The typical summer week has passed by, with some interesting XR news, but mostly no amazing event to talk about.
Before starting talking about the news of the week, I want to thank everyone for the compliments I got for the interview with Robert Scoble. If you want to watch it, it’s a very interesting 2-hour-long video and you can find it here https://skarredghost.com/2020/08/01/robert-scoble-interview-apple-oculus-ps5/ together with a summary of the key points he said.
Top news of the week
OpenXR is now ready for prime time
Some time ago, the most important companies of the XR ecosystem (HTC, Oculus, Microsoft, etc…) joined the Khronos Group to discuss a standard to end the fragmentation of the XR space. This standard, dubbed OpenXR, was about the interoperability of different VR hardware and software together. That is if every company implemented OpenXR, a program built for the Oculus should work with SteamVR as well. An eye-tracking accessory built for Vive should work with Rift as well, and so on. All hardware and software should be able to work also with products of other vendors. Of course, all of this holds only on the technical side: if Oculus for instance wants to prevent the applications on the Oculus Store to work with Vive, it can anyway block it.
OpenXR has arrived at the first version of the standard, and now it has been implemented by all the major vendors: Microsoft has implemented it for HoloLens and WMR; Oculus for Rift and Quest; Valve has implemented it in SteamVR; etc… Talking about game engines, Unreal Engine now already offers it, while Unity is still lagging behind. We are at a point that Oculus is now accepting submissions of applications implementing OpenXR on its store.
The standard is becoming adopted, and now OpenXR is offering certifications for applications and hardware implementing it. This is a good sign that the standard is healthy and is getting a lot of interest.
Among these applications that are now working on OpenXR we have Minecraft that is using OpenXR in its new RenderDragon graphics engine for desktop PCs. This not only will guarantee that Minecraft can run on all PC VR headsets, but can also make us dream a bit more about a version for Quest: what will be needed for compatibility at this point is “just” a check on the performances on the mobile device.
And it is not stopping here: OpenXR has just added new extensions for hands and eye tracking, and a company like UltraLeap has just released a beta implementation for its hands’ tracker.
It’s an incredible piece of good news: in my 6 years as a VR developer, I have always struggled with the compatibility of software and hardware. Lots of time spent making multiple builds with different plugins, many headaches because every hardware system was a silos completely independent from the others. And now OpenXR seems to be on the right road to end this far west.
But before opening some bottles of champagne and party, I want to see how it will actually turn out to be. As I told before, the fact that technically something is compatible doesn’t mean that everything will really be compatible out of the box. There are business reasonings, and I don’t think that for instance Oculus will let other headsets run on top of the Oculus Store. And I’m not so sure that there will be the build-once-run-everywhere mechanism because every headset has its own Unity plugin with some features that are very vendor-specific. For instance, to put an Oculus app on the store, you have to import the specific Oculus plugin in your project and add the “entitlement check”. What I want to say is that the road for full interoperability and for the build-once-run-everywhere is still long and business reasonings can still prevent this to happen.
But I want to be positive about this… go OpenXR! 🙂
More info (OpenXR coming to most headsets)
More info (OpenXR for hands tracking and eye tracking)
More info (Oculus now accepting OpenXR applications)
More info (Minecraft now implementing OpenXR)
Other relevant news
Many cool features have been found in the Oculus Quest runtime
Developer Gerald McAlister always has a great time digging into the code of the runtime of the Oculus Quest, and doing this he always finds some little secrets hidden into it. In the last week, examining the code of v19, he has found some elements that seem to point to very interesting features. These may be upcoming features or possible features Oculus is experimenting with a selected group of beta testers. These are:
- Multitasking: the possibility of running multiple apps at the same time on the Quest;
- Couch mode: it seems that the Guardian can let you define (or does it detect it automatically?) where is your couch, so that when you sit on it, you can activate a “couch mode” and watch videos and enjoy 3DOF apps on it;
- Whiteboard: you can synchronize a virtual whiteboard with a real one so that you can write on it both in VR and real life. I imagine this to be useful in some collaboration experiences, maybe in mixed reality;
- Portal area: you can draw a “portal” around an object in real life to keep an AR window on it, maybe because you want to watch TV while you are playing, or you want to see where are your precious things to not break them in VR;
- Wireless Link: this is complete speculation based on the fact that the new firmware of the Oculus Link now has the permission to connect to the network.
Notice that this doesn’t mean that these features are coming for sure, but it is cool to see that Facebook is experimenting with them and that some of them may actually come in the future. It is impressive how Oculus is making the Quest evolve so fast.
More info (Couch mode on Quest)
More info (All features found by Gerald McAlister)
More info (Possible Wireless Link in new Quest runtime)
Onward degrades graphics on PC because of the Quest
The popular multiplayer war game Onward has been finally ported on Quest, where it launched successfully, with very positive reactions and reviews. The graphics are a bit too simplified, but the freedom of playing it wire-free is worth the degradation. Everyone is happy about it. Well, maybe.
The problem is that to assure compatibility with Quest, and the possibility of cross-playing, the developer Downpour Interactive has also degraded the graphics on PC. This means that v18 of Onward has terrible graphics if compared with v17. The forced update has created a huge backlash from the PC community, the one that has made the game succeed in all these years.
The developer has already apologized and proposed a new beta version that lets players on PC downgrade to v17 and its old graphics. But it is not clear if and when a new version will have again the old beautiful graphics.
You may wonder why I put this news in the important pieces of news of the week: well, I think it is the symbol of how a low-power but high-selling device like the Oculus Quest can disrupt completely the PC VR market… that may even pivot to exit the average consumer market in the upcoming years because of Quest. The main market for the developers is now the Quest, and PC content will be adapted from it, with huge consequences for the expectations of the premium PC users. If the developers of Onward thought it was better to launch the game now to please the Quest community, even at the risk of offending the PC ones, it means that PC customers are now less relevant than Quest ones. And this will have huge consequences in the next 2–5 years. I’m writing a full editorial on it maybe tomorrow or the day after here on this blog, because there is a lot to talk about. It may be a negative defining moment for VR on PC.
More info (Onward downgraded on PC)
More info (Review of Onward on Quest)
More info (The developer apologizing for what has happened)
More info (The reaction of the community to the dev announcement)
More info (Ian Hamilton talking about the news)
The new Quest may have 3 IPD positions
When looking at the leaked images of the new Oculus Quest, we all noticed that it lacked an IPD slider. In my full description of the device, I showed you that there is an internal switch between the lenses, and I supposed it may serve to select the IPD of the user, but it was just a speculation.
Some days ago, Upload VR has managed to get from its sources that actually the new Quest features 3 IPD positions, and they can be selected exactly using the internal switch between the lenses. Using a preset of distances lets the users select a distance of the lenses that is comfortable to them without making them crazy in understanding the exact position of a slider at millimeter-grade-precision. It seems a good solution to me.
News worth a mention
Niantic is not building its AR glasses
Speaking with Protocol, Niantic COO Megan Quinn told that Niantic is absolutely collaborating with Qualcomm, but not for building an AR glass of its, but to create a sort of reference design for others to use. So Niantic is not entering the hardware field… but I think that maybe it can help with the software runtime of future AR glasses, especially after the acquisition of 6d.ai.
Emerge is the new competitor of Ultraleap
In the XR haptics devices sector, UltraLeap (previously known as Ultrahaptics) has always been considered as a special case, because it offered haptics sensations via ultrasounds without requiring the user to wear anything.
Now it seems that a new competitor is in town. A company called Emerge has just entered the market proposing a piece of hardware very similar to the one of UltraLeap. We don’t have much info about it for now, but I’m sure we’ll discover more in the future.
Facebook Reality Labs Says Varifocal Optics Are “Almost ready for primetime”
Douglas Lanman, Director of Display Systems Research at Facebook Reality Labs has said in a talk about optics that the varifocal optics Facebook is experimenting on the various Half Dome prototypes are “Almost ready for primetime”.
But before you all get excited by this, you must understand that this “Almost” is a pretty big one: in a scale from 1 to 9 where 1 is basic research and 9 is a product that is commercially available, he says that the lenses of Half Dome 1 are at level 6, and of Half Dome 3 at level 5. Considering that going from a prototypical stage (level 5–6) to a commercial product is a very complicated thing, I bet it means that we have still to wait some years before seeing them on a Rift/Quest.
The coronavirus stops the CES but gives new power to virtual artists
The big news of the week is that CES 2021 won’t be physically held in Las Vegas, but will have just a digital edition. Considering that this exhibition was a lot about networking and showcasing hardware products, I think that it will be very hard to translate it into a digital version.
If the coronavirus destroys physical events on one side, it gives new power to virtual events on the other side. The Weeknd is going to perform digitally on TikTok and The Wave, for a concert that is going to be both digital and virtual. And virtual influencer Lil Miquela will take part in the festival Lollapalooza and has just released a new (all virtual) music video for her new song.
More info (CES 2021)
More info (The Weeknd)
More info (Lil Miquela)
AI, CGI, and AR will give people and companies automated photo studios
A very interesting post written by the company Scapic highlights the latest advancements in AI, CGI, and AR to produce and showcase 3D elements on a screen and shows how in the future we may not need a photo studio anymore to make beautiful photos of our objects. I loved the part of the post where they used GPT-3 to reconstruct the missing part of images.
LG may be working on AR glasses
According to a report, LG is working on augmented reality glasses that should connect to the phone, be very light (around 80g) and be ready for 2021. The rumor is uncomfirmed, and considering the past experience we had with LG in XR, I would wait an official announcement before believing it…
Pimax 8KX is awesome when it works
Redditor Eagleshadow has written a very long and detailed review of the Pimax 8KX. The summary is: configuring it is a true hell, but when you manage to make it work, the visuals are stunning and the SDE is almost inexistent.
Tim Sweeney and the economy of the metaverse
Tim Sweeney has just had a long interview where he has talked about his vision of the metaverse. Summarizing it up, he thinks platforms should charge less content creators (30% of cut from Apple Store is a steal, he says), should guarantee the privacy of the users and should create connections among them. In his opinion, the true metaverse is the connection of different ecosystems: if everyone has its own walled garden, it is not a true metaverse.
A website that mixes current design and future design
The New York Times’s R&D department has created a beautiful website showing a 3D space where if you scroll the mouse (like you do in all current websites), you navigate inside the 3D environment with texts showing you the characteristics of the various 3D objects. Very cool, I advise you to try it.
Star Wars: Tales from the Galaxy’s Edge gets revealed
We have had the first reveal of Star Wars: Tales from the Galaxy’s Edge, with a video trailer that is pretty long and boring where we hear the creators speak about it. We now know that it will surely run on Quest, that you won’t have lightsabers but blasters, and that it is still in track for a 2020 release. I hope to see a cinematic trailer pretty soon…
More info (Reveal video)
More info (5 things we know about it)
Microsoft Flight Simulator is adding VR support, but…
Microsoft Flight Simulator is launching on August, 18th, without support for virtual reality. During this fall, it will add VR support, but at the beginning only for the WMR platform (especially the Reverb G2 headset). Later on, probably after some months, all headsets should be supported.
More info (Flight Simulator’s VR support)
More info (Official communication from the devs)
Some news on content
- According to a rumor, Resident Evil 8 will actually add VR support, but the developer is waiting for Sony to make the official announcement;
- Time Hacker is an indie game exploiting an interesting time mechanic and it is coming to SteamVR soon;
- BoxVR rebrands as FitXR and shows impressive new graphics and multiplayer mode.
More info (Resident Evil 8)
More info (Time Hacker)
More info (FitXR)
News from partners (and friends)
InWith is building smart contact lenses that are soft because they are made with hydrogels. They hold an US Patent for spacing circuitry and chips in molded hydrogels, allowing for lenses that may be more comfortable for the eyes of the user. We have very few info on them (they are still very secretive), but the design seems promising. I’ll let you know when I’ll have more info about this.
Learn more (Video of soft smart contact lens)
Learn more (Official website)
Some XR fun
How the design of the new Oculus Quest has born
New interesting VR content is distributed every day
The best way to beat Rocky Balboa in VR. Well, maybe not the most correct one…
The VR app where you can do the middle finger to everything you want has finally been released on Itch.Io and SideQuest!!
A smile for every Patron
Once in a while, I get a notification on my e-mail about a new person joining my Patreon campaign and become a supporter of The Ghost Howls. This makes me overly happy because it means that someone is choosing to spend money to support my big effort in informing the XR community, even if he/she wasn’t forced to that. I smile every time I get this kind of notifications, it is a special kind of joy.
The full list of my supporters, that made me smile in all these months (thank you, guys and girls!) is this one:
- DeoVR
- John Fredericks
- Michael Bruce
- Ilias Kapouranis
- Paolo Leoncini
- Immersive.international
- Bob Fine
- Nikk Mitchell and the great FXG team
- Jennifer Granger
- Jason Moore
- Steve Biggs
- Niels Bogerd
- Julio Cesar Bolivar
- Jan Schroeder
- Kai Curtis
- Francesco Strada
- Sb
- Vooiage Technologies
- Caroline
- Liam James O’Malley
- Paul Reynolds
- Sikaar Keita
- Matias Nassi
Gift me a smile you as well by clicking the button below!
(Header image by Khronos Group)