OrbusVR, the virtual reality MMORPG, is getting heaps of new content this year, as the studio not only announced a continuation of the game’s ‘Explorer’s League’ questline, which is slated to bring multiple hours new gameplay next month, but also the first of a series of paid DLC ‘Mini Story Packs’ that promise to bring 10 -15 hours of additional content to the game.
Introduced last year, The Explorer’s League questline is getting its second phase starting February 10th, which is said to provide around 5-10 hours of new content and include rewards such as a Transmog chest piece, new dyes, achievements, and buildings upon completion of the storyline.
In light of the studio’s decision to make the game free-to-play up until level 10 on PC, it appears OrbusVR is looking towards paid DLC quests to keep players coming back for fresh content. The first paid Mini Story Pack is said to arrive Q2 2020, and will be priced at $10. The studio says it will include “all-new zones to explore, quest lines and NPCs, allowing you to experience Patreayl like you’ve never seen it before.”
While the effects of Essence radiation are clearly visible throughout the land, no one has ever explored their effects on the micro ecosystems of Patreayl. Using the newly developed “micronizer” tool, shrink down and discover a miniature world teeming with life—as well as a few secret cities.
Meet the residents of a mushroom village, clamber up discarded barrels in a field, and find your way through a maze of underground tunnels.
This first Mini Story Pack will introduce around 10-15 hours of new gameplay. You will find new monsters, gear sets, a new mount, pet, house decor and achievements. Each new zone will be laden with hidden areas and secret passages—discovery of which will be aided with the addition of a new climbing mechanic!
Orbus says more information of its first Mini Story Pack will arrive in the coming months, so stay tuned to the studio’s blog for the latest.
OrbusVR supports SteamVR headsets via Steam, and Rift and Quest via the Oculus Store.
Spatial, a New York-based startup behind the eponymous real-time AR/VR collaboration platform, has secured $14 million in additional financing, bringing its overall funds to $22 million.
The latest funding round was led by White Star Capital, iNovia and Kakao Ventures, with continued participation from Instagram co-founder Mike Krieger and Zynga founder Mark Pincus. Existing Spatial investors also include the likes of Samsung NEXT, Baidu Ventures, and LG Ventures to name a few.
Founded in 2016 by Anand Agarawala and Jinha Lee, the company’s social AR/VR workspace has since gone on to include support for Microsoft HoloLens 2, Oculus Quest, Magic Leap 1, Qualcomm XR2, Android/iPhone mobile device and traditional monitors.
The company emphasizes the platform’s potential to let knowledge workers seamlessly connect through virtual spaces, thereby replacing the need to travel for meetings and collaborations. Users can chat using more lifelike avatars built through a quick 3D scanning process, open browser windows, and view and manipulate 3D objects as if they were in the same room together.
We had a chance to go hands-on at MWC 2019 last year, and again at CES 2020 earlier this month. Spatial has made a compelling argument for its workspace tech, and while it’s equally early days for the company and augmented reality, it’s clear Spatial is headed in an inevitable direction.
Check out the on-stage demo from MWC 2019 last year to get a better idea of what Spatial is all about:
A collection of VR Through-The-Lenses photos & video between the Pimax 8KX, Pimax 8K+ Pimax, 8K, Pimax 5K+, Valve Index, HP Reverb v1 & HTC Vive to show the difference in VR screen door effect. The through the lenses photos in Virtual Reality has been captured with DSLR camera in macro mode (highly magnified). The TTL video is recorded with a 4K DSLR camera. More info about Pimax VR headsets and how you can order one: https://pimax.com/sweviver Disclaimer: I work for Pimax, but I do YouTube videos on my own as an VR enthusiast, and doing videos is not a part of my job or tasks at work. #ThroughTheLens #VR #Pimax #VirtualReality
In Facebook’s quarterly earnings call yesterday, company CEO Mark Zuckerberg revealed that the Oculus Store had sold nearly $5 million worth of content on Christmas Day alone.
Zuckerberg says in the Q4 2019 earnings call that the Christmas Day boom was an “outlier day,” although it represents what he calls “real volume by any measure” and that it shows the progress the ecosystem is making.
While the Oculus Store provides hardware-specific VR content for the ‘tethered’ PC VR headsets Rift & Rift S, the 6DOF standalone Oculus Quest, and the more diminutive 3DOF standalone Oculus Go, this year’s holiday winner seems to have been Quest.
The standalone headset provides many of the top games made famous on PC VR headsets, albeit tailored to fit onto Quest’s humble Snapdragon 835 mobile chipset. Releasing support for Oculus Link a month before Christmas, Quest users can also now play Rift games too by connecting to a VR-ready PC with a USB-C cable.
Image courtesy Facebook
All of this combined with its $400 price point, and Facebook has managed to create a strong enough draw with Quest to send it out of stock since well before Christmas, with back orders still projected to ship in late February as stocks rebound from the holiday rush.
Facebook hasn’t released any info on whether its holiday bump in content sales was primarily due to Quest or Rift S owners, although the PC VR headset refresh did experience a much smaller backlog during the holiday season. It’s unclear if this was based on higher supply or lower overall demand, however our analysis of the Steam’s hardware survey month-over-month for the year of 2019 reveals that Rift S increased its VR market share on the Steam platform by about 4% from November to December, which represents roughly 18.46% of total connected headsets through Steam. With most VR games, save a few Oculus Rift exclusives, purchasable through Steam, it’s very likely the Quest ‘walled garden’ approach has garnered the company most of its content sales during that Christmas boom.
Valve’s monthly Steam Survey has long offered useful insight into the share of VR headsets in use on Steam. But the figures provided are relative to the non-static Steam population, which obfuscates the actual adoption trend of VR headsets on the platform. To demystify the data, Road to VR has developed a proprietary model which derives actual headset counts by correcting for Steam’s changing population. The latest data shows that monthly-connected VR headsets on Steam have reached a record high of 1.3 million in December.
Introduction
Each month Valve collects info from Steam users to determine some baseline statistics about what kind of hardware and software is used by the platform’s population, and to see how things are changing over time; that includes which VR headsets are connected to users’ computers. Participation in the survey is optional, and headsets aren’t counted if they aren’t powered on and recognized by Steam at the moment that the data is collected.
Data is captured over the course of the month, which tells us how many headsets were connected to users’ PCs over that time period; we call the resulting figure ‘monthly-connected headsets’ for clarity.
While Valve’s data has been a useful way see which headsets are most popular on Steam, the trend of monthly-connected headsets has always been obfuscated because the data points are exclusively given as percentages relative to Steam’s population—which itself is an unstated and constantly fluctuating figure.
To demystify the data, Road to VR has created a model based on the historical data, along with official data points directly from Valve and Steam, which corrects for Steam’s changing population to estimate the actual count—not the percent—of users on Steam with connected VR headsets.
Monthly-connected VR Headsets on Steam
Data gap from seven months of data misreported by Valve
After correcting for Steam’s changing population, we find that December 2019 reached a new record high with an estimated 1,342,000 monthly-connected VR headsets on Steam, beating the previous record set in September 2019 of 1,218,000 headsets. Year over year, monthly-connected headsets are up 75%.
Worth noting about the results: we’re talking about monthly-connected headsets here, as the underlying Steam Survey data is a snapshot of activity for each month. In the case of VR headsets, that means that the figure we’re estimating is how many unique headsets are connected to Steam users’ PCs over the course of a given month; it’s the closest official data point we have to active headsets, but doesn’t tell us the extent to which those headsets are actually being used, nor does it tell us much about gross VR headset sales figures.
Furthermore, the Steam Survey comes from a sample of the user population, not a comprehensive census—though Valve maintains the data offers an accurate snapshot. And of course, these figures are only inclusive of Steam, and don’t offer a complete picture of activity on the Oculus PC platform (or any insight at all on Oculus Quest and Sony’s PlayStation VR).
Trend Line
As with our previous analyses, the growth of monthly-connect headsets on Steam continues to closely fit an exponential curve with an R² value of 0.986, starting from the month that the first consumer headsets hit the market back in 2016.
It’s not clear how long this trend will continue, but we can make a (naive) projection based on what we’re seeing today by drawing out the line. Doing so suggests some 2.75 million monthly-connected headsets by the end of 2020.
Data gap from seven months of data misreported by Valve
Of course this projection is purely drawing out the exponential line, and doesn’t attempt to account for an array of other factors: crucially, in a young market like VR, things like cost, new features, and innovative content (or lack thereof) stand to influence the trend in significant ways. We certainly expect that the release of Half-Life: Alyx in March will have an immediate and lingering impact on the trend.
Looking at the latest Steam Survey data in detail for December 2019, we can see that the percent of the Steam population with connected headsets rose to 1.09% from the month prior (+0.07%). That figure continues to grow, having surpassed Steam’s Linux population for the first time back in January 2019; it would seem that the next big milestone for VR on Steam will be to surpass the OSX Steam population, which is still pretty far away at 3.06% of Steam users.
Breaking down the marketshare of headsets on Steam in December 2019: the Oculus Rift S saw a huge leap over the prior month to 18.46% (+3.63%), and Index saw a strong gain as well, now holding 6.67% (+1.74%) of the share of headsets on Steam.
Most of those gains came from losses in the original HTC Vive which is down to 29.75% (-2.89%), the original Oculus Rift at 33% (-2.55%), and Windows Mixed Reality headsets at 8.78% (-0.27%).
HTC’s latest headset, Vive Cosmos, has only gained a paltry 0.41% of the share of headsets on Steam. The figure is so low compared to contemporary headsets that if it isn’t an outright error, sales of the headset must be vanishingly few. All HTC headsets on Steam still account for 32.58% of the share, but this has been on a steady decline, losing 11.06% since the same time last year.
Oculus has soaked up much of those loses, with the Rift and Rift S collectively holding 51.46% of the share of headsets on Steam, a gain of 5.01% since the same time last year. And though is hasn’t grown as fast as the cheaper Rift S, Valve’s high-end Index headset has seen surprising traction, quickly surpassing HTC’s Vive Pro just two months after its launch, now holding 6.67% of the share compared to Vive Pro’s 2.42%.
Firewall Zero Hour (2018), the tactical team shooter for PSVR, is headed to PS Plus members for free next month.
The 4v4 team shooter arrives alongside Bioshock: The Collection and The Sims 4 as February’s free games. Like all free PS Plus games, the whole lot is entirely free to keep forever as long as you download them in time, which lasts from February 4th until March 2nd.
Developed by First Contact Entertainment and published by Sony Interactive Entertainment, Firewall Zero Hour brings some classic team-based shooting action to PSVR, which includes support for PS Aim.
If you haven’t played, here’s the simple breakdown of main game mode: one team defends while another tries to infiltrate and hunt down hidden objectives. We were so happy with it at launch in August 2018 that we gave it a pretty strong [7.9/10] in our full review.
Firewall Zero Hour is also slated to receive another big update on February 4th called ‘Operation: Black Dawn’ which features a new map called ‘Oil Rig’ in addition to other free content. If you don’t already own it, this is a great time to jump in on a game that typically costs $20.
Here it is, my first Pimax 8K X VR benchmark with real-time frame rate performance in 20 VR games and VR simulators, running on a RTX 2080Ti! Do you wonder if Pimax 8KX and RTX 2080Ti can run your favorite VR game with a smooth framerate? I have tested 20 games and simulators with the Pimax 8K X, and here are the results. Pimax 8KX are available for pre-orders: https://pimax.com/sweviver Video timestamps: 00:00 Intro talk 01:10 Skyrim VR 01:46 Onward VR 02:14 Pistol Whip 02:41 iRacing 03:30 Aerofly FS2 Flight Simulator 04:08 Arizona Sunshine 04:40 A-Tech Cybernetic 05:09 Assetto Corsa 05:41 Boneworks 06:13 Contractors 06:46 Karnage Chronicles 07:20 rFactor2 VR 07:48 Eleven: Table Tennis VR 08:17 Pavlov VR 08:44 Subnautica VR 09:22 In Death VR 10:02 Superhot VR 10:26 Budget Cuts 2 10:58 Zero Caliber VR 11:30 Elite Dangerous 12:22 DCS World 2.5 #Pimax8KX #VR #Benchmark #simulators #games Here are all the tested VR games and VR simulators in this video: Skyrim VR Onward VR Pistol Whip iRacing Aerofly FS2 Flight Simulator Arizona Sunshine A-Tech Cybernetic Assetto Corsa Boneworks Contractors Karnage Chronicles rFactor2 VR Eleven Table Tennis VR Pavlov VR Subnautica VR In Death VR Superhot VR Budget Cuts 2 Zero Caliber VR Elite Dangerous DCS World 2.5
The block-slashing rhythm game is at it again: Beat Saber (2019) just got three new songs from Japanese electronic dance music artist Camellia, available today on all supported platforms.
Although the studio has been mostly cutting deals to secure paid content from the likes of Green Day, Panic at the Disco!, and Imagine Dragons, it’s good to see that the game is still getting free tracks on the regular, and also supporting both independent and lesser-known artists.
Beat Games was most recently acquired by Facebook, which may have something to do with the continued investment in free music, although the studio has admittedly tapped record labels such as Monster Cat to supply a large amount of content from up and coming faces in the EDM scene.
The studio cautions that “[y]ou should stretch before downloading this update,” no doubt referencing Camellia’s penchant for creating fast, unrelenting beats. Also maybe move away from your TV?
Oculus Quest is an awesome achievement in engineering; no other standalone VR headset offers the quality, rock solid positional tracking, ease of use, and competitive price point as Quest. But still, you may find that once your wallet is $400 lighter that there’s still some room for improvement in one very important area, namely comfort.
Let’s face it. Quest is front-heavy, and you only need an hour with the 571 g (1.25 lbs) headset to start feeling the effects on your face, neck, and maybe even the bridge of your nose and forehead—and that’s even when you know how to wear it properly.
Sadly, no amount of tightening straps or repositioning can change the fact that Quest’s on-board battery and Snapdragon 835-driven computer have been placed in the front along with the displays and then combined with a similar head strap design used in the 2016-era Oculus Rift, replete with semi-flexible side and overhead velcro straps.
Quest (left) compared to the 2016 Rift (right) – Photo by Road to VR
Thankfully, a number of intrepid DIY’ers and manufacturers alike have come up with some pretty nifty ways of making Quest more comfortable.
FrankenQuest
Using the HTC Vive’s Deluxe Audio Strap (DAS), you can actually hack your way to more comfortable weight distribution fairly easily, provided you already own the $100 accessory.
If not, you still might want to consider ponying up to make a FrankenQuest, as it actually does a remarkable job at distributing the headset’s weight more evenly. A crank-style ratcheting system, much like the one employed on the Oculus Rift S, is also a bit better suited for quick adjustments. Another great thing: integrated audio plugs right into the Quest’s 3.5mm audio port, giving better noise isolation for a more immersive experience.
Thankfully the mod is also entirely reversible, leaving no permanent sign on your precious Quest. It does however make it slightly less portable, as the DAS is a bit larger and less flexible than the original Quest strap system. That said, it’s much easier to detach, as the only thing holding it to the display portion itself is a pair of self-supplied pieces of velcro and a single D-ring.
If you’re looking for a simple set of instructions on how to make your FrankenQuest, MRTV’s Sebastian Ang has a great video that takes you step-by-step on how to remove the stock strap and replace it with DAS.
Counterweights & Extra Straps
While Oculus Quest’s strap isn’t bad, it’s just not nearly as well-suited to a front-heavy design, making a simple counterweight to offset that forward-facing bulk a solution worth looking into.
Adding your own external battery to the back of the strap can not only help you rebalance the headset, but also give you more juice for longer play sessions. You can go as simple as securing the battery with zip ties, or a more elaborate clip system you can either 3D print or order from sites like Amazon.
Image courtesy DeadEyeVR
Alternatively, you can get a little more expensive by pre-ordering an Oculus Quest VR Balance Comfort Counterweight Mod for $30 (as seen above). It’s low profile and fits onto the outside of your existing strap, although since it’s the product of a Kickstarter campaign, the jury is still out on the product’s overall quality. It’s also just a simple counterweight, and not a battery, so you’ll trade functionality for what VR Balance considers a perfect balance.
An option that can be used in concert with counterweights is extra over-head straps, which help to better redistribute weight evenly across the head. You can find a such a strap on Amazon, eBay, and through the VR Balance website too. Since it’s a simple piece of stretchy fabric with velcro, expect to pay anywhere from $4 – $20.
Extra Padding
Image courtesy Esimen
The interior the the Quest strap is meant to cradle your head, although it doesn’t add much padding for long-term comfort. Here, you’ll find a few options that fit snugly to the interior part of the back of the strap.
This also adds a little more bulk to the back portion for the headset, which essentially makes it counterweight too.
VR Covers
The more you use your Quest, the more oils, sweat, grime and general face-related garbage will eventually absorb into the facial interface. And while putting it back on time and time again may cause acne, you don’t need to see a breakout on your forehead and around your eyes to feel weirded out about keeping a bacteria-laced sponge on your face.
Image courtesy VR Cover
Released back in the pre-consumer days, the ‘VR Cover’ brand of VR covers has created soft PU leather facial interfaces for most headsets to come to market, including Vive, Rift, Go, Windows MR, Rift S, Index and Oculus Quest.
VR Cover is far from the only game in town though, as Amazon has blown up with functionally similar options that range from simple cloth coverings to silicone gaskets. Whatever you choose, make sure to pack the sanitizing wet wipes, and definitely don’t use them on the lenses.
Not only will you have peace of mind when it comes to never having to bathe in your own (or someone else’s) face grease ever again, you can easily wipe off all the sweat you generate from those long sessions of Beat Saber (2019).
And there you have it, a few nifty ways of keeping comfortable in Quest. If you have any hacks, mods, or brilliant ideas, let us know in the comments below!
Today I’m doing an updated explanation on how to sideload on the Oculus Quest AND how to record and stream Oculus Quest gameplay wirelessly. Using SideQuest is the easiest method in 2020. ► Check out our VR equipment → https://www.amazon.com/shop/caschary ► Subscribe to see more videos like this one → https://goo.gl/bSJ6L8 My previous guide (https://youtu.be/Ora7OrQHwEs) has a more complicated setup as we do everything manually there. A new update in SideQuest has (awesomely) automated this whole process, which has made it a lot easier. So in today’s video, I’ll show you how to do everything in SideQuest. TIMESTAMPS Sideloading tutorial: 01:05 Step 1. Install SideQuest https://sidequestvr.com/#/setup-howto 01:30 Step 2. Register as a developer on Oculus https://dashboard.oculus.com/organizations/create/ 02:04 Step 3. Enable Developer Mode and Reboot Android: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.oculus.twilight&hl=en Apple: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/oculus/id1366478176 02:49 Step 4. Install the Drivers https://developer.oculus.com/downloads/package/oculus-adb-drivers/ 03:18 Step 5.Connect a USB Cable Example cable to use: - Anker Powerline 6ft (US) - https://amzn.to/2CUpWqJ - Anker PowerLine 6ft (UK) - https://amzn.to/2pVOlJA 03:58 Step 6. Launch SideQuest & Allow USB Debugging 04:36 Step 7. Sideloading games and apps & launching it (Optional: Install App Launcher) https://sidequestvr.com/#/app/199 Streaming Oculus Quest gameplay wirelessly: 05:30 Step 8. Connect the Quest to your PC with a cable 06:06 Step 9. Enable Wi-Fi mode in SideQuest 06:41 Step 10. Launch the Streamer https://github.com/Genymobile/scrcpy Extra tips & tricks: 07:12 Wired recording 07:47 Recording audio Example bluetooth receiver to use: - https://amzn.to/3aUjsrt (US) - https://amzn.to/2uDUlZF (UK) LINKS - Oculus Quest (US) - https://amzn.to/2H5ECGx - Oculus Quest (UK) - https://amzn.to/2Jip6Zg - Oculus Quest (NL) - http://bit.ly/2QlCpd2 (Coolblue) SUPPORT THE CONTENT ► Become our Patron (includes exclusive rewards) → http://bit.ly/PatreonCasandChary ► Become a Sponsor on YouTube (includes exclusive rewards) → http://bit.ly/JoinCasandChary ► Check out our VR Merch → http://bit.ly/casandchary-merch USE OUR LINKS TO SUPPORT US ► VRcover → http://bit.ly/CCVRCover ► VR Prescription Lens Adapters (5% discount code: "CAS&CHARY") → http://bit.ly/CCWidmoVR ► Oculus Quest Comfort Strap (5% discount code: "CAS&CHARY") → http://bit.ly/CCStudioformVR ► Play PC VR games with your Quest (10% discount code: "JWGTCASCHARY") → http://bit.ly/CCRiftcat ► More on our website → https://casandchary.com/discount-codes-affiliate-links/ OUR GEAR Our VR equipment → https://www.amazon.com/shop/caschary Full PC Specs → https://casandchary.com/vr-equipment/ GET LATEST UPDATES Twitter → https://twitter.com/CasandChary Facebook → https://www.facebook.com/casandchary/ Instagram → https://www.instagram.com/casandchary/ Join our Discord → https://discord.gg/YH52W2k A special thanks to these Patreon Champs for their support: - artArmin: https://store.steampowered.com/app/728110/Board_Games_VR/ - BaxornVR: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC1tmq8Y3jC7gNGvW7asmv1Q - Studioform VR - Wintceas - Andy - Albert - Ben P. - D Coetzee - Steve Dunlap MUSIC Music we use is from Epidemic Sounds → http://bit.ly/CCEpidemicSound DISCLAIMER Links in this description may contain affiliate links. A small referral fee will go to the channel if you use it which supports the content. VR on! - Cas and Chary VR #oculusquest #sidequest #casandchary
Crunch Element is an upcoming VR game that challenges you to breech heavily-guarded compounds with physics-based explosive charges, guns, and your wits.
The game’s Kickstarter campaign, which first launched earlier this month, is attempting to garner $10,000 from backers. With a week left in the ‘all or nothing’ crowdfunding campaign, the project has already received nearly 90% of the required funding.
Using wall charges, grenades, and other explosive weapons, the game tasks you with blowing holes in walls, ceilings, and floors to crack open entry points to compounds.
Here’s how indie studio Black Box VR Lab describes the action:
“Two charges, you decide. One to distract the guards, the other to crack an entry point to the compound. Your raid begins earlier than expected when you turn the corner and see one… a guard. Its weapon snaps towards you, but after two muffled thuds from the weapon of your own, drops to the ground. No time to spare, one charge it is. You place the explosive on the wall and clack the detonator the instant you have an angle with your rifle. The shock wave from the explosion roars through the air and rips the open the wall, hurling debris inward. Gripping your weapon tightly, you enter the compound…”
A rogue-like procedurally generated ‘Infinite Mode’ is also said to arrive alongside an upgrade system that will include mods for gear, weapons, and avatars. Like many rogue-like games, upgrades and found items are said to reset when the player dies.
Crunch Element is slated to launch on Steam Early Access for PC VR headsets in March 2020.
Both Oculus Quest and multiplayer support are planned to be completed before full release, which Black Box says should arrive sometime in late 2020.
Atari will soon be opening hotels in the United States that feature what they call “the latest in VR and AR.” The move comes as a part of a recently announced deal with GSD Group, an innovation and strategy agency, which will see game-themed Atari Hotels come to several cities across the United States.
According to a press statement, the first location is slated to break ground in Phoenix, AZ sometime later this year. Additional hotels planned in Las Vegas, Denver, Chicago, Austin, Seattle, San Francisco, and San Jose.
In addition to the AR/VR focused facilities, the company says select Atari Hotels will also feature “state-of-the-art venues and studios” for esports events.
The project is being led by GSD Group; True North Studio, a Phoenix-based real estate developer, and Steve Wozniak’s Woz Innovation Foundation are helping to develop the first Atari-brand hotel.
“Atari Hotels will be the first of their kind in the U.S., offering gamers of all ages the ultimate in immersive entertainment and in every aspect of gaming. We’re excited to be working on this project with such great partners and to bring a big win to Arizona,” said Shelly Murphy, founder of GDS Group.
The storied company, which helped pioneer both the home gaming and home computing segment, is soon to release its retro console ‘Atari VCS’, which is expected to release sometime in early 2020.
Stealth French startup LYNX is teasing the forthcoming reveal of its Lynx R1 headset which the company describes as a standalone headset with both VR and AR capabilities. Lynx says it will reveal the headset during a February 3rd livestream at the SPIE Photonics West conference in San Francisco.
In a tweet posted yesterday, Lynx CEO Stan Larroque teased the headset and its forthcoming reveal, and pointed to the company’s website. He describes the headset as being ‘standalone’ and capable of both AR and VR; on its website, the company is promising “innovations in optics, hardware, and ergonomics that will open amazing opportunities in all industries.”
From the teaser image and some chatter from employees, we’ve gathered that the AR functionality will come via pass-through video, but we’ll have to wait until the reveal in which Larroque promises to “explain carefully how we overcame some challenges and some technical points.”
That will happen at 2:30PM PT on February 3rd at the SPIE Photonics West conference in San Francisco, and Lynx says it will be livestreaming the announcement.
Lynx has thus far remained secretive but there’s a few tidbits we can glean today. The French company sizes itself somewhere between 11 and 50 employees, according to LinkedIn, though we can only find six employees listed on the site. Among them is Marc Piuzzi who spent two years at StarVR, a company which was developing a promising ultrawide FOV VR headset before abruptly going dark in late 2018; Piuzzi joined Lynx in June 2019, according to his LinkedIn profile.
On his personal website, CEO Stan Larroque describes himself as a “25 year old computer scientist” who works at “the intersection of hardware, optics, computer vision, robotics, real-time low-latency software and 3D rendering.”
While it’s hard to imagine what innovations a small startup could have up their sleeve, it wouldn’t be the first time a scrappy company upset the status quo; Lynx’s gambit of revealing its headset at a technically-focused conference like SPIE Photonics West at least speaks to the company’s confidence.
Last month Amazon quietly announced the ‘Wavelength’ platform as part of its Amazon Web Services (AWS) offering. The new ‘edge computing’ service promises “single-digit millisecond latencies” over 5G networks. Amazon says the platform is made for “latency-sensitive workloads” including AR/VR streaming, game streaming, IoT and more.
AWS is one of the most prevalent cloud computing platforms in the world, acting as the back-end web infrastructure for millions of customers.
In an announcement last month (which seems to have slipped under the radar of many of us in the XR space) Amazon revealed a new AWS service called Wavelength which is designed specifically for latency-sensitive applications served over 5G networks. Promising “single-digit millisecond latencies” to end-users, Amazon is engaging with major mobile carriers deploying 5G networks to locate AWS resources at the ‘edge’ of these networks to facilitate low latency for applications like cloud-rendered AR and VR content.
“Today, application traffic has to travel from a device to a cell tower to metro aggregation sites to regional aggregation sites and to the Internet before it can access resources running in AWS. These network hops can result in latencies of more than 100 milliseconds. This prevents developers from realizing the full potential of 5G to address low-latency use-cases”, Amazon wrote. “Wavelength addresses these problems by bringing AWS services to the edge of the 5G network, minimizing the latency to connect to an application from a mobile device. […] [Wavelength] allows developers to build the next generation of ultra-low latency applications using the familiar AWS services, APIs, and tools they already use today—eliminating the need for developers to negotiate for space and equipment with multiple telecommunications providers, and stitch together application deployment and operations through different management interfaces, before they can begin to deploy their applications.”
Amazon points to “emerging interactive applications like game streaming, virtual [and augmented] reality, and real-time rendering that require latencies of single-digit milliseconds to end-users,” as potential use-cases for AWS Wavelength.
At the outset, the company is engaging with carriers Verizon, Vodafone, SK Telecom, and KDDI to launch the service across in the US, Europe, South Korea, and Japan in 2020. Amazon says the service is presently undergoing pilot testing by customers using Verizon’s mobile edge compute (MEC) system.
As far applications using the AWS Wavelength service, Varjo, maker of high-end VR headsets to enterprise, is among the first to be announced. The company believes cloud rendering of AR and VR content is crucial to scaling the technology.
“Now, instead of having to develop expensive local computing services that would be impossible to run on a battery-operated device, we can use edge computing to scale the rendering power and the business of our industrial-grade [headset] from thousands to hundreds of thousands of units,” said Varjo CEO Niko Eiden.
Halo Reach (2010), the final Halo game from the series’ original developer, Bungie, launched on PC in December, and could now wind up with a VR support through an unofficial mod. Zack “Nibre” Fannon, the creator of the Alien: Isolation VR mod, is now working on ‘ReclaimerVR’, a mod to add VR support to Halo Reach.
While Fannon had previously shared a teaser video showing experimental headtracking in Halo Reach, he’s now signaling more clearly that he intends to bring the mod to a release-ready state under the name ‘ReclaimerVR’.
Fannon was profiled recently by 343 Industries, the developer now in charge of the Halo franchise, where he said his goal is to add VR support to all Halo games released on PC under the Master Chief Collection. That’s an ambitious goal—considering MCC includes Halo 1–4, as well as Reach and ODST—but Fannon has more than proven his skills with his ‘MotherVR’ mod for Alien: Isolation.
Interestingly, while Fannon had first dreamed of playing a Halo game in VR well before he created the Alien: Isolation mod, he says the experience of creating that mod was instrumental in being able to bring VR to Halo Reach.
“If I could expand my programming chops by getting [Alien: Isolation] working in VR again, without the game’s source code, could that somehow help me on my quest towards getting Halo working in VR? Long story short, it turns out that it honestly did. Reverse engineering a game from absolute scratch helped me see the Halo games in a new light when I’d come back to them, and revisiting MotherVR again afterward really helped me push my understanding of code at an assembly level further and further.
The original article—which talks about Fannon’s early teases of the ‘ReclaimerVR’ mod and the background of the Alien: Isolation mod—continues below.
As a massively popular franchise, calls for a Halo VR game have been heard plenty over the years, but with the latest incarnation of the games stuck on Xbox, Halo has still not gotten the VR treatment (unless you count that tease which Microsoft never followed up on).
With Halo Reachmaking the leap to PC on December 3rd, however, we just might get a taste of a full Halo game on modern VR headsets, albeit unofficially.
Zack “Nibre” Fannon, creator of the Alien: Isolation VR mod and self-described “Halo addict,” today posted clips on Twitter showing they were experimenting with adding some VR functionality to Halo Reach.
Apparently working with a version of the game from public beta tests earlier this year, the clips show they have managed to bring rotational and positional tracking from the Rift into Halo Reach. This is a minor (but essential) achievement compared with the complexity of getting the game to render with proper distortion and stereoscopy. If it were anyone else we might just say “neat,” and move along with our day, but Nibre’s work with Alien: Isolation shows they may have the skills to deliver a fully functional Halo Reach VR mod.
Prior to its 2014 launch, Alien: Isolation was briefly demoed with a VR mode running on the second Rift development kit (DK2). It proved to be a terrifying experience, though with only tens of thousands of Rift DK2s out in the wild, the developers of the game didn’t bother to implement the VR mode for the launch of the game. It turns out though that the game’s files shipped with the VR mode hidden, and some intrepid folks figured out how to activate it so they could play the game on the DK2.
But between the DK2 and the launch of the consumer Rift in 2016, the Oculus SDK (which interfaces with the game to make it work inside the headset) changed drastically, meaning that the hidden Alien: Isolation VR mode wasn’t compatible with the consumer Rift.
But that didn’t stop people from clamoring to play the game in VR. Their desire spawned multiple petitions to try to get publisher Sega to update the game with modern VR support. Despite one petition with more than 2,500 signatures, the game’s VR mode remained outdated and unplayable with the consumer Rift headset.
That’s when Nibre decided to take action into their own hands and released the so-called ‘MotherVR’ mod which not only enabled VR support but also improved upon the original implementation, bringing it in line with a more modern application of VR comfort design and even adding support for VR controllers.
As for Halo Reach in VR, Nibre hasn’t committed to creating a full blown mod just yet, but they are clearly experimenting. “Now that [Halo Reach] is finally coming to PC, it opens a lot of doors…,” they teased on Twitter.
Samsung recently filed patents with China’s National Intellectual Property Administration (CNIPA) office that shows off a few new designs in what appears to be two fairly similar PC VR headsets.
There’s little to go on besides the photos of both design patents, which were first uncovered by 91Mobiles, although we can hypothesize a bit from what we see below.
Unlike Samsung’s previous HMD Odyssey and Odyssey+ headsets, which sports two outward-facing camera sensors, it isn’t clear exactly what tracking standard the proposed headset(s) may use.
As seen in the renders and diagrams, a translucent cover houses a cage-like piece that has four prominent divots on the front; with such little information, these could be any number of things, including SteamVR sensors, outward-facing camera sensors, or simply attach points for the cover itself.
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Image courtesy 91Mobiles
Image courtesy 91Mobiles
Image courtesy 91Mobiles
Image courtesy 91Mobiles
Image courtesy 91Mobiles
Image courtesy 91Mobiles
Otherwise, the render shows off a very similar design and strap system to the Samsung HMD Odyssey, which also features integrated audio. A cable trailing off on the left side of the headset betrays it as a tethered PC VR headset.
The second patent uncovered by 91Mobiles is a little less mysterious regarding its positional tracking standard. As if VR headsets didn’t look strange enough, this one shows off a prominent faceplate that seems to be drawing inspiration from the insect world. We weren’t unable to locate the above patent, but the insectioid design can be found officially listed on the CNIPA website.
Image courtesy CNIPA
Underneath the translucent faceplate appears to be four optical sensors, which appear to cover the front, and left and right flanks. The Odyssey line of Windows Mixed Reality headsets only has two forward-facing sensors, but in more or less the same locations as the front-facing ones seen below in the diagrams.
Note: both headset designs sport the same logo on the top of the headset and integrated into the strap system on the back, which could denote a line apart from the Odyssey Mixed Reality headset line.
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Image courtesy CNIPA
Image courtesy CNIPA
Image courtesy CNIPA
Image courtesy CNIPA
Image courtesy CNIPA
Image courtesy CNIPA
Image courtesy CNIPA
Image courtesy CNIPA
Samsung has yet to give any indication as to whether it intends to actually produce the headset, be in one form or the other. As it is, all products have patents, but not all patents become products, so only time will tell.
The above patent was published recently, however it was filed on January 3rd, 2019, so there’s no telling when/if the design will find its way to other main patent offices soon as the process may differ from country to country.
Does a high refresh rate of 180Hz and 180fps frame rate matter in VR? Does the new Pimax 5K Super with 160Hz and 180Hz really make a difference and improve your gaming in Virtual Reality? Let's find out. Hand's on with the new Pimax 5K Super! I'm testing the new 180Hz high refresh rate VR headset from Pimax in more than a dozen of VR games. I will let you know what I think of super-high 180Hz frame-rate, ultra low latency and crazy high refresh-rates in Virtual Reality - and if it really makes you a better VR gamer. Check out the new range of Pimax VR headsets on the official website: https://pimax.com/sweviver #180Hz #VR #gaming #Pimax #VirtualReality Time stamps: 00:00 Intro 01:56 Pimax 5K Super specifications 03:42 180Hz intro 04:13 Can you see the difference? 05:37 What kind of VR games do you play? 07:06 Is your PC fast enough? 08:23 What's most important for you in VR? 09:13 VR gaming is not PC monitor gaming 10:17 Can you go back from 180Hz? 11:10 My take on 180Hz VR 16:05 TLDW: My conclusion Short clips added from videos below: Linus Tech Tips https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6p1e_JSol8s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pf_k8Lg4dmo Adam Savage's Tested: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2SI_3jlAV9M Counter Strike Proland https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qivhc5zryZk
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