Sparc (ex-Project Arena) is somewhat of an oddity in the VR space. While some developers are focusing on recreating certain real-world sports like minigolf or tennis, Eve Online studio CCP has gone a different direction by creating an entirely new sport, one that you could call a true “VR native.” After popping into the game, which mostly retains the...
Author: ssvar
Swiss Society of Virtual and Augmented Reality
3 ways Pokémon Go evolved during development
Pokémon Go didn’t hatch out of a Poké-egg looking exactly like how we know it. Dennis Wang, director of interaction and visual design at Pokémon Go developer Niantic Labs, talked Tuesday at the Game Developers Conference about designing the hit location-based game. Pokémon Go became a smash success after it launched last year for iOS and...
Epic releases Robo Recall as a free VR game on the Oculus Rift
Epic Games is announcing today that its zany robot-shooting game called Robo Recall is available today as a free exclusive game for the Oculus Touch controllers and the Oculus Rift virtual reality headset. Raleigh, N.C.-based Epic Games made the announcement on stage during an event at the Game Developers Conference in San Francisco. The title...
Oculus VR slashes Rift and Touch controller prices by $100 each
Virtual reality just got a little cheaper today for PC owners. Oculus VR announced this morning that it’s cutting the price of both its Oculus Rift head-mounted display (HMD) and the hand-tracking Oculus Touch motion controllers by $100. Effective immediately, you can now pick up the Rift for $500 (down from $600), and a pair...
Epic Games, Chevrolet, and The Mill blend augmented reality and film
Epic Games, visual creation company The Mill, and car maker Chevrolet have created a film that uses the Unreal game engine to blend an animated car in real-time into a video that will be part of a television advertising campaign. The companies collaborated together on “The Human Race,” a real-time short film and augmented reality...
Game engine CEOs talk past each other when it comes to statistics
Unity Technologies and Epic Games are in a grudge match for the hearts and minds of game developers. And so when you ask which one of them has a bigger or a better business, you get some very different answers. I interviewed both John Riccitiello, CEO of San Francisco-based Unity, and Tim Sweeney, CEO of...
8i uses hologram of astronaut Buzz Aldrin to greet GDC booth goers
8i is making 3D holograms out of people with its augmented reality software. And the company is using it to welcome people its booth at the Game Developers Conference with a hologram of astronaut Buzz Aldrin. The company recently announced Holo, a consumer mobile augmented reality app that lets people express themselves with funny holograms. The Holo...
Roblox reaches 1.7 million game creators on its Lego-like platform
Roblox said that it has reached a milestone in user-generated games. It now has more than 1.7 million game creators on its Lego-like game platform. The social game world now has more than 48 million monthly active players and 22 million online games. The company announced the numbers at the Game Developers Conference 2017 as part...
Free & Open-Source JavaScript Solution for Augmented Reality Comes to Life on Mobile
AR.js is a new JavaScript solution that offers highly efficient augmented reality features to mobile developers. With HoloJS released a few months back, there is a potential that the free AR.js, developed by Jerome Etienne, could work with the Microsoft HoloLens as well. Video: . According to the GitHub repository for the project, the listed...
Windows Mixed Reality Dev Headsets Ship This Month, VR Content Coming to Xbox Scorpio
The Acer Windows Mixed Reality Development Edition headset is shipping this month, the first HMD to include the inside-out tracking technology pioneered on the HoloLens. This marks the beginning of the rollout of Microsoft-endorsed VR headsets that support ‘world scale’ tracking and ‘mixed reality’ apps. Originally announced at Microsoft’s keynote in October 2016, VR headsets...