Starbreeze looking to bolster their VR play with the acquisition of ePawn.

Starbreeze, today announced its acquisition of the French toys to life, VR and augmented reality tech company ePawn. This comes right after Acer gave Starbreeze $9 million to help fund development of the company's StarVR. Looks like Starbreeze plans on having a huge Payday with Virtual Reality. 

“With ePawn, we will significantly diversify our virtual reality and toys-to-life offerings, as well as speed up the development of existing internal projects already in the works,” said Bo Andersson Klint, Starbreeze CEO. “The ePawn team has already innovated and productified their technologies and we acquire not only many good ways of applying them, but also a solid portfolio of patents that will benefit Starbreeze for many years to come.”

ePawn is a next generation VR and toys-to-life company merging real life gaming experiences with their digital counter part through its gaming boards and mats in table and room scale sizes. ePawn’s patented technology captures everything that happens on the game board and feeds digital applications with information. Up to 40 objects equipped with off-the-shelf NFC (Near Field Communication) tags can simultaneously be put into play on a game board and ePawn’s technology will calculate their position, orientation and altitude in real-time and at the millimeter level. ePawn has developed several versions of its technology to fit many gaming-related markets, such as video games, toys, board games and greatly enchanted augmented reality support between for example a toy and a mobile device.

Virtual reality applications include large and flexible flooring tiles that can be assembled to equip spaces with a solution for affordable positioning system capable of tracking several people in a room.

“For ePawn, I especially appreciate the location based entertainment applications, where for example the VR-mat will enable us to offer even more immersive experiences in our VR-centers,” said Emmanuel Marquez, Starbreeze CTO. “Additionally, the toys-to-life applications are numerous and the ability to technically track physical objects in our future games, such as Geminose, are really promising. The potential to be able to add augmented reality components to further enhance the gameplay for mobile devices are really exciting.”

Zeality launches 360° Video contest to be the next VR producer for the San Francisco 49ers!

THE 2016 ZEALITY 360 SHOOTOUT
The hunt is on to find the next VR producer for the San Francisco 49ers! Zeality and The 49ers Studios are excited to announce the 2016 Zeality 360° Shootout -- a first-of-its-kind industry event where five teams of 360°/VR filmmakers will compete head-to-head in a two-day Shootout/Hackathon to produce the best 360°/VR video. Learn from the industry’s best VR production companies, get hands on experience with the full ecosystem of cutting edge VR gear and tech solutions and showcase your talent to top VR media and tech leaders.

Teams enter by submitting their best 1-5 minute original 360°/VR video for consideration. Entries will be voted on by the Zeality online community and judged by a panel of VR Industry leaders from Hollywood and Silicon Valley to determine which five talented teams will shoot it out at Levi’s® Stadium. The winning team with the best, 360°/VR video will win $20,000 in cash, plus top VR gear and tech solutions and the once in a lifetime opportunity to produce a Game Day 360°/VR video for The San Francisco 49ers.

http://zeality.co/shootout/

MetaVRse Launches Canada's First Full Service Virtual Reality Agency

Toronto-based VR Agency MetaVRse has launched as Canada’s first full-service Virtual Reality agency. MetaVRse offers a wide range of experiential marketing and event production, content production and consulting services to brands interested in harnessing the incredible power of virtual and augmented reality technologies.

Founded by Alan Smithson, serial entrepreneur and inventor of the Emulator DJ system and Dan Flatt, a former lawyer, management consultant and leader of social media for Canada’s largest media company, MetaVRse offers a wide range of customized solutions including: 360° video and interactive Virtual Reality content development, 360° live streaming for festivals and events and VR rentals for tradeshows, marketing initiatives and events.

“The biggest challenge facing the emerging VR industry is showing the world VR,” said MetaVRse President, Dan Flatt. “We are leveraging the power of corporate events to solve this challenge.”

“Our mission is to show the world the future,” said an enthusiastic Smithson. “VR is already the most powerful and engaging platform for entertainment, gaming and branded content.”

With over one million active monthly users of the Samsung GearVR, millions of Google Cardboard units and high-end Oculus Rift and HTC Vive pre-orders, Smithson believes that brands that are early to develop unique and engaging content for VR and will have a huge advantage over their competition.

Studies show that people remember VR experiences the same as real memories. With the growing VR user base hungry for new content, marketers can create meaningful connections with their customers through innovative branded experiences.

MetaVRse has worked with marquee clients including: Royal Ontario Museum, Adidas, Footlocker, Niagara Falls Tourism and CDW. MetaVRse has been onsite capturing immersive 360° video at Groove Cruise, Bestival, MuchMusic Video Awards, and more. Smithson will be speaking at the Virtual Reality Toronto (VRTO) conference in Toronto and International Live Events Association (ILEA) conference in Austin. He will also be performing a live DJ set in VR at the Microsoft Worldwide Partners Conference (MWPC) in Toronto.

Sneak Peak:Ghostbusters:Dimension from The Void, Made with Unity.

Unity, the largest global development platform for creating 2D, 3D, VR and AR games and experiences, today announced a new and truly unique virtual reality (VR) experience "Ghostbusters: Dimension" has been built using the Unity Technologies platform. Led by tech innovators THE VOID, the experience was created in partnership with Sony Pictures, Madame Tussauds New York, and Ghost Corps.

In Ghostbusters: Dimension, THE VOID's proprietary hardware and software allow guests to step beyond reality and into the world of the Ghostbusters. Based on the new movie, this first-of-its-kind, Hyper-Reality experience blends real world physical environments with a unique untethered virtual reality (VR) setup that uses real-time interactive effects powered by the Unity Platform and 3D engine.

"This is precisely the kind of innovative use of VR that Unity is now powering with our 3D engine and platform," said Clive Downie, CMO Unity Technologies. "With an untethered VR experience that allows people to roam freely and interact with a physical world that matches the digital one they are seeing, consumers will have whole new levels of delight as they lose themselves in another realm. It's giving presence to interactive storytelling putting people into the Ghostbusters world with high definition, high frame rate high excitement action, powered in part by Unity."

Audiences get to experience what it's like to be a Ghostbuster, tracking and trapping a supernatural foe through a New York apartment complex. The entire experience lasts about 15 minutes, with up to three people at a time and is scheduled to open to the public at Madame Tussauds New York on July 1, 2016 as an add-on to their Ghostbusters Experience.

"The Ghostbusters world is the perfect fit for THE VOID because you literally strap our RAPTURE gear on and it turns into your proton pack and proton gun," said James Jensen, Chief Visionary Officer at THE VOID. "One of the key components to powering this experience is a powerful 3D engine, and Unity was the obvious choice. Their VR platform allowed us to rapidly iterate on our ideas, while offering us an editor that lets us focus on storytelling instead of being bogged down in writing a lot of code."

For more specifics on Ghostbusters: Dimensions, please visit: https://thevoid.com/Dimensions/Ghostbusters. If you do get to the experience, make sure to use #unity3d #voidvr and #Ghostbusters when sharing your pictures and thoughts!

Are you a VR startup? HTC & Friends are looking to help and have 10 BILLION to share!

HTC  announced a 10 billion dollar Virtual Reality Venture Capital Alliance ,bringing together a close-knit membership comprised of 30 of the top Virtual Reality Investors in the world with the goal of funding startups working in VR as well as AR and MR. The  president of VRVCA is Alvin Wang Graylin,President of VR at HTC China.

The purpose of the Virtual Reality Venture Capital Alliance (“VRVCA”) is to foster long-term growth in the VR industry through identifying, sharing and investing in the world's most innovative & impactful VR technology and content companies.

Here is an overview of their plan.

6 opportunities to pitch  per year and $10+ Bn USD in deployable capital to invest in Virtual Reality, Augmented Reality and Mixed reality startups of any size from anywhere around the world. They will meet six times a year with a base of operations out of Beijing and San Francisco.

http://www.vrvca.com/

Google Daydream Labs Update- 6/28/2016

Daydream Labs have been experimenting with ways to reduce technical complexity and even add a greater sense of play when animating in VR. In one experiment they built, people could bring characters to life by picking up toys, moving them through space and time, and then replay the scene. Check out the latest updates from Daydream Labs

An app experiment from Daydream Labs. Instead of animating with graph editors or icons representing location, people could simply reach out, grab a virtual toy, and carry it through the scene.

To create more intricate animations, they also built another experiment that let people independently animate the joints of a single character. It let you record your character’s movement as you separately animated the feet, hands, and head — just like you would with a puppet.

An app experiment from Daydream Labs. Independently animate the joints of a single character.

Check out more from Daydream Labs.

https://developers.googleblog.com/2016/06/daydream-labs-animating-3d-objects-in-vr.html

Cats And VR

Rick And Morty In Altspace VR! Justin Roiland premieres the new Altspace VR drawing app!

Justin Roiland premieres the new Altspace VR drawing app in like :30 min! As you can tell I am a Rick And Morty fanboy.! Rick and Morty is a cult sensation and hit cartoon from Cartoon Network's Adult Swim. Join fans and watch creator and voice actor, Justin Roiland, draw live in VR in AlspaceVR's newest drawing app. Viewers can attend on Samsung Gear VR, Oculus Rift and HTC Vive. To download AltspaceVR visit http://altvr.com/get-altspacevr/. Altspace will be using their feature FrontRow, which mirrors Justin to as many rooms as there are people that want to attend. So everyone gets a front row seat. He'll be joined by Rick and Morty board artist Erica Hayes. They'll be debuting the latest SDK Painter app. See you in VR.

Event link: https://account.altvr.com/events/445747139373432922

HTC Vive remake of Duck Hunt using a Vive Emulator!

Remko van Brakel recently released his HTC Vive remake of Duck Hunt. That is super awesome but what really messed with me today is learning of how to play it using a Vive emulator.

Shout out to the founder of Destructoid for making me aware. 

"The game works on the Vive, but of course there's ways to emulate the Vive if you don't have one. I recommend Riftcat.com with a cardboard viewer to demo these things on the smartphone you already own. If you don't have bluetooth controllers either, you should stop buying Pokémon buttplugs and get a proper nest of just-in-case cables. I wrote a guide on how to use a $30 Leap controller in VR to emulate Vive's motion controllers. 

https://www.destructoid.com/guide-how-to-make-a-dirt-cheap-steam-vr-headset-with-low-lag-358924.phtml

Cats And VR

Jaunt ONE Camera to be made available to public allowing anyone to Shoot, Edit and Distribute High-Quality, Immersive Cinematic VR Experiences

Jaunt Inc., the industry leader in cinematic virtual reality, today announced that the award-winning Jaunt ONE camera will be made available for public use through a pilot program with Radiant Images, a Los Angeles-based digital cinema innovator and rental house. In addition to the patented camera technology, Jaunt Cloud Services (JCS), Jaunt’s cloud based stitching and rendering pipeline, will also be available to creators providing them with the only scalable, end-to-end, hardware and software solution for shooting, producing and distributing immersive cinematic VR experiences.

Starting in July, the Jaunt ONE camera will be available for rent via the Radiant Images website and rental house, giving everyone from rising filmmakers to established creatives and brands the opportunity to shoot with the highest quality professional-grade stereoscopic VR camera, designed with visionary VR creators in mind. The Jaunt ONE 24G model features 24 global shutter sensors, ideal for low-light and fast moving objects, and the setup can be coupled with 360° ambisonic audio recording, which in post can be mixed with Dolby ATMOS.

"Over the past 12 months we have used Jaunt ONE to film hundreds of hours of content all over the world. Jaunt ONE is a production tested camera that we are thrilled to be opening to the public through this rental program with Radiant Images," said Koji Gardiner, VP of hardware engineering at Jaunt. "Radiant is the perfect partner to enable broader access to our technology, and their expertise in the VR space makes them a great resource for filmmakers eager to explore VR as a new storytelling medium."

“The incredible Jaunt ONE camera is the perfect match for the many visionary VR creators we collaborate with who are eager to continue to push the boundaries of this new technology,” said Michael Mansouri, VP and co-founder of Radiant Images. “We’re honored and excited that Jaunt has entrusted us to help get this camera into the hands of talented filmmakers determined to take VR content to the next level and beyond. The power and versatility of the Jaunt ONE, together with Jaunt’s seamless software and distribution solutions, is unmatched. We’re thrilled to be the first rental house to have this amazing camera available to clients.”

After capturing stunning omnidirectional video with Jaunt ONE, production teams can also stitch and render their footage in the cloud using JCS, Jaunt’s proprietary cloud based algorithms and tools. JCS transforms footage into the highest quality stereoscopic VR experiences, ready for publishing. JCS also integrates seamlessly with most off the shelf post production tools for compositing, editing and color correction.

Once the experience is finalized, creators have immediate access to all of the assets necessary to publish to any platform that supports 360° video, including the Jaunt VR App. The Jaunt VR platform utilizes ‘deep-links’, allowing content creators to publish directly to their audiences. These unique content specific ‘deep-links’ give global audiences immediate access to the experience without having to search for it, regardless of the device or platform.

Cats And VR

Rumor Mill-EA working on Burnout VR.

 Earlier this week by EA posted a QA VR role, but  removed the job this morning after the media began to run with the story. 

The job was described as “an exciting opportunity for a short term contract Quality Analyst position to work on a yet to be announced VR title.” It said that qualified candidates, “will be responsible for identifying and reporting software defects, assisting with establishment of strong VR testing guidelines, writing and running test coverage and verifying fixes.”

The role was for Criterion Games who is owned by EA and is developing the Star Wars Battlefront: X-Wing Mission for PSVR. The rumor mill is saying that the role was for a Burnout VR game.

Cats And VR

Immerse yourself with Shark Week in VR...well 360° video actually.

This year, SHARK WEEK celebrates its 28th anniversary and will keep viewers on the edge of their seat with all-new jaw-dropping and compelling shark stories and, for the first time ever, offering an immersive virtual reality experience. Working with nearly two dozen of the most respected marine biologists and science institutions, SHARK WEEK will also highlight some of the most recent breakthroughs and developments to reveal remarkable new insights into these magnificent creatures.

http://www.discoveryvr.com/

Shark Week programming will be available via the Discovery VR app for viewing with Samsung GearVR and Oculus Rift. So YEA!!!!

Cats And VR

Jerrys Place VR looks to be a safe space for Jerry and Jerry fanatics.

JerrysPlaceVR is coming to the Oculus Rift CV1 and the HTC Vive very soon. It gets more exciting, JerrysPlace will be integrating with VRChat! This means you can now discuss a show about nothing or do absolutely nothing at all with a whole VR community. VRChat lets you create, publish, and explore virtual worlds with other people from around the world. This means that you will be able to create your own abstract as F episode of Seinfeld. Just check out some of these community created avatars VRChat has to offer. http://www.vrchat.net/marketplace

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Check out JerrysPlaceVr.com , the new version for CV 1 and Vive should be coming 07/05/2016 - the 17th anniversary of the Seinfeld Pilot air date.

I already know what I will be doing with the new update, creating a safe space for Jerrys with no Ricks invited.

Here is what the creator of Jerry's place had to say about his creation. 

 "I've been a fan of Seinfeld for a long time. After purchasing the Oculus rift I started imagining what my first project might be. I decided to pick a project that would gradually introduce me to Unity without being overly complex. I was not new to 3D modeling, however this would be my first project in Unity. I came up with the idea of recreating Jerry's apartment, in it's entirety for virtual reality. Television is virtual reality in some ways. We make believe that Jerry's place is actually a Manhattan studio and Monks Cafe is just down the street. We suspend the reality that his apartment is just a set in Hollywood, with tons of cameras and lighting dangling overhead. I thought it would be a novel virtual reality experience to take a place that only exists in Hollywood magic, and make it for the Oculus Rift as if it were real. Virtual Reality Virtual Reality. 

Cats And VR

Coverage- UploadVR's Art & VR event.

The tech and art world are arguably in one of the most exciting times in regards to VR. This is something that I get up every morning excited to be part of. There are several people that share these same sentiments. One of the fastest growing set of influencers in the VR community recently hosted a sold out event to facilitate the discussion and discovery of Art & VR. 

UploadVR turned their offices into an art gallery and held an excellent event hosted by artist in residence and art curator of the Upload Collective space, Stuart Mason. 

The evening art showcases included "Floating World" -Marina Berlin's wire installation inspired by Virtual Reality as well as a collection of curated pieces.

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Event attendees included world renowned multimedia artist, Luska, Business Dev superstar @ SubPac, Zach Jaffe, & Co-founder at VR Weekend & Editor at Epic Magazine, Kelly Vicars.

The event drew an eclectic crowd of influencers from the art and VR world mixed with enthusiasts who were generally excited to discover the impact of VR in art world.  Those in attendance were treated to the cutting edge of Virtual Reality art including an amazing abstract art maze by Academy Award winning visual effects pioneer Kevin Mack of Shape Space VR.

via GIPHY

Of course what would an Art & VR event be without the inclusion of Google's killer VR art App, Tilt Brush. Elisabeth Moran of Google VR was on hand to not only demo Tilt Brush but also speak about creativity and expression in VR as a whole.

One of my favorite moments of the evening happened when Elisabeth Moran gave a shout out to The Wave, the amazing Vive DJ'ing tool that captivated the audience that evening including the Tilt Brush team.

Stuart Mason drove home the point of the artist portion of art by making attendees aware of H.E.ART Project, a non-profit organization created to give back to the SF art community. The project works with landlords and homeowners to provide selected artists with extended rent-controlled leases. 

UploadVR opened up their space to cultivate the connection between art and VR and I would say the Brothers Mason succeeded in that mission.

Cats And VR

How the UK leaving the EU will affect VR development in England.

TIGA, the network for video games developers and digital publishers and the trade association representing the video games industry, said today that in the light of the vote for ‘Brexit’ the UK Government and Parliament should take steps to ensure the continued success of sectors with economic potential, including the creative industries and the video games industry. TIGA made the comments following the EU referendum which took place on June 23 rd 2016 and drawing upon expert information from Weightmans LLP and Grant Thornton LLP.

TIGA said that there were three key issues facing the video games industry following the EU referendum.

1.      Access to finance: Difficulty accessing capital has consistently been the top factor holding back many games developers. In an uncertain economic environment, there may be a reduced appetite for investment. Additionally, outside of the EU, the UK games industry will not be able to access schemes such as Creative Europe and Horizon 2020 programmes.  The UK Government should promote policies that encourage investment, maintain sector specific schemes such as the Video Games Prototype Fund and consider a Games Investment Fund to help start-ups and small businesses.

2.      A favourable tax environment: Video Games Tax Relief and R & D Tax Relief have been crucial in enabling the UK video games industry to compete on a more level playing field against the UK’s international competitors, particularly Canada. In a post Brexit world it will be even more vital to maintain, improve and enhance these reliefs in order to attract external investment and to maintain the competitiveness of the sector.

3.      Access to talent: the UK video games industry relies on a highly skilled workforce to compete. Until now, the industry has had access to a substantial pool of skilled EU workers who can work in the UK without serious administrative restrictions.  Brexit is likely to result in new immigration rules requiring employers to secure some sort of visa and to meet certain skills/salary criteria in order to employ migrant workers.  It is vital that any new arrangements are not onerous or complex and that industry is not heldback by skills shortages.

4.      Intellectual Property: IP is the lifeblood of the video games industry and the impact of ‘Brexit’ here could be significant. There are many commercial considerations. For example, the UK is part of both the Registered Community Design regime and the EU Trade Mark regime and also recognises the Unregistered EU Design Right. Such rights provide protection to rights holders across the EU Member States. Potentially such EU related rights might lose their validity in the UK. The implication being that those parties who originally held such EU rights may need to apply for UK trade mark and design rights to protect their rights in the UK.  This may result in issues relating to existing development and publishing arrangements, IP licenses and security over IP rights.

Dr Richard Wilson, TIGA CEO, said:

“The UK video games industry is a high technology sector that provides high skilled employment for over 30,000 people, including approximately 11,000 development staff and which contributes £1.1 billion to UK GDP. It is also export oriented, with at least 95 per cent of studios exporting. Following the referendum in favour of ‘Brexit’, it will be more vital than ever to strengthen (and avoid harming) those sectors where the UK has a comparative competitive advantage: for example, aerospace, defence, high-value manufacturing and engineering, high technology industries, higher education, low carbon technology and the creative industries, including the video games sector.

“For the video games industry, it is particularly important that policy makers ensure games companies have access to sufficient finance, benefit from Video Games Tax Relief and R&D Tax Relief, have clear and stable IP rights and can access highly skilled people from outside of the UK. Any new points based migration system must not be onerous or complicated, otherwise the industry’s growth could be held back.”

Jason Kingsley OBE, TIGA Chairman and CEO and Creative Director at Rebellion, said:

“The UK video games development sector is an export focused industry that sells content all over the globe. We have a highly skilled workforce, a creative and growing studio population and a heritage of thirty years of success. While uncertainty is unwelcome for business, the UK video games industry will remain strong, resilient and competitive.”

Information provided by  www.tiga.org

Cats And VR

Fantastic Japanese Team Hacks Nintendo Wii U and Plays Splatoon in VR with Water Guns.

Kougaki Navi has been working on hacking a Wii U for VR purposes for a while and have finally come up with an iteration they are happy with. Check out the video and use Google translate for the step by step process on how they did it. 

http://kougaku-navi.net/Splatoon/index.html

#スプラトゥーン の新しいインタフェース作った pic.twitter.com/rqedtePWAY

— kougaku (@kougaku) June 20, 2016

Dark Days, a psychological thriller for Gear VR launches today.

Dark Days, Parallel Studio’s newest VR experience, immerses you in a creepy motel in the middle of Death Valley to solve puzzles while you fight for survival. Fans of escape-the-room puzzles and thrilling supernatural narrative have a new VR game to look forward to. 

Dark Days is as an excellent Gear VR title that mixes the weirdness of Twin Peaks with the unknown supernatural bumps in the night of The X-Files and the hide-and-seak game play of Amnesia. The game puts you in the role of heroine Jade Lacroix, a writer who checks into a very seedy motel filled with mystery. 

http://www.parallel-studio.com/

Alien Invasion VR Jet Fighter sim, Final Strike, launches today just in time for the new Independence Day film.

Just in time for the release of the new Independence Day film, the Austin based virtual reality studio, Ghost Machine, has announced the retail launch date for a new VR arcade flight sim game, Final Strike.  http://store.steampowered.com/app/357920/

What if fighter-pilot movies had a love child with alien invasion blockbusters from the ’90s? You’d no doubt get Final Strike, an edge-of-your-seat F-16 jet fighter simulator that puts you against an airborne invasion of alien invaders. Relive your favorite moments from your favorite end-of-the-world style blockbuster film as you pilot your very own military-grade death machine to eradicate the earth of the alien presence. A fully orchestrated custom soundtrack by legendary game composer Sean Beeson brings the cinematic story to life, making you truly feel like your in the scene of your favorite alien invasion movies. 

CEO of Ghost Machine, Neal Nellans, spoke about releasing his studios latest efforts on Steam VR, "Working on virtual flight simulators is really how we got started building VR experiences. Final Strike represents the pinnacle of cinematic action paired with VR gaming". The game, designed to be played as a seated VR simulation experience. "The level of immersion that VR provides with flight simulators is second to none, mixed with an epic alien invasion this is a one-of-a-kind experience.", stated Nellans.

Challenge yourself through massive aerial dogfights with the alien enemy. Fight either by yourself will partner team AI. For those brave enough to join the battle with the HTC Vive or Oculus Rift, a complete VR version of the game will put you directly in the action as you experience firsthand mission control where you receive your mission briefing and train to destroy the enemy. Complete VR immersion can be experienced with in-game VR menus, HUDS, and fully immersive 3D cockpits with working controls and gauges.

GDC spinoff conference VRDC gets standalone event: VRDC 16

The Virtual Reality Developers Conference (VRDC), the premier event for creators of immersive VR (and AR) experiences, today announced dates and location for its second edition – its first standalone event.  Bringing an expanded focus and new Advisory Board, the two-day event will bring together designers, programmers, business professionals, producers, artists, and audio practitioners to share best practices, demo new technology, create new business partnerships, and exchange ideas with innovators shaping the industry.

VRDC will take place November 2-3, 2016 in the Park Central Hotel in San Francisco, CA. To register or submit your speaking abstract by July 8, visit: vrdconf.com.

VRDC's Second Edition: November 2016

To meet the growing demand for high-quality content in the space, VRDC's second edition will expand to cover virtual and augmented reality in games, entertainment, brand experience, and a wide range of innovative use cases. Sessions from NASA and Chernobyl VR Project have been confirmed, reflecting the event's broad scope and top tier content.

"Now that VR platforms have hit the market, virtual experiences that entertain, inform, and provide entirely new ways to engage are increasingly in demand," explained Meggan Scavio, General Manager, VRDC and GDC. "We're thrilled to provide the highest quality content for VR developers, while exploring innovative applications for the technology across entertainment, healthcare, journalism, travel, manufacturing, retail, live events, real estate, training, and so much more."

Call for Submissions Now Open: VRDC is seeking the latest research and innovations in VR for November's lineup. Potential speakers may submit detailed technical and business-centric talks today through July 8, 2016. For more information, visit: www.vrdconf.com/conference/c4p/

New Advisory Board: An unprecedented advisory board of top names in VR will lead content for the show, including representatives from major platform holders such as Google (Noah Falstein), Oculus (Robert Stevenson), and Valve (Chet Faliszek), as well as creators behind experiences like Job Simulator (Alex Schwartz, Owlchemy Labs), Fantastic Contraption (Colin Northway) & VR experience experts like Pete Isensee (HBO Labs), Jazmin Cano (High Fidelity), Timoni West (Unity Labs), Tracey John (Havas Health) & Christina Heller (VR Playhouse).

Show Floor + Exhibitor Opps: VRDC will include a significant vendor area showcasing the latest innovations and advances in Virtual Reality. Those interested in exhibiting at this year's show should visit www.ubmgamenetwork.com/vrdc for more information.

VRDC's first edition was held alongside the Game Developers Conference (GDC) in March 2016 with two sold out tracks covering VR/AR for Games and Entertainment.

As part of the VRDC portfolio, organizers intend to continue running VRDC Game and Entertainment sessions alongside the Game Developers Conference in February 2017. More information on these sessions will be available in the near future.

Cats And VR

Adobe Premiere Pro Update makes working with 360° Video/VR much easier

Adobe Premiere just got a tremendous release that will make editing 360° video easier than ever. Right now the stitching and metadata workflow does not make edited 360° content the easiest thing to do. 

You can now work with different VR Video formats, up to a full sphere of 360 horizontal by 180 degrees vertical of captured view, along with Stereoscopic View - Left, Right and Anaglyph. You can choose a view from the left or right eye in stereoscopic video, or in a red/cyan anaglyph format. Premiere Pro also allows you to work with VR footage that was captured in less than a full 360 degree sphere of view. You can configure the field of view displayed in the monitor, which allows you to emulate different viewing experiences. For example, an Oculus Rift might display a 90 x 60 degree field of view, while YouTube displays a 160 x 90 degree field of view. The Program and Source monitors have their own individual VR Video settings, which are saved with the project.

VR Video Settings

After configuring the settings, choose “Enable” from the settings menu to turn on the VR Video display. When enabled, the Monitor displays an interactive field of view within the spherical projection. Horizontal and vertical sliders along the bottom and right edge of the video frame allow you to pan and tilt the field of view. Numerical values presented next to these sliders display the current degrees of pan and tilt. You can click and drag on these values to pan or tilt the view, or you can click on them to enter a numeric value directly.

360-degree panning

Use the dial at the bottom for 360-degree continuous panning, which indicates the direction of view. Double-clicking within the video frame will re-center the view.  Use either of these methods to change the view interactively during playback and while the video is paused. To return to the normal monitor display, open the monitor settings menu and uncheck the “Enable” option for VR Video. 

You may also toggle between enabling and disabling your VR Video display using a button which can be docked with the monitor’s playback buttons. Click on the “+” icon in the lower right corner of the monitor to open the Button Editor. Drag the “Toggle VR Video Display” button out of the editor and into the monitor panel to its desired location. This button toggles between normal monitor display and VR Video display.

Check Out the Adobe Premiere working with VR video link above. 

Publishing your VR Video

To publish your VR Video on popular websites like YouTube and Facebook, you must use H.264, HEVC or QuickTime formats when encoding the video. In the 'Export Settings' dialog, choose one of these formats, then select the 'Video' settings tab. Scroll down to check the 'Video is VR' check box and choose the layout which matches your media from the popup menu. Metadata added to the encoded video flags it as VR Video content for publishers to play back correctly.

The 'Stretch to Fill' scaling setting in the Export Settings dialog output typically gives the best results for most VR Video exports. Select the “Publish' settings tab in the Export Settings dialog to upload this video directly to websites like YouTube or Facebook.

More information

https://helpx.adobe.com/premiere-pro/using/VRSupport.html#ConfiguringthemonitorstodisplayVRVideo

Samsung announces Samsung Creators program to help VR / 360 content growth.

Today Samsung Electronics America, Inc. launched Samsung Creators, a new initiative that empowers storytellers, partnering with them to generate content across a variety of audiences and channels to show everyday creators what’s possible with Samsung VR technology.

“We want to bring the power of VR technology directly to the people,” said Samsung Electronics America’s Chief Marketing Officer Marc Mathieu. “To help creators learn and perfect the art of VR storytelling, we’ve built an entire VR ecosystem that pushes beyond the frame and empowers them to develop unforgettable, immersive stories, and inspires us all to do the same.”

At VidCon—and, beyond—Samsung Creators will provide seminars and classes, putting VR capabilities in the hands of filmmakers and influencers, further accelerating this new medium. Leading into VidCon, Samsung Creators is working with Casey Neistat to spotlight emerging creators from YouTube and push the creative boundaries of 360 video storytelling. This special curation of content will premiere at VidCon.

In July, Samsung Creators will launch a competition, challenging aspiring, indie filmmakers and creators to develop VR / 360 content, using Samsung’s VR products. Ten winners will be chosen, one from each of the following ten categories: Music, Auto, Science and tech, Gaming, Travel, Fashion, Culinary, Cause-related, 4D and Sports.

For more information about Samsung Creators, please visit www.samsungcreators.com.

In addition, today Samsung launched Samsung VR– formerly known as Samsung Milk VR – which now supports user generated content. Creators can load their own 360-degree videos to the Samsung VR platform for sharing and for the first time view them in Samsung Gear VR. For more information about uploading content to Samsung VR, please visit https://samsungvr.com.

Samsung Gear 360 also launched in the U.S. today, an affordable, high-resolution camera developed for storytellers to create their own 360-degree videos for mobile viewing and VR content for Samsung Gear VR, powered by Oculus. The Gear 360 is priced at $349.99 in the United States and will be available for purchase on a limited basis during VidCon in Anaheim, California. Details about additional availability will follow later in the year. For more information about Gear 360, please visit www.samsung.com/gear360.