VR World Congress returned to Bristol, UK between the 11th and 13th of April – and we were there from start to finish, furiously taking notes to share with you, loyal reader.
We learned many things in our three days on Bristol’s waterside, from the implications of social VR and how Hollywood actors see VR, to profitability strategies for indie devs and one way to minimise motion sickness.
We’ll follow up with longer articles over the next few days, but for now we present the Top 25 things we learned at VRWC...
Cooperative Innovations’ Director, Simon Barratt, revealed that the team worked on 22 different locomotion systems during the development of their forthcoming social VR game, Raiders of Erda.
2
Personal Space Harassment
Personal space harassment will be a concern in social VR, requiring new solutions, according to Simon Barratt. Options could include a ‘personal bubble’, muting options, and different trust settings for friends and strangers.
3
Assassins Creed Experience
In his day one keynote, AMD’s Corporate VP, Roy Taylor, revealed that the Assassins Creed Experience tour of last December gave 20,000 people in six locations a taste of VR.
2,318 of them said they would pay for such an experience.
4
Ghost In The Shell
Solomon Rogers shared the anecdote that when star Scarlett Johansson tried Ghost In The Shell in VR, she said that she felt like she was back on set. REWIND is now creating 'longform' VR content.
5
HoloLens
Mike Taulty and Peter Daukintis of Microsoft described HoloLens as a Universal Windows Platform saying, “it's a Windows 10 PC”.
6
Free Hololens Emulator
The free Hololens emulator means you can develop without the expensive hardware. There are also free video tutorials and Holo toolkit software at the Holographic Academy.
7
Vive Is More Than A Headset
HTC’s product lead for VR in Europe, Graham Breen, said that, “Vive is more than a headset; it's a marketplace, content and accelerator.”
8
Viveport
HTC doesn’t view Viveport as a competitor to Steam. Breen said that it, “Stands for what's outside of gaming... Steam is already the home of the PC gamer.”
9
AAA VR Games
AAA VR games are on the way, according to HTC Vive's Breen.
10
ViveX For Europe
HTC confirms it is 'looking into' extending its ViveX accelerator scheme to Europe, joining established programs in Asia and San Francisco.
11
Narrative In VR
360 video storyteller, Sarah Jones, said of narrative in VR, “We need to be magicians and put our faith in the audience. Allow them to explore the space. Be a spacemaker.”
12
AR and VR Allow Us To Be Gods
Being a magician wasn’t enough for Ed Miller of Scape AR who said, “If technology allows us to be magicians, AR and VR allows us to be gods.”
13
Go Multiplatform
The key to profitability for VR indie devs is to go multi-platform, according to Daniel Kihlgren Kallander of SVRVIVE Studios. Their next project will be available on Vive, Rift and PS VR.
14
Ethics In VR
Michael Madary, co-author of The First Code of Conduct for Research and Consumer Use of Virtual Reality, predicts new ethical quandaries ahead for VR. With research showing that experiences in VR can have a lasting effect on behaviour, what are the psychological effects of body swapping, interacting with avatars of the deceased, virtual sex and violence?
He says, “It is time to focus on ethical innovation.”
15
WebVR
Amir-Esmaeil Bozorgzadeh, co-founder at Virtuleap, said that WebVR could become an extension of the internet. He believes this is where VR will go mainstream saying, “Forget walled gardens. Embrace the forest. Start where there's billions of users.”
16
WebVR On A Flatscreen
The WebVR panel echoed Bozorgzadeh’s predictions for a broader audience, as depending on your definition of VR, WebVR can be accessed on a flatscreen. So your ‘potential audience is anyone with a smartphone’.
17
Fantastic Beasts Before Daydream
Resh Sidhu of Framestore spoke about the development of their movie tie-in, Fantastic Beasts and Where To Find Them. The studio started work on the Daydream exclusive before the hardware was available, so they did prototyping using Google Cardboard and a second handset as a controller.
18
Fantastic Beasts Models
The creatures featured in Fantastic Beasts VR used simplified models from the film, customised for VR as pre-rendered video cards placed in 360 environments.
19
Eddie Redmayne On Fantastic Beasts
When Eddie Redmayne first used Fantastic Beasts in VR he said, "I'll have to get myself one of these!” Filming was done using green screen technology, so Redmayne simply had to imagine the creatures he shared screen time with. After encountering them in VR he said, “This is the first time I've seen them and I feel like I've been with them."
Sidhu added, “We've brought the audience closer to these beasts than the actors have been”.
20
User First
Where should developers start when creating for VR? According to Sidhu, “Put the user first, not your brand message and not what you think would be cool”.
21
Start Again
In the panel on Survival Tips For VR Studios And Devs, James Valls from British veteran game developers, Rebellion, advised games devs getting into VR should, “Take everything away that you think you know about making games and start again.”
22
Working Out Ways Of Engaging
Liz Biggs of filmmakers Alchemy VR picked up on Valls’ comment, saying that holds true for media in VR beyond games. She, “Had to throw away everything I've learned about making films and work out ways of engaging that doesn't feel like a second rate film.”
23
Prioritise Frame Rates
Valls also shared the insight that the development cycle for VR at Rebellion turned their workflow upside-down saying, “We would normally get the game developed, then spend a couple of months optimising frame rates, but it's almost the opposite in VR.”
24
Motion Sickness Solutions
One potential cure for the ever-present spectre of motion sickness in VR is a fixed horizon. Valls revealed that for Battlezone, Rebellion, “Spent a long time struggling with a tilting horizon as you move. It was only when we locked the horizon that it made sense”.
Biggs summed up the enthusiasm shared by many working in VR today when she said, “It's not clear where the industry's going, but it's definitely going somewhere”.
Valls added that, “For creators, it's the most exciting new medium in years.”
Steve is an award-winning editor and copywriter with nearly 25 years’ experience specialising in consumer technology and video games. He was part of a BAFTA nominated developer studio. In addition to editing TheVirtualReport.biz, Steve contributes to BeyondGames.biz, PocketGamer.biz, PCGamesInsider.biz and BlockchainGamer.biz, as well as creating marketing content for a range of SMEs and agencies.