The XR Week Peek (2020.06.08): VR usage on Steam remains steady after Alyx, and much more!
I hope that in these crazy times all of you are fine. Sending you all big positive vibes. And as always, if I can help you somehow, let me know.
Regarding this week in XR, well, it has been very boring, probably it has been one of the most useless weeks ever. Let’s have a look to what has been worthwhile, though.
Top news of the week
VR usage remains high even after Half-Life: Alyx
The release of Half-Life: Alyx, the most awaited VR game of the last months, has coincided with a big spike in usage of VR headsets. Many people have bought a new headset to play the new chapter of the Half-Life saga, and some others have taken their HMD from the shelf and attached again to the PC. This has caused a big bump in the SteamVR Hardware Survey, that made us happy. What we wondered when we saw that graph was how much it was going to decrease after many people had finished playing the game.
The surprising answer is that it is not decreasing, it is even growing. In the latest hardware survey, the number of connected headsets has reached a new all-time high, growing a bit from the one of the last month. This is an enormous piece of news because it means that all those people that have bought a new headset are keeping playing VR games. Maybe it’s better waiting other 2–3 months before celebrating, but it seems that Half-Life: Alyx has taken new people to VR and that these people have found other compelling VR content, and so are keeping using VR. This is an enormous piece of news because it shows that the VR ecosystem is mature enough to keep people entertained for a while.
Looking at the hardware survey, it is also easy to spot that the headset gaining more market quotas in PC usage has been the Oculus Quest, which now represents more than 7% of the PCVR landscape. Thanks to the enormous sales of this device, united to the fact that a new update made possible to use the Oculus Link with more PCs, the use of Quest with PC is becoming always more popular. Mark should be proud of it.
More info (SteamVR hw survey — Road To VR)
More info (SteamVR hw survey — UploadVR)
Other relevant news
Oculus For Business may need some improvements
Some days ago, I’ve detailed on this blog what is Oculus For Business, the enterprise program of Oculus that lets you buy expensive Oculus Quests with commercial license and a series of facilities that help you configure and manage big bulks of devices. The program looks very interesting for companies wanting to integrate VR into their production processes.
This week I’ve found a very solid review of the Oculus For Business program from an entrepreneur using it, that highlights its pros and cons. And form this article, it seems that this solution is still far from ideal.
The review highlights that the biggest con is that the platform is still too closed:
- You can’t integrate it properly with other Mobile Management solutions that your company already uses, forcing you to use two tools for managing all your devices
- You can’t customize the launch menu as you wish, but just keep the one from Oculus
- You can’t implement your colocation algorithm, not even disable the guardian
- You can’t own your data, everything will be saved on Facebook servers through the Workplace platform
- You can’t manually sideload applications, but they must be downloaded from a trusted source
I think that if I spent $1000 + $180/year for a piece of hardware worth $400 for consumers, I would like to have a bit more freedom, and also decide myself where to save my data. But it is also true that the service has been just released in the wild, so it has time to improve in the next months from the feedback of its users. Let’s hope it will happen, or personally, I would keep advising companies using the services from Pico and HTC that give you far more freedom of operation
Immy headset uses mirrors to offer better VR
Out of nowhere, a startup called Immy has surfaced proposing a new innovative VR headset that has optics not based on lenses, but on mirrors. According to its creators, the classical structure of a VR headset, composed by a display and some lenses, is problematic because it creates the so-called Vergence-Accommodation Conflict because the display that shows the virtual element is always at the same depth, notwithstanding the fact that the virtual elements are all at different depths.
Meet Immy, a device that is not based on this structure, but on a completely different one made by a micro OLED display and a set of concave mirrors that make the lights jump differently until it reaches the eyes of the user wearing the device. According to the creator Doug Magyari, this should convert the light from the display into a freeform wavefront. The result is a headset with a big FOV and a big eye box. And especially, the fact that you can focus on different virtual objects at different depths.
I don’t know if this may work, so I asked the opinion of some display experts. This is what Tilt Five’s CEO Jeri Ellsworth told me: “I’ve seen some of their prototypes. Mirrors have some advantages over diffractive and refractive systems. All of these systems struggle with the common near-eye issues: eyebox, FOV, fixed focus, etc”
Of course, I would be very curious to try it. If you’re curious as me, you should know that the first version of Immy should come out in some months for $500 and have a FOV of 62°. The FOV is not exciting, but for the first version of a new technology, it may be ok. Let’s see if this startup will actually deliver on its promises
(Thanks David for the tip!)
More info (Post explaining the technology behind Immy)
More info (Immy product) More info (Immy official website)
Blender now supports VR visualization
The popular opensource VR modeling software Blender now finally supports virtual reality to visualize your 3D creations in its 2.83 version. You can put your headset on and enter into your 3D scenes, moving with WASD keys. In the roadmap, there is support for more VR features, like the introduction of controllers, or the possibility of modifying your scene, but they are not available now.
This is huge for 3D artists because this way they can immerse into their scenes, getting immediately the sense of scale of things. This way they can improve them and make them better pretty easily. It is a very important feature. And it is cool that everyone with an Oculus or WMR headset can try it. But it’s a pity that SteamVR is still not supported. In fact, this new Blender functionality is based on OpenXR, and Valve has still not implemented OpenXR in its OpenVR runtime. This is weird considering that Valve is usually more open than Oculus, and it leaves outside all people having a Valve Index.
My more attentive readers would wonder if this feature wasn’t already implemented since I wrote an article about it some weeks ago. The answer is that at that time, Blender 2.83 was in alpha, while now it is a stable release available for everyone.
More info (Blender VR support in version 2.83)
More info (My previous post on how to use Blender VR support)
HTC announces a new event for June, 16th
HTC Vive has announced a new event for Tue June, 16th at 1.00 am GMT on Engage platform. The invitation says that they want to speak about the new normal of the world after the coronavirus, but I doubt that it will be the only thing they will talk about.
The tagline on the poster image is “HTC VIVE VIRTUAL LAUNCH EVENT”, so the Asian company is going for sure to launch some new VR product. Some speculations about what they are going to launch, given the past announcements are:
- The Vive Cosmos Play
- The Vive Cosmos XR
- A new Vive Focus+
- Some new virtual events service under the VIVE EVENTS bran
We don’t have much info, and so the only sure thing is that Mister President Alvin Wang Graylin will wear some virtual fancy jacket. If you are interested, you can register for the event, that will be held in English and Chinese.
News worth a mention
Lenovo launches Mirage S3 headset
Lenovo has created with Pico a new 3DOF headset dedicated to enterprise usage, especially education. It is called Mirage S3, it is based on Snapdragon 835, and features a very good 1,920 × 2,160 resolution per eye. Final price is below $450.
The headset will be part of the Lenovo VR Classroom 2 solution, a complete package to educators, which includes hardware, content, device management, training, and support, all of it intended for middle and high school students.
More info (Mirage S3 specifications)
More info (Mirage S3 launch)
Nintendo Labo VR Starter Kit is at only $20
If you were too broke to buy a Nintendo Labo VR kit last year, rejoice. A new limited offering by Nintendo now lets you purchase the Blaster Starter Kit at only $20, so you can get started with VR on Nintendo Switch by spending very little money. If you already have a Switch, this is a steal.
New details on HP Reverb G2 come to light
Thanks to a Reddit AMA, we now know more details on the HP Reverb G2. A very important one is that it can also run on less powerful machines because it has some modes that make it work both at half resolution and only at 60Hz framerate. This is very good to increase the target market for this device.
A new technology to make video presentations
A nice R&D project created by MIT Media Lab and Adobe Research lets you add some elements in AR on your video stream depending on the gestures you perform. This can be interesting to create new kinds of presentations over Zoom, where you can surprise the people listening to you creating objects at your requests just moving your arms. It is just a research project, but it is very nice to watch.
Full body tracking solution Manus Polygon now available
Manus Polygon is a full body tracking solution that uses data from Vive trackers plus Manus tracking gloves to give you a very good reconstruction of the actual pose of the body (fingers included), that you can use for your VR applications or just to perform motion tracking.
It sounds very interesting, but it is a solution for enterprises since its price is around €3000.
More info (Manus Polygon now available)
More info (Price revealed)
Microlenses may improve the FOV of VR headsets
Intel research has proposed a new design for VR headsets, where you don’t have Fresnel lenses, but every lens is made by a grid of tiny lenses, every one of them deviating light. With this approach, it is possible to have a very wide FOV, but the downside is that the seams between the mini lenses are visible.
Osso VR upgrades its graphics
Osso VR is a famous surgical training VR platform. It has recently invested a lot of money to improve its graphical quality, and the results are astonishing. It is the first time that I see such high-quality graphics in a training experience. This may be very beneficial to its users that so can really prepare themselves for the blood and the flesh that they will see in the surgery room.
Flowborne lets you control its VR app with your abdomen
Flowborne is a VR meditation app available now for Oculus Quest and as all meditation apps, it relies a lot on your breath. The peculiarity of this application is that you can use your breath to control it by putting a Touch controller on your abdomen and letting its oscillations due to inhaling and exhaling controlling it. A very original approach.
The Upload VR Showcase has been postponed
Due to the difficult moment of the United States, Upload has decided to postpone the Summer Showcase from June, 8th to June, 16th. That day, we will hear a lot of news about upcoming XR games!
Some news on content
- Contractors is on sale on Steam for only $9.99!
- Project Cars 3 will have VR support when it will launch this Summer on PC
- We have a new cool video showcasing the best features of Iron Man VR, one of the most awaited games for PSVR
- Upload VR has reviewed The Wizards: Dark Times
- Oculus, Phoria and WWF has launched a series of VR videos about wildlife
- A Half-Life mod has re-created PT from Hideo Kojima (but it is a bit rough)
- Baobab Studios announces its upcoming creation Baba Yaga. Baobab has a long track of high-quality storytelling creations, so I’m very excited about it.
More info (Contractors)
More info (Project Cars 3)
More info (IronMan VR)
More info (The Wizards: Dark Times)
More info (Oculus, Phoria and WWF)
More info (Half-Life PT Mod)
More info (Baba Yaga VR)
News from partners (and friends)
Last year in December I attended a very nice XR exhibition in Bruxelles (Belgium) called Stereopsia. It was a bit little, but very well organized and I had the opportunity to meet many interesting people (here you can find the description of my experience there).
This year Stereopsia will be (hopefully) held again in December, and they are accepting requests for:
- Exhibitors
- Sponsors
- Speakers.
If you may be interested, you can contact directly the organizers or ask me for an introduction. I myself hope to be there this year!
Learn more (Official website)
Learn more (Services pamphlet)
AUTISM CORE TEAM is organizing a Virtual Reality event all focused on autism and autistic people. It will be held on June, 9th on Altspace VR.
I think it is a great initiative, held by great people.
Some XR fun
Half-Life: Alyx mods are not what they used to be
This is an indie movie about VR that I would love to watch
Improvise. Adapt. Overcome
Oculus Quest vs Oculus Rift S
Double tap to have passthrough on the Oculus Quest
A nice way to surprise the testers of your VR game
A big thanks to the community
I like to inform the community about AR and VR, and I’m very grateful that the community gives me back with lots of compliments, support and also with donations on my Patreon account.
This is the name of the people and companies that support my hard work on Patreon:
- DeoVR
- Michael Bruce
- Ilias Kapouranis
- Paolo Leoncini
- John Fredericks
- Immersive.international
- Jennifer Granger
- Jason Moore
- Steve Biggs
- Niels Bogerd
- Julio Cesar Bolivar
- Kai Curtis
- Francesco Strada
- Sb
- Vooiage Technologies
- Caroline
- Liam James O’Malley
- Matias Nassi
Take some time to read their names, because they are the ones that are making these roundups of mine possible. Let’s all thank them!
If you want to join this group of generous people, click the link here below!
(Header image by Valve)
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