Nate Mitchell, Oculus co-founder and former Head of VR Product at Facebook, has opened a new game studio called Mountaintop Studios. Despite pioneering the first wave of consumer VR, Mitchell says Mountaintop isn’t focusing on VR just yet.
Talking to GamesIndustry.biz, Mitchell said this, responding to whether Mountaintop would ever produce VR games:
“The short version is nothing has changed. The developers working in VR today are trailblazing some incredible gaming experiences—Half-Life: Alyx, for example—and I’m super excited to see what they build next.
“We haven’t left VR behind at Mountaintop—and I doubt we ever will—but it’s unlikely our first title will be VR.”
Mountaintop has a number of positions available, however none of them specify VR/AR experience as a prerequisite. Instead, the studio appears to be focused on creating multiplayer games for traditional platforms.
“Games are a reflection of the teams that make them. So to make the best games, we’re building a studio that puts the team first — one that’s collaborative, anti-crunch, diverse, and inclusive,” Mitchell says in a blog post.
Mitchell left Facebook back in August 2019, representing the final Oculus co-founder to leave the company.
Mountaintop also includes co-founder Matt Hansen, a former Executive Producer at Oculus, Hidden Path’s Mark Terrano, and Naughty Dog’s Richard Lyons—a team seemingly fit for the task of building a VR game, but alas.
I’ve been using the Oculus Quest ever since release, so I wanted to share some tips and tricks. ► Get the "VR Development Fundamentals With Oculus Quest And Unity" course here → https://bit.ly/oculusquestcourse ► Check out our VR equipment → https://www.amazon.com/shop/caschary All these tips are from personal experiences and are things that I do to get the most out of the Quest. This video is for those who just purchased the Oculus Quest, but even if you already own one, you might find these helpful. TIMESTAMPS 00:00 Intro 01:16 #1 Comfort 02:26 #2 Comfort Mods The one we use: https://youtu.be/bIRzy-iyDmE More ideas: https://youtu.be/DCAmQrHxu6E 03:03 #3 Figure out your IPD 03:56 #4 Wrist straps 04:15 #5 Tracking 05:14 #6 Playing In The Dark 05:29 #7 Playspace Proximat: https://amzn.to/2VFW0bQ 06:02 #8 Motion Sickness My tips for motion sickness: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qlEH5CTklZI 07:06 #9 Use Your Body 07:48 #10 Controllers Mamut VR Grips: https://www.mamutvr.com/ 08:06 #11 Settings 08:45 #12 Oculus Store & Gametips Oculus Cross-Buy Apps List: https://www.oculus.com/experiences/rift/section/2336123376469541/?utm_source=rakuten&utm_medium=affiliate&utm_campaign=%2FQyM*sc1XGw Oculus Refunding Policy: https://www.oculus.com/legal/quest-rift-content-refund-policy/?locale=en_US 09:32 #13 PC VR Gaming With Oculus Link Our Oculus Link cable review: https://youtu.be/CU32-wgGeYw My Top Games for Oculus Link: https://youtu.be/BuPK2xg4pEc 10:27 #14 Streaming PC VR Content Wirelessly Virtual Desktop on Quest: https://www.oculus.com/experiences/quest/2017050365004772/?utm_source=rakuten&utm_medium=affiliate&utm_campaign=%2FQyM*sc1XGw Virtual Desktop Patch on SideQuest: https://sidequestvr.com/app/16/virtual-desktop-vr-patch How To Sideload & Use SideQuest: https://youtu.be/reH55tb9w84 11:09 #15 Stream Gameplay To Show Friends & Family 11:59 #16 Battery & Charging The powerbank that we use: US - https://amzn.to/2YGnhJY UK - https://amzn.to/2HunN8j NL - http://bit.ly/2HvR0Qh (Coolblue) Smaller version: US - https://amzn.to/2Qdp6Ly UK - https://amzn.to/2Ep49IP NL - http://bit.ly/2YD0v5O 13:00 #17 Turning Off & Storage 13:26 #18 Cleaning The sillicone & leather VR covers that we use: https://vrcover.com/oculus-quest-accessories/?itm=164&campaign=quest-tips 14:05 #19 Prescription Lens Adapters The ones we use are from WidmoVR (5% discount code: "CAS&CHARY") → http://bit.ly/CCWidmoVR 14:19 #20 WebXR Games Our WebXR games video and tips: https://youtu.be/YG_mjrPINLA LINKS * - Get an Oculus Quest here (US): https://bit.ly/oculusquest-cc - Get an Oculus Quest (UK): https://amzn.to/2Jip6Zg - Get an 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 Counterweight (5% discount code: "CAS&CHARY") → https://bit.ly/studioform500 ► 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: - BaxornVR: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC1tmq8Y3jC7gNGvW7asmv1Q - Wintceas - Studioform VR - Andy - Albert - Ben P. - Steve Dunlap - Thomas M. Rice - Andy Fidel - VR Balance MUSIC Music we use is from Epidemic Sounds → http://bit.ly/CCEpidemicSound DISCLAIMER This video contains a sponsored ad for Tevfik for his Oculus Quest course on Udemy. Links in this description may contain affiliate links. We may earn from qualifying purchases from these links (without costing you more). VR on! - Cas and Chary VR #oculusquest #tipsandtricks #casandchary
Facebook has developed an AI-assisted method for supersampling real-time rendered content, something that could become an integral addition to games coming to future generations of high-resolution VR headsets.
There’s an ongoing arms race between display technology and GPUs, and adding VR into the mix only underscores the disparity. It’s not so much a question of putting higher-resolution displays in VR headsets; those panels are out there, and there’s a reason many manufacturers aren’t throwing in the latest and greatest in their headsets. It’s really more about hitting a smart balance between the display resolution and the end user’s ability to adequately render that VR content and have it look good. That’s the basics anyway.
That’s why Facebook is researching AI-assisted supersampling in a recently published paper, dubbed ‘Neural Supersampling for Real-time Rendering’. Using neural networks, Facebook researchers have developed a system capable of inputting low-resolution images and obtaining high-resolution output suitable for real-time rendering. This, they say, restores sharp details while saving computational overhead.
Researchers claim the approach is “the first learned supersampling method that achieves significant 16x supersampling of rendered content with high spatial and temporal fidelity, outperforming prior work by a large margin.”
From the paper:
“To reduce the rendering cost for high-resolution displays, our method works from an input image that has 16 times fewer pixels than the desired output. For example, if the target display has a resolution of 3840×2160, then our network starts with a 960×540 input image rendered by game engines, and upsamples it to the target display resolution as a post-process in real-time.”
If all of this sounds familiar, that’s because it’s a similar concept to Nvidia’s Deep Learning Super Sampling (DLSS), which is currently only available on its RTX GPUs.
Facebook researchers say that methods like DLSS however either introduces “obvious visual artifacts into the upsampled images, especially at upsampling ratios higher than 2 × 2, or rely on proprietary technologies and/or hardware that may be unavailable on all platforms.”
Moreover, Facebook’s Neural Supersampling approach is said to be easily integrated into modern game engines, requires no special hardware or software such as proprietary drivers (like with DLSS). It’s also designed to be compatible with a wider array of software platforms, acceleration hardware and displays.
It’s admittedly a difficult problem to address, and Facebook says there still needs to be more brains working on the issue to bring it to fruition, so we may not see it for some time, at least not direct from Facebook.
“This work points toward a future for high-resolution VR that isn’t just about the displays, but also the algorithms required to practically drive them,” the researchers conclude.
This, combined with a number of technologies such as foveated rendering, may bring the generational leap developers are looking for, and truly give VR games an undeniable edge in the visual department. VR games are often maligned for their lower-quality graphics, something will hopefully soon be an anachronism as we approach an era of photorealistic virtual reality.
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If you’re looking for a deeper dive into Facebook’s machine-learning supersampling method, check out the full paper here, which is slated to be presented at SIGGRAPH 2020 this summer.
Iron Man VR is far from the first VR superhero game out there—in fact, it isn’t even the first Marvel VR game—but with unique mechanics, strong storytelling, and a full course of content, it’s the first great VR superhero game.
Iron Man VR Details:
Publisher: Sony Interactive Entertainment
Developer: Camouflaj Available On:PlayStation Store, Blu-ray Reviewed On: PSVR (PS4 Pro) Release Date: July 3rd, 2020 Price: $40
Gameplay
‘Iron Man’ may be in the title, but Iron Man VR focuses almost as much on putting you into the suit and tie of the man behind the mask, Tony Stark.
The game explores Stark’s transition from arms dealing profiteer to superhero, and the challenge of leaving that life behind. His past dealings haunt him, quite literally, through the antagonist, Ghost, which drives most of the game’s conflict.
Though the action leans in the arcade direction in function and form, Iron Man VR weaves a worthwhile, well-paced story throughout which gives context to the thrilling flying and explosions.
In opting to make this game, developer Camouflaj took on a challenge that many may not fully appreciate. Iron Man simply wouldn’t be Iron Man without the ability to fly. While we’ve seen plenty of VR games that put players in planes and other flying vehicles, none have managed to bring such exhilarating agility to the table—at least none that have alsomanaged to keep the experience highly comfortable, a feat that Camouflaj should be quite proud of.
True to form, in Iron Man VR, you’ll be getting around almost exclusively with the repulsor jets mounted on your palms. And you control them exactly as you’d expect: thrust with your palms down for lift, back for forward motion, and any other direction you want to go. Double-tapping the PlayStation Move triggers offers an instant speed boost which is both fun and useful throughout the game, especially for quick changes in direction, escaping key enemy attacks, or blasting off from the ground after a ground-pound attack.
Speaking of attacks, you’ve got two primary means of shooting down baddies. The first is your repulsors, which are your basic attack, and the second is your choice of several auxiliary weapons which are more powerful but have a cooldown. Oh and there’s the Unibeam, which functions as your most rare and powerful attack, capable of wiping out the game’s most powerful enemies in short order.
Guns are good, but punching is fun too, and you’ll find the rocket punch and ground pound attacks to be quite useful throughout the game.
For the most part, all of your weapons and capabilities can be swapped and upgraded via points you’ll earn throughout the game’s campaign. To earn extra points, you can tackle optional ‘challenge’ missions (like time trials and wave combat) which are fun and integrated well enough into the core game that they feel like nice bits of extra fun rather than pure padding. All levels and challenges also feature leaderboards and you’re encouraged to play missions again to do well enough to earn the maximum number of upgrade points.
Aside from it being a little too easy to accidentally trigger auxiliary weapons when you wanted to use the basic repulsor, combat works quite fluidly with the game’s flying mechanics. While it’s tempting to always use both hands to attack, you can also fly with one hand while attacking with the other, keeping you mobile while on the offensive.
At first it felt easy to get overwhelmed, but with more practice as the game progressed I started to feel like… well, like a superhero.
While the game’s basic enemies lack character (they are mostly autonomous drones, after all), they all serve a well defined role in the overall combat sandbox, each compelling different tactics and reasons for prioritizing their destruction.
With nothing else, the game’s flying and fighting mechanics would be well executed but surely get old with too much repetition. Fortunately, Iron Man VR wraps it all up in a well-paced story that’s more than just set dressing.
You’ll spend a fair bit of time outside of the suit. Much of it will be hanging out in Stark’s garage where you’ll have frequent interactions with the game’s two artificial intelligence characters. While the ‘AI companion in your ear’ is an entirely overdone trope, Iron Man VR gives the AI characters physical manifestations and spends considerable time building their characters and integrating them into the story, making them far more than a voice shouting instructions into your helmet.
Although the game has you revisit the same locales on occasion, it does so in a smart way that doesn’t feel quite like blatant content recycling. This is also made up for by some interesting one-off environments and bits of gameplay that I didn’t expect to see but add more depth to the experience.
You’ll also see a few ‘boss fight’ scenarios which are generally well executed, save for one which felt a bit too ambitious.
It took me about seven hours to complete the game’s main campaign and a few of the optional challenges. The challenges felt like morsels of extra fun in their own right, and I appreciated that they felt at home in the game’s campaign rather than being in some separate mode; I would have liked to hop into a few more if I had extra time.
Immersion
Image courtesy Camouflaj
For a game about masquerading around like a walking, talking fighter jet, Iron Man VR sprinkles thoughtful immersive touches throughout that give character to the game’s world. Things like being able to hear servo motors whirring in your arms as you move the suit, or being able to pull grapes out of the fridge in Stark’s garage and pluck a single grape off the stem to eat, reward the player for spending time outside of the core combat gameplay.
Stark’s garage acts primarily as your mission and upgrade menu, but it manages to feel like much more. In the center of the garage is the suit station where you can view and upgrade your suit with a fully interactive menu.
To the left you’ll find the place where Gunsmith (the AI which ran Stark’s arms-dealing business) tends to hang out. There you can also find an interactive touchscreen table which catalogues the game’s enemies. On the right you’ll find the globe from which you launch missions, which is also where Friday (Stark’s assistant AI) usually hangs out.
Behind you there’s a loft area with a handful of mini-game-like interactive stations like weights, boxing gloves, a free-throw arcade machine, and more.
Though flying around in the game certainly feels thrilling thanks to your speed and agility, it feels less immersive than other parts of the game because you’re ultimately shooting at far away enemies and generally having less intricate interactions. The aesthetic of the interface (with its huge weapon reticles which are easy to mix up) comes off as a bit too arcade-ish, though they may be a necessary concession for the game’s visually busy shoot-and-smash gameplay.
Luckily, combat is peppered with occasional interactive moments that help keep immersion up. You’ll do things like seal doors shut with your repulsor beams, remove power cores to shut things down, or freeze things with coolant. These are typically near-field interactions that let you get more hands-on with the world even while you’re otherwise cruising around and blowing stuff up at a distance.
Speaking of immersion, one of the game’s early suit-up sequences felt so cool that I wished it was used more than once in the game.
Fairly frequent and long loading screens unfortunately prevent the game’s larger moments from flowing smoothly together, though I’m glad they at least added some stuff to read in the loading screen and little particles at your feet to play with.
Comfort
Image courtesy Camouflaj
Considering how fast and far Iron Man VR moves the player around, I didn’t expect it would feel perfectly comfortable. And yet, I was able to play the game easily for an hour or more without feeling any issues. There was the occasional moment which induced a sense of lurching motion, but these were rare and, surprisingly, mostly found in the grounded cinematic moments.
Other VR games have featured free-form flying (Stormland comes to mind) but Iron Man VR is by far the fastest and most agile. I really enjoyed being able to ground-pound from the air all the way down to the earth below, and then blast off with a boost to gain hundreds of feet of altitude in seconds, all while feeling comfortable.
The feeling of moving with such comfortable freedom is something that few other VR games have managed, and it feels like an achievement on Camouflaj’s part. It’s clear the studio has taken much care in designing specifically for flying comfort; that made it surprising to see a few minor comfort mistakes (like the HUD boot-up sequence which initially renders some elements too close for comfort, and a few cinematic moments where the game moves you around).
Beyond the achievement in flying comfort, Camouflaj also did an exceptional job building around the limitations of PSVR’s tracking. There were vanishingly few moments where I remember even thinking about the tracking, and I found absolutely no tracking issues during the flying and shooting gameplay.
While the game employs snap-turning and peripheral blinders by default, those who want the unbridled experience can enable smooth turning and disable blinders.
Niantic, the makers of Pokémon GO and Harry Potter: Wizards Unite, today announced what they’re calling a “multifaceted partnership” with Punchdrunk, the company behind the ‘Sleep No More’ immersive theatrical experience.
“Together we are developing multiple projects that will reinvent storytelling for a 21st century audience and further expand the horizon of interactive entertainment,” Niantic says in a blog post.
Punchdrunk are pioneers of the immersive theater genre. The UK-based theater company focuses heavily on bringing audiences a narrative experience with a unique ability to freely choose what to watch and where to go. This is achieved by adapting classic texts, physical performances, and immersive set design. How Niantic will bring AR into this isn’t certain, although it sounds exciting.
“I believe that Punchdrunk and Niantic can create something that has never been done before. They do it in AR, we do it in real life. Collide the two and I think we will blow people’s minds; bend the rules of genre and redefine the norms of mobile gaming,” says Felix Barrett, Artistic Director of Punchdrunk.
The company says it’s been experimenting with “new forms of gaming on mobile and AR glasses,” with 10 new games currently in development including prototypes for AR glasses. Niantic says each of these games, like their previous titles, will be centered around outdoor exploration, movement, and social interaction.
Cleared your schedule for the weekend? We hope you have, because the PSVR exclusive Marvel’s Iron Man VR is headed for launch on July 3rd. To drum up even more hype, developers Camouflaj released the game’s launch trailer featuring plenty of high-flying action and story.
We’ve seen a fair bit of Iron Man VR in the months since we first went hands-on with the game last year. From what we’ve seen and experienced, the game has huge potential, which is part thanks to its innovative flying mechanic that—without exaggerating—makes you feel like Iron Man.
If you’re looking for a better breakdown of everything you’ve seen in today’s launch trailer, Camouflaj actually released a bunch of gameplay and story info just last week, which should help you understand some of what you’re seeing here.
Provided you drag your eyes across this article before July 3rd, you can still pre-order Iron Man VR in either a digital or disc Standard Edition for $40, and a Digital Deluxe Edition for $50 which includes four Iron Man armor skins that are unique to the Deluxe edition, extra upgrade points, the full soundtrack (digital), and an Iron ManVR PS4 theme.
If you’ve been hoping to make and experience some wild VR things in Dreams (2020), the content creation suite from Media Molecule, you won’t have to wait too much longer. On July 22nd, Dreams is finally getting that PSVR update we’ve all been waiting for.
Dreams launched into Early Access on PS4 late last year, and then released its full version in February 2020; ‘full’ was definitely a misnomer, since we were always hoping to play Dreams in VR form the start. Better late than never.
The free update will include new VR-specific tutorials, kits, and playable content. Watch out: it sounds like there’s plenty to learn before you can go crazy and build that quadruple loop-de-loop space rollercoaster you’ve been dreaming of, including Best Practices, new building gadgets, and plenty of how-tos.
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Image courtesy Media Molecule
Image courtesy Media Molecule
Image courtesy Media Molecule
Although Media Molecule didn’t go into extreme detail in their PS blog announcement, Dreams is also set to include some form of VR comfort mode, vignette sliders, static sky, and “more”.
“We have also created a whole range of different experiences ready to play and inspire Dreamers for their own versions. From games such as Box Blaster, which sees you testing your sharp-shooting skills, to our Inside the Box Gallery which features sculpts and art pieces from different members of the team, including an ultra-fabulous mech. Games like Box Blaster will also have their own respective creation kits,” Media Molecule Communications Manager Abbie Heppe reveals.
The studio says creators will also be able to specify whether or not their content is made for VR, and include a comfort rating from players.
In the end, it sounds like Dreams for VR will be just as an open creation experience as it is on flatscreen, although it doesn’t sound like there will be any overlap in VR content and the stuff that’s already available. That’s probably for the best though, because VR inherently has its own design limitations (and benefits) that new creators will be experiencing first-hand in a meaningful way.
