We’ll share insights on our roadmap and developer needs we’re working to address. Bring your ideas and feedback to this interactive session.Integrating Locomotion in Unity, Unreal, and Native Engines
Tom Heath, Oculus Developer Relations Software Engineer + Luke Thompson, Director of Sigtrap Games
Oculus and Sigtrap Games are pleased to announce and provide open source plugins and tools to readily incorporate a range of locomotion comfort techniques into your Unity, Unreal and native applications. We’ll explain how to easily integrate these solutions, and explain the theory behind why they work.Need to Know: Oculus Content Policies and App Review Standards
Debbie Rosenbaum, Oculus Lead Counsel + Ashley Woolheater, Oculus Public Policy Manager
Get help understanding Oculus Content Policies, company philosophy, common best practices, and pitfalls developers should avoid when submitting content to the Oculus Store. Join us for this unexpectedly fun and refreshing legal, comms, and policy training.Oculus Lipsync SDK: Audio to Facial Animation
Elif Albuz, Facebook Computer Vision Engineering Manager
Oculus Lipsync SDK delivers newer, more accurate real-time facial animation from audio. This technology is supported across multiple platforms an animates face across many different languages. We will show you how easy it is to integrate Lipsync into your projects, share our future plans and discuss recently released features.On Creative Development for Emerging Platforms
Ruth Bram, Oculus Studios Associate Producer + Robin Hunicke, Funomena Co-Founder
In this fireside chat with Funomena’s Designer & CEO Robin Hunicke, we’ll discuss the lessons she’s learned about creative development while working on emerging platforms. We’ll cover everything from working on in-flight hardware and the communication and team cultures required to remain calm in the face of moving targets, to designing for new affordances without leaning on tired UX tropes. Robin will also share about developing a studio that embraces iteration and the ways in which inclusive and diverse hiring helps increase a team’s ability to problem-solve under uncertainty and navigate towards blue ocean ideas.Preparing Your App for Launch
Phil Greenspan, Oculus Developer Strategy Specialist
You’ve built your app. Now what? Learn how to best prepare your game, app, or experience for a successful launch on the Oculus Platform. We’ll review how to develop a meaningful launch strategy for your project, key pre-launch action items and timelines, and plans for post-launch maintenance and support. You’ll walk away with some useful tools, resources, and best practices.Real-World Immersion You Can Hear: Advances in the Audio SDK
Pete Stirling, Oculus Audio Software Engineer + Tom Smurdon, Oculus Audio Design Manager
The Oculus Audio SDK includes features and tools designed to mimic how sound waves work in the real world. We’ll present an overview of the latest features, provide best practices for maintaining optimal immersion across mobile, standalone, and PC, and include an early look at key considerations for Project Santa Cruz.Reinforcing Mobile Performance with RenderDoc
Remi Palandri, Oculus Software Engineer
We’ve done a lot under the hood to make your apps shine across our mobile platform. Here, you’ll learn how to make the most of Oculus Go and Project Santa Cruz’s unique performance improvements, and use our diagnostics to debug quality and performance challenges. We’ll walk through these features, show how to identify and avoid common errors to boost performance across Unity, Unreal and native engines.Using Deep Learning to Create Interactive Actors for VR
Kevin He, DeepMotion CEO
Physical character interaction is hard to fake—whether it’s between two in-world characters, between users and characters, or between a character or avatar and its environmental surroundings. Nevertheless, interaction is central to user-driven storytelling and building immersive VR and AR experiences that suspend disbelief. DeepMotion will discuss the challenges of, and science behind, building an interactive character authoring tool, as well as how developers can integrate intelligent character simulation into their own experiences.Video That Doesn’t Suck: Stereo(scopic) 3D-180° for VR
Eric Cheng, Oculus Head of Immersive Media
Bringing great-looking video experiences to VR can be challenging, and container apps are only half the battle. 3D-180 video allows for higher-quality stereoscopic experiences with fewer resources spent on production. We’ll cover best practices for creating 3D-180 video for distribution and playback in Oculus Go through a live workshop. During discussion about camera hardware, software tools, real-world differences between 180 and 360, and spatial audio, we will actually shoot, edit, and distribute a short video for viewing in Oculus Go.
Tagged with: Oculus Connect 5
The post Oculus To Talk Porting Content To Santa Cruz And More At Connect 5 appeared first on UploadVR.
Nvidia confirmed previous rumors that the company will host a special event just before the Gamescom gaming convention in Germany. Called the GeForce Gaming Celebration, the event will be held off-site at a now-secret location.
The post Nvidia confirms its pre-show Gamescom event, promising ‘spectacular surprises’ appeared first on Digital Trends.
Fortnite's new limited-time game mode, Fly Explosives, is an explosives-only variant featuring jetpacks and rocket launchers, which includes the return of guided missiles. Don't worry, they have been nerfed.
The post The latest ‘Fortnite’ event is an all-around explosive good time appeared first on Digital Trends.
Gaming is more open than ever, and that’s an amazing thing. Slowly but surely we’re seeing a much more diverse, vibrant industry emerge, one that thrives on the joys of our differences but also one that isn’t afraid to tackle tough subjects that we all face, like mental health. Some games, like this week’s stunning VR port of Hellblade, navigate this tricky territory with aplomb. Anamorphine, though, isn’t able to tackle it with the same eloquence.
Developer Artifact 5 is clearly speaking from the heart with this distressing tale of a couple that succumbs to depression following a tragic accident. And, through striking imagery and inventive design, the team does find some interesting ways to talk about these struggles. But a handful of missteps leave Anamorphine feeling cold, misguided and ultimately even a little irresponsible.
Other than movement and gaze-based interactions you’re simply a spectator in Anamorphine. You follow protagonist Tyler and his wife Elena as they struggle to come to terms with an incident that leaves the latter unable to play her cello, clearly a strong source of her livelihood. There isn’t a single spoken word; you move through Tyler’s increasingly distorted memories on what very much feels like a descent into the very recesses of mental anguish.
Artifact 5 mines the topic for some memorable and disturbing moments. The workmanlike halls of the hospital in which Elena rests stretch on like an increasingly frustrating maze, while some sequences have you endlessly walking through the couple’s apartment to hammer home the vicious cycle that poor mental health can lock you in. Flies fester, garbage piles up, lights drip and the wind howls. It’s literally stepping into the state of someone at their lowest.
Recurrence is, ironically, a recurrent theme within the game itself and perhaps a little too much at times. Some sequences stretch on a little too long without having much to say, and what impact they can make is diminished by frequent returns. This is a story that’s at its best when it encapsulates the strain of depression in ways that only gaming can express, by literally transporting you into someone’s mind and playing with the supernatural, so it’s a shame the ideas can’t stay fresh even for 60 minutes.
That said, there are moments that will stay with me, more for how cleverly that define the difficult juggling act of staying positive. At one point the music that Elena thrived upon appears to completely swallow her whole, which Tyler’s struggle with alcoholism is brought to life in one particularly visceral scene. Earlier moments in the game have happier sequences too, like exploring a world Elena builds with her music.
One of Anamorphine biggest missteps, though, is with its ending. Without spoiling anything, it’s important to note there are two possible conclusions to the game, and it’s very easy to miss the action needed to achieve the ‘good’ ending. I did the first time and, as a result, the game really rubbed me the wrong way. It simply didn’t have an ascent to lighten its at times crushing weight. Of course, for some there really isn’t much that can lighten that load, but in stretching out its exhibition of depression and leaving you in the same place it started, it feels somewhat exploitative. When the credits unexpectedly start to roll I was simply left wondering why I had been taken on a journey that had simply stretched out a message it made clear in its first third.
There’s definitely a point to be made about neglect and the need to accept help here, but the inclusion of a ‘bad’ ending, especially one that people could easily take as the only conclusion, is the game’s biggest blunder. It betrays its otherwise delicate handling of the subject matter and left me feeling far colder than may have been intended.
I also have to stress that the game simply shouldn’t be played in VR, as it’s lacking proper optimization. While the really rooting yourself in the experience can be compelling, the basic gamepad controls require you not to move your body when playing, and I couldn’t get Touch controls to work at all. Most importantly, though, many of the game’s transitions are jarring and uncomfortable, completely taking you out of the experience. Even on a flat screen there are bugs and kinks to iron out, but the VR implementation simply left me hazy, and not in the intentional sense.
One fatal foot wrong meant that Anamorphine made a strong impact on me for the wrong reasons. While it has some interesting ideas on how to present mental suffering, the innocent act of overlooking one crucial moment meant it ultimately failed to justify its tour of misery and left me with too sour a taste. By the time I discovered there was a sunnier conclusion out there, the damage had been done. That, coupled with the poor VR optimization, make it hard to recommend to anyone with an interest in its subject matter and I would advise people suffering from depression to actively avoid its troubling depictions. There may be some that applaud this unflinching approach to an impossible situation, but a lighter touch may have been the better approach.
Anamorphine is available now on Oculus Rift and HTC Vive for $19.99. A PSVR version is also in development. Read our Game Review Guidelines for more information on how we arrived at this score.
Tagged with: Anamorphine
The post Anamorphine Review: A Distressing Tale Of Depression With Little Redemption appeared first on UploadVR.
The Nintendo Switch is quickly approaching 20 million total consoles sold just a little over a year after the system originally launched. To little surprise, Mario is leading the charge.
The post Nintendo Switch closes in on 20 million sales, as Mario leads the charge appeared first on Digital Trends.
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
The post Flight Is A Photorealistic VR App For Fighting Fears Of Flying appeared first on UploadVR.
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
The post Kite & Lightning Showcasing iPhone Motion Capture At SIGGRAPH appeared first on UploadVR.
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.
Vancouver, Canada
Registration: Attendee
Cologne, Germany
Registration: Exhibitor | Attendee
Vancouver, Canada
Registration: Exhibitor | Attendee
San Jose, United States
Registration: TBD
Los Angeles, United States
Registration: Attendee
San Francisco, United States
Registration: Attendee
Toronto, Canada
Registration: Attendee
Tokyo, Japan
Registration: Exhibitor
San Francisco, United States
Registration: TBD
Barcelona, Spain
Austin, United States
Reutlingen, Germany
San Francisco, United States
Laval, France
Las Vegas, United States
New York, United States
San Jose, United States
Seoul, South Korea
Los Angeles, United States
Tokyo, Japan
Mountain View, United States
Beijing, China
Las Vegas, United States
London, England
Santa Clara, United States
Los Angeles, United States
Toronto, Canada
Berlin, Germany
Registration: Attendee
San Diego, United States
Registration: Exhibitor | Attendee Badges (Sold Out)
The post 2018 VR and AR Conference, Festival and Expo Schedule appeared first on UploadVR.
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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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.
Tagged with: blood and truth
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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.
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.”
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.”
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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The verdict is in: Hellblade VR is a triumph. Ninja Theory’s BAFTA-winning adventure was already worth your time on a flat screen, but it soars in VR and is simply unmissable if you own an Oculus Rift or HTC Vive. Good news, then: you can currently pick it up for almost half the price.
The original version of Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice is on sale on the Humble Store for the next week priced at $17.99/£14.99. That’s 40% off of the original price of $29.99/£24.99. Crucially, you can claim the game on Steam, meaning you’ll still get the free VR update when it goes live later today.
We loved what Ninja Theory did with Hellblade VR, calling it a “remarkable achievement in visual and sound design.”
“It’s a great example of how to port a non-VR third-person action game to the immersive realm of HMDs that not only stays true to the source material, but enhances the experience in meaningful ways,” Games Editor David Jagneaux wrote. “If you haven’t played Hellblade before, there is no better time than now and if you have, then this is an engrossing way to re-experience Senua’s journey from a new perspective.”
Elsewhere, Ninja Theory also confirmed that anyone that picked the game up on GOG instead of Steam will also be getting the VR version free. Yay!
Tagged with: Hellblade VR, Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice
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I remember the moment that I realized playing a game like Hellblade in VR would be unlike everything else I’ve played before. During a tense fight with an enemy early on in the game I was very low on health. One of the voices in my head that’s constantly taunting, nagging, and whispering to Senua throughout her journey yelped “Behind you!” and I physically spun my head around to see another enemy lunging with a sword, so I pressed the block button and parried the blow perfectly. Had it not been for that ability to turn and look — and my instinct to follow directions from the voice in my head — I likely would have died.
Small moments like that are great examples of how VR can be used to enhance an otherwise non-VR game. Not every game needs VR support, but most games would be more immersive and engrossing if it was done well. Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice outside of VR was already one of the best games this entire generation with ominous psychological overtones and a highly atmospheric setting, so adapting that world to VR only enhances what already made it so great to begin with.
In Hellblade you take on the role of Senua as she descends into the depths of Nordic Hell, otherwise known as Helheim, on a quest to save the soul of her lost lover. Throughout the adventure you’re besieged by twisted, demonic creatures that engage you in ferocious melee combat. The journey consists of battling back these deranged creatures, exploring dark, twisted worlds, and uncovering the meaning behind cryptic symbols and puzzles.
What underscores everything though is the bold and brilliant presentation. Visually it’s one of the most stunning games (VR or otherwise) that I’ve ever played and I’m honestly hard-pressed to think of a better looking experience inside of a VR headset. The sound design is second-to-none as voices race through Senua’s head and across each of your ears. One voice may whisper words of encouragement while another sneers insults and discredits your actions. Flickers of images and brief hallucinations appear on-screen and you’re constantly questioning everything that you do and see for the entire 6-8 hour journey.
Combat in Hellblade is thrilling and intense. It’s nowhere near as deep as other third-person action games you may have played recently, but it doesn’t need to be. Senua can issue light and heavy attacks, dodge, block, and parry. Eventually you unlock some otherworldly abilities and time manipulation, which looks amazing in VR, but that’s the gist of it. You time your blocks to parry attacks, string together combos, and juggle multiple enemies that quickly try to surround and overwhelm you.
Being able to crane your neck around and marvel at the amazing environment is a huge reason why playing Hellblade in VR is so magical, but the change of perspective actually helps out combat as well. As explained at the start of this review, you can look around while fighting to avoid getting flanked by unseen enemies.
And while you can certainly play Hellblade outside of VR with headphones to experience the chilling audio and whispering voices, it’s not the same. When those voices giggle and prod my psyche mid-gameplay it really causes me to keep my head on a swivel, looking all around. It affects you on a much deeper level than just some creepy voices in your earbuds. They feel like they’re part of your mind.
In terms of VR-exclusive features, Hellblade actually has a few surprising bits. For starters, there are two experimental camera angles in the settings menu. The standard camera view follows Senua from behind just like in the non-VR game, but then there’s also a Tabletop-style camera that’s aimed down from the sky that makes Senua look like a miniature figure and a Giant-style camera that puts you at her ankles, looking up. It made me feel like I was a dog by her side.
Even when using the standard camera view the sense of scale is incredible. Instead of flicking an analog stick to look around I can actually crane my neck to gasp at enormous mountains, decrepit landscapes, or rotting piles of flesh in the depths of Hell. It’s just a shame more hadn’t been done to make it feel fresh or at least offer motion controller support in some way.
I never felt sick at all while playing Hellblade in VR, but I’ve also never felt sick when in VR at all. There are lots of options to pick from and tweak to make things as comfortable as possible, such as snap turning, camera snapping during combat, and even a nifty feature that lets you turn Senua while moving using just your head while exploring. It plays great with full smooth rotation on as well, which is how I preferred to play.
However, no matter which comfort options you pick all cutscenes that move the camera around a scene will zoom into a letterbox-style presentation. I couldn’t find an option to disable this. It was clearly done to maintain a sense of comfort, but it would have been nice to be able to remove that. It got annoying after a while.
Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice VR Edition is a remarkable achievement in visual and sound design. It’s a great example of how to port a non-VR third-person action game to the immersive realm of HMDs that not only stays true to the source material, but enhances the experience in meaningful ways. If you haven’t played Hellblade before, there is no better time than now and if you have, then this is an engrossing way to re-experience Senua’s journey from a new perspective.
Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice is currently available on Steam for $29.99. The VR edition, which this review is based on, releases on July 31st. All owners of the non-VR edition receive the VR version for free. Check out these official review guidelines to find out more about our process.
Tagged with: hellblade, Hellblade VR, ninja theory
The post Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice VR Review – A Haunting Thrill Ride Through The Human Mind appeared first on UploadVR.
One of the most anticipated games of the year – and of all time – No Man’s Sky has an incredible burden of expectation to support. Is its universe really one you can get lost in for hundreds of hours? Or is this another game that’s wide and shallow?
The post ‘No Man’s Sky’ review appeared first on Digital Trends.
According to a report from VentureBeat, Richard Marks, a former senior researcher and head of PlayStation’s Magic Lab who helped create the PlayStation VR (PSVR) headset and PS Move controllers, has left Sony to join Google.
As of now we’ve got no real idea what his role at Google will be or what this means for the future of Sony’s PSVR. In fact, Google recently hired Phil Harrison, the former head of Sony’s game research and development for worldwide studios, Jack Buser, the former PlayStation Home chief, and even the creator of Xbox Live Arcade, Greg Canessa.
Clearly it seems that Google is amidst a big push for game-focused talent and is likely building up to something huge. There have been rumors of a “Google Yeti” which could be a cloud-based gaming platform to rival PlayStation and Xbox. If the Yeti were going to have VR features, hiring Marks would be a great way to prototype and engineer that sort of support.
While running Sony’s Magic Lab, Marks was in charge of R&D of future-focused concepts and ideas. In that role he helped create the PS Move controllers and PSVR headset as we mentioned, as well as the EyeToy (the predecessor of the PS Camera).
We’ve reached out to both Sony and Google for comment.
Tagged with: google, PSVR, richard marks
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