EEVR Meetup #35 was held on June 6 at Tallin Creative. The event featured presentations, demo(s), and plenty of opportunities for networking with fellow gaming enthusiasts and industry experts.
The Agenda:
In late March, we hosted an EEVR Meetup at the rooms of Tartu Kunstikool within Aparaaditehas. Attendees got hands-on experience with Apple Vision Pro and enjoyed three insightful presentations:
It was wonderful to once again gather with the coolest XR enthusiasts under one roof!
We wrapped up this year with a meetup at TalTech IVAR Lab. This time the focus was set on using extended reality in business, R&D and public sector. In addition to hearing about Lab’s own projects and plans we also got an insight of how XR is used in teaching engineering students (TalTech, Centre For Intelligent systems) and creating an opportunity for citizens to take part in urban planning (Tallinna Linn, Avalinn Project).
On June 8th 2023 we met at Tartu University Computer Graphics and Virtual Reality Lab. The aim of this event was pretty straightforward – try out as much new tech and new Estonian XR projects as possible. Very practical. Very fun.
Around 50 XR and AI enthusiasts visited the Ready Player Me office on April 13th to explore the role of generative AI in creative industries. The highly enjoyable event was characterized by a startup ambiance, wide-ranging conversations, and many fascinating people.
The global XR scene in 2022 is often described as “recovering from the hype/boom” of 2021. A lot of resources were invested in the almighty Metaverse but when the novelty faded, so did the enthusiasm. This of course does not mean doom to the XR technology but rather the emergence of a new mindset – quality over quantity. “The noise around the Metaverse may have calmed since its peak in ’21, but this means more serious founders with better validated ideas (FOV Ventures: Annual Review).”
For the Estonian Virtual and Augmented Reality Association (EEVR), 2022 was a year of new starts and community building. In addition to welcoming 4 new members, our team also grew by a Community manager. EEVR organized 4 Meetups throughout the year (read more about the Meetups). Meetups enable members to network and discuss common and uncommon topics in an informal environment. It can’t be stressed enough how important collaboration and knowledge sharing is in a small community like Estonia. That is also the main reason why EEVR as an organization strives every year to participate in relevant partner events. In 2022, we took part in 4 of them: University of Tartu Computer Graphics Projects EXPO 2022, Delta Career Day, AWE Nite: Eyes on Estonia and Latitude 59. And although it is really nice to meet someone physically these days, one can’t underestimate the role of digital channels for effective community building. For smoother communication, we launched the Estonian XR Discord channel and EEVR Monthly Newsletter in 2022. The EEVR website was updated with a brand new Jobs page which enables job seekers to browse all Estonian XR vacancies on one page. Another informative and interesting addition to the EEVR’s website was the annual Estonian XR sector report.
But what is EEVR without its members? Here is a small list of the impressive highlights some of our members managed to pull off in 2022:
As can be seen from this list, fundraising and new product launches stood out the most. Both Alpha AR and Ready Player Me (Wolf 3D) raised money for further developments in building the Metaverse. By now Ready Player Me has partnered with over 5000 companies to integrate with its avatar platform, and we are hoping for the same kind of success for the newly rebranded Alpha 3D, a 2D to 3D product generator tool directed at e-commerce sites.
Avar ONE launched their ultra realistic 3D virtual showroom experience and Mobi Lab revealed Reality Maker to enable anyone to create new Augmented Reality experiences code-free. Besides Ready Player Me, the biggest winner in 2022 was definitely CM Games with their hit survival game “Into the Radius” which after some significant optimizations was launched on Quest 2 in September. With the resulting 2.5X increase in sales compared to the previous year,”Into the Radius“ exceeded all expectations and has certainly inspired CM and hopefully others to pursue more VR titles in the future.
In conclusion, we hope that all these new beginnings of 2022, including the ones not mentioned here, will keep evolving into prosperous XR products and services in 2023. EEVR will continue to support the Estonian XR ecosystem by strengthening ties within the community, driving awareness of XR technologies in Estonian society, and inspiring a new generation of XR professionals.
Eva Roosaar, EEVR Community Manager
EEVR Meetup #30 took place in Baltic Film, Media and Art School on November 2nd. This time we had two presentations. First of them was made by Külliki Tafel-Viia and Ermo Säks and covered research related initiatives and projects concerning Metaverse made in BFM. Secondly, Märt Lume talked about his impressions from AWE EU 2022. In addition to presentations, quest were able to try out brand new Quest Pro and Tilt Five Holographic Game System.
On a warm August evening a bunch of XR enthusiast gathered in a unique cinema setting at Tartu Elektriteater to catch up and enjoy the Estonian premiere of Joe Hunting’s movie “We Met in Virtual Reality”. During the movie the audience had a chance to ask questions via menti.com and these questions and other related topics were discussed after the movie by Andra Siibak (University of Tartu, Professor of Media Studies), Ermo Säks (Tallinn University BFM, Junior Research Fellow) and Märt Lume (Chairman of EEVR). Watch the recording of the panel discussion below.
This event was a a part of a sTARTUp Day 2022 side events program to boost Estonian XR Community and build general awareness of XR field.
EEVR Meetup #28 took place in Tartu and was hosted by awesome Mobi Lab team. This time the focus was set on Augmented Reality and the topics varied from our own Estonian AR projects to somewhat new phenomena that is Passthrough and its implementations.
Three very interesting talks were held. The link to each can be found below as well as in EEVR Youtube channel.
Allan Valm- How to add value to physical locations?
Ott Saar- Augmented Reality Enhancements for Remato
Märt Lume- AR Experiences with Passthrough VR: Short Study of What’s Out There Now
EEVR Meetup #27 was held on 30th of april 2022 at CM Games office in Tallinn. Despite a long break between Meetups it was nice to see many kind faces and fellow enthusiasts. The agenda consisted of 3 very interesting talks and speakers from Estonian top XR companies. Topics varied from companies’ insights to global events and business. Each talk can be watched from below.
Rein Zobel from MaruVR Productions “Impressions of GDC 2022. What stood out?”
Marko Post from FrostFX “Executing Production Globally”
Bohdan Sereda from CM Games “CMVR: What’s under the hood?”
