The XR Week Peek (2021.05.31): UE5 released in Early Access, Lumus shows an impressive AR prototype, and more!
This has not been the most interesting week in AR, VR, but I think that in the next times we’ll see some shots fired: in some days there will be the F8, the official shipment of the Vive Pro 2, then the Apple WWDC conference! I hope for some juicy news… and you?
Before starting with the news roundup, would you mind subscribing to my Youtube channel? That would make me a little happier and would let you watch my videos where I speak with my sexy Italian accent! Here you can find the link: https://www.youtube.com/c/skarredghost Thanks a lot []-)
Top news of the week
Unreal Engine 5 gets released in Early Access
After a lot of teasing of its upcoming fantastic features, Unreal Engine 5 is finally available for download. It is just an Early Access version, and Epic suggests not to use it for products that must be shipped, but it is enough to let developers start getting used to it.
The interface has been completely rethought and improved, and new features have been added to the engine. We already knew about Nanite, the system that optimizes on the fly the 3D assets you put in the projects, letting you go beyond the concept of LODs; and Lumen, the new real-time lighting system that gives amazing shadings. But actually, there are many more innovative features, like Metasounds, a complete mixer that lets you create audio output with a block editor that is similar to the one that is used to create shaders, or a new system to customize animations on the fly. As a developer, I’m sincerely amazed.
I have also to say that I am a bit concerned: Nanite is cool, but adding unoptimized assets to a project is not always the wisest thing to do, and in fact, the demo scene created by Epic is 100 GB big. Prepare a new hard drive if you want to try this engine!
UE5 also offers a new template to create VR projects, based on the OpenXR standard. It is ready to use, and you can start from it to easily create your cross-platform VR applications. But in the VR template, the coolest features of UE5 like Nanite are disabled. It seems that they are not ready for VR yet, and Epic states that compatibility is coming in the future. That’s pretty odd because I think that VR would be the place where Nanite could shine since you must guarantee a very high framerate while having stunning visuals. I hope that this compatibility is coming soon, even if Epic has never shown a strong focus on XR in its engine…
More info (Official UE5 EA launch post)
More info (UE5 VR template commented by Road To VR)
Other relevant news
Lumus Maximums shows an impressive AR prototype
Display expert Karl Guttag has gone hands-on with the latest prototype by Lumus, called Lumus Maximus, that shows some impressive specifications. Guttag is usually very critical of the devices he tries, and the fact that he expressed a positive opinion on this makes us understand that we should keep an eye on it.
Lumus Maximus is at the moment a prototype just showcasing the optical system of some future glasses. The FOV is 50° diagonal like the other headsets on the market, but this is square-ish and Mr.Guttag underlines that this is a better shape for a field of view, because it resembles more the shape of our fovea. The resolution is 2,048 × 2,048 and it is offered by an LCOS microdisplay. Paired with the limited FOV, this means that the pixel density is so high that goes very close to the one perceivable by the human retina. That is, you have a tiny window like on HoloLens, but in this tiny window, you have a perfect vision of the augmentations that you have.
Apart from this great resolution, the Lumus also offers good color consistency, that is you have not rainbows in your vision as it happens with HoloLens 2. And the lenses are very transparent, so people can see your eyes (and you don’t look like a complete dork), and you can see the environment around you with full brightness. Talking about brightness, the 3000 nits of the display ensure that you may use this headset also outdoor.
It all looks cool, also because the glasses that Guttag tried have the shape of regular glasses. But this is at the moment just a prototype that you have to connect to an external computational unit to make it work. This means that first of all Lumus must prove that it can manufacture such a device and bring it to market (the partnership with glass specialty company Schott may help in this), and then also that it can manufacture it while keeping it affordable and small. According to Guttag, it is probable that in the end, this glass may assume a shape similar to the one of the HoloLens 2 when it goes into production (because it has to incorporate the battery, the computational unit, etc….)
Let’s keep an eye on this, it could become the Varjo of AR!
More info (Lumus Maximus glasses)
More info (In-depth article on Lumus Maximus by Karl Guttag)
Discover some cool reviews!
This week I have found very interesting reviews on three XR headsets.
The first device that has been reviewed by many Youtubers is the Vive Pro 2. I have watched in particular the reviews of Mike Virtual Reality Oasis and Sebastian Ang (MRTV). Sebastian’s one is very detailed, so if you love technical details, it is the one to read, while if you need something lighter, Mike VRO’s one is perfect. The general consensus is that the display of the Vive Pro 2 is amazing, even if the 120° FOV has a shape that is different than the one that you may expect: the horizontal fov is very wide, while the vertical one feels a bit limited.
The comfort is also good, but the critics come mostly from the audio department. The speakers are not as amazing as the ones of the Valve Index, and the microphone is a total disaster. Sebastian Ang had to mod it with some pop filters (basically, a pair of mustaches) to improve the quality. And it feels weird that HTC hasn’t fixed such a cheap little component that was already faulty on the original Vive.
That said, all agree that given the price of the Pro 2, you have to evaluate if it is worth for you to buy it: depending on the headset that you currently own, the answer may be yes or no. If you have an original Vive, the upgrade is necessary; if you have an Index, maybe it could be nice to have a better resolution; if you have a Reverb G2, probably the upgrade is not worth the price. Mike VRO also asks an interesting question: if nowadays most content is being developed for Quest and just ported to PC, is it worth spending hundreds of euros to buy a device with a stunning display for which there is not in sight AAA content that could exploit it? I already expressed this doubt in a previous article of mine, and I repeat that IMHO the only hope for PCVR is PSVR 2, which may bring back the attention to VR titles with stunning visuals.
Nikk Mitchell, the great guy with which I made this review of the Huawei 6DOF glasses, has made a review video about the consumer Pico Neo 3 that is on sale in China. In his video, it seems that the Pico Neo 3 is exactly what we would expect, that is a good clone of the Oculus Quest 2. The tracking of the controllers and the headset has been improved a lot, and there is also great content like Synth Riders and Red Matter to play with. There is also a companion app (another thing copied from Oculus), through which you can buy the games (of course connected with Alipay and WeChat pay). A solid device that I can’t wait to try!
Matt Miesnieks, the previous head of 6d.ai (recently acquired by Niantic) has gone hands-on with the newest Snap Spectacles. He expressed a very positive opinion on them: the device is pretty limited in functionalities, but it does well the only things it has to do, that is displaying AR filters and letting you record them. He says the graphics are bright and the final look pretty fashionable. But he also highlights that there is still a lot of market education to carry on before these glasses become pervasive.
More info (Vive Pro 2 review by Sebastian Ang)
More info (Vive Pro 2 review by Mike VRO)
More info (Pico Neo 3 review by Nikk Mitchell)
More info (Snap Spectacles review by Matt Miesnieks)
News worth a mention
A Youtuber says Facebook is going to reveal something in September
Youtuber Eric For President has twitted some days ago that “September is the VR hardware you want”. In the comments he has hinted about a great piece of hardware, that will be affordable because heavily subsidized by Facebook, which will be revealed. He cites personal sources hinting at this.
He’s most probably talking about the Oculus Quest 2 Pro. The problem is that Facebook’s representatives have always said that the Pro won’t be unveiled this year. Who knows if HTC’s Vive Focus 3 may have accelerated Facebook’s plans, or maybe in September, at Oculus Connect, we just get a glimpse of the Pro and the true launch happens in 2022. I’m very curious about this…
(Of course consider this with a huge grain of salt, since it is all speculation!)
Deus headset has become RosCosmos
Do you remember the Russian Deus headset that was unveiled many months ago? Well, Russian VR expert Ilja Zegars has found new info about it: it seems that now it is called RosCosmos, and it should be aimed at the B2B market, including the training of Russian astronauts.
The specifications are also interesting: RosCosmos XR-2 has a 5760 * 2880 resolution at 90Hz display, and it runs SteamVR tracking both on Windows and Linux. The worrisome thing is that the website still shows the renderings (and not the photos) of the product, so we are not sure that this will actually reach the market.
Uefa Champions League showed an MR concert
I love watching football (soccer), and of course, on Saturday evening I was glued in front of the TV enjoying the final match between Manchester City and Chelsea. The usual pre-show surprised me because it featured a concert of the DJ Marshmello together with Selena Gomez, and it was all in “mixed reality”. There was a simulation of the stadium filled with water, with many special effects of lights and sparkles, while the true singers and dancers were (theoretically) performing live. It was cool, even if the simulation wasn’t super-smooth at times and looked a bit fake. Anyway, as someone that works in the virtual concerts/events sector, I was very pleased to see this, and I have to compliment the Spanish company MR Factory for the work, especially because they had to change the stadium used in the performance just two weeks before the air time!
It was amazing seeing a mixed reality event used for such an important event. And it was fun that while watching the concert, I told people at home “Look! A mixed reality concert! A mixed reality concert!” and they looked at me like a crazy guy with a tinfoil hat and then they kept eating completely ignoring me. The usual life of the MR enthusiast.
Half-Life Alyx may have featured melée combat
In an interview with Kotaku, Half-Life Alyx developers have discussed the use and the representation of the hands inside the game. Reading about their creative process is very interesting, and inside the article, you also find that Alyx may have featured melée combat. “It looked like the next natural evolution” of the game, according to them, but of course developing it with the same level of polish of the other features of the game would have required many months of development, and they couldn’t afford to delay the game just for this. Maybe will we see it for Half-Life Alyx 2?
More info (Alyx may have featured melée combat)
More info (Full interview on Kotaku)
VR diversity training may be less effective than you think
“VR is the ultimate empathy machine” is a current refrain that we constantly hear in our communities. That’s why it has been used to put yourself in the shoes of many people that face difficult conditions, and it is also being employed inside companies to train about inclusion. But is it effective?
Well, a representative of the African-American communities that has written an article on Wired is pretty doubtful about it: he says that living some injustices for some minutes can’t be the same as living a full life of constant discrimination. He also cites studies of important professors (like Jeremy Bailenson) that report that actually, a single experience of this kind doesn’t change that much in the thoughts and the behaviors of a user. You should try the discrimination VR experience for many days for it to have some kind of effect, but this is less feasible for a company.
Facebook is offering grants for neural interface design
Facebook is offering five grants of $150K each for research projects that explore the matter of neural interface design, with strong attention to privacy and personal data management according to Facebook’s Responsible Innovation principles. If you are part of an R&D group inside a University, I suggest you give it a look.
Discover the story behind the PlayStation Aim Controller
PlayStation Aim Controller is one of the most appreciated VR accessories. It is sold by Sony, but actually, the idea behind it comes from Impulse Gear, that studio that developed Farpoint. Inside an article on Upload VR, you can discover its story, and how it went from a controller for pancake games to an amazing accessory for VR!
Discover the WebXR Developer Summit
This week the WebXR Developer Summit has taken place, and it has been an amazing event to talk all about WebXR technologies, from the technical standpoint (programming languages, standards, etc…), but also the human one (privacy, cybersecurity, etc…). If you have missed it, Kent Bye has written a long thread with the important key points of most of the speeches (Thanks Tom Ffiske for letting me know this in your newsletter!)
Steam Open World Sale offers discounts on VR games
It is again the time to give to Lord Gaben your money! Steam has just launched the Steam Open World Sale, with discounts on VR titles like The Walking Dead: Saints & Sinners, Star Wars Squadrons, Arizona Sunshine, and many others!
Mark Zuckerberg may have teased Onward 2
While answering a comment on Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg has written “I’m playing a lot of Onward now and I’m pretty excited for Onward 2”. Onward is one of the most popular VR shooters, and no plans for Onward 2 had ever been announced, so this is a pretty juicy leak.
Facebook has not commented on the news, and this makes us think that Onward 2 is actually in the works (if the leak were false, they would have just said it). The real question is: while Onward 1 is guaranteed to work on all platforms, will Onward 2 be a Quest exclusive title? I really hope not.
Some news on content
- Star Wars Squadron is will be free to PlayStation Plus members in June
- We’ll have soon new info about an upcoming new title from the creators of Boneworks. May it be the Quest game they promised us some months ago?
- The new DLC for Beat Saber is out, with songs from LMFAO, Kendrick Lamar, and others. Upload VR tried it and the feedback is positive
- Dungeon Full Dive is an upcoming tabletop gaming platform that wants to give players the tools to create D&D matches in VR. It has just collected $285 on Kickstarter
- Wraith The Oblivion Afterlife launches on Steam with a -10% discount and new content!
- FitXR launches HIIT training, which gives you very intense sessions. It reminds me a lot of our game HitMotion, just made with a bigger budget
- Sweet Surrender is an upcoming roguelite VR shooter with a very cool graphical style
- Carve Snowboarding is now out on Quest 2. The review from Upload VR is pretty positive: if you like snowboarding, give it a look!
- ForeVR bowling is out. Reviews are mixed: the game is well-made, but playing bowling in VR without any sense of haptics and weight is pretty complicated
More info (Star Wars Squadrons)
More info (Stress Level Zero’s new title)
More info (New Beat Saber DLC)
More info (Dungeon Full Dive)
More info (Wraith The Oblivion Afterlife)
More info (FitXR) More info (Sweet Surrender)
More info (Carve Snowboarding) More info (ForeVR)
News from partners (and friends)
MIAT is organizing an Immersive Storytelling Masterclass featuring famous international teachers that gives you a deep dive on how to create high-quality immersive storytelling content. Here it is the description of the course
Our Immersive Storytelling Masterclass is a 60 hours full immersion bootcamp, running in small groups and covering the fundamentals of immersive technology and creative virtual production and will cover the entire immersive production process from concept and pre-production planning to pitching and distribution: conceptualisation, planning, strategies, schedules, workflows, the importance of pre-planning, pretesting and prototyping. Learning how to create the best pitch, how to build the best immersive team, and the most ideal immersive distribution methods for each project.
If you are interested in it, get more info and enroll using the links here below!
Learn more (Presentation video)
Learn more (Discover more and register)
You can’t miss the amazing VRTO event this year! I won’t be among the speakers (they don’t love me anymore), but the event will surely be a blast like in 2020 (even better, I guess, since there will be better speakers than me lol)
Here you are the official description:
VRTO 2021 presents the Flotilla — The International Symposium on Immersive Media Arts & Technologies running June 2–8th. This unique event is known for its interactive sessions & workshops, networking, & virtual world-hopping to custom spaces curated & crafted by international thought leaders. In addition to Micro-Summits on the Digital Asset Economy (Eco-NFTS, virtual Land), advancements in Virtual Production & Humans, implications and design for Mind & Body (Neurodiversity, Fitness Apps, The Dyscorpia Project, Accessibility considerations), VRTO will bring together top developers of today’s popular titles for a VR Game Developers Summit (OH SHAPE, Audio Trip, BoomBox, Until You Fall, and Synth Riders).
Learn more (Discover more and register)
Freek Teunen has written an ebook for managers, teachers, and entrepreneurs to introduce them to the world of AR and VR. I have given it a fast read, and I can tell you that this ebook is very practical and gives lots of hints and suggestions on how to use these technologies at their best in enterprise settings. Check it out!
Learn more
Some XR fun
This post about the sentences in XR that I’m tired of hearing has got a bit out of hand…
Funny link
This is so cute and lovely!
(Hat Tip to Nathie)
Funny link
You can’t argue with this review
Funny link
My eyes, my poor eyes…
Funny link
The Oculus Grift works better than the Oculus Rift
Funny link
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