Event Recap

Next up was Criffin‘s Peeter Nieler, sharing some insights from a recent trip to Unite 2015 in China. The conference had a dedicated VR day, where Peeter also took the stage. After trying many different tech demos, the general conclusions were as follows: China is flooded with Oculus knock-offs and haptic chairs. On the one hand there is no real innovation, but on the other hand everyone is doing their own thing, so it definitely an interesting scene up there. And the ergonomics of chinese headsets is terrible for westerners (-: (emphasis on the nose).

After Peeter we heard a talk from Siim Raidma on VR game design and porting. He has been hard at work developing his still unnamed “hamsterball-death-ray-battle” game and porting some other beautiful (and terribly un-optimized) experiences to VR. He shared some key point for avoiding cyber sickness – avoid any g forces! His own project is a perfect example how this can be achieved with smooth floors, no walls and gentle turns. Yet the gameplay stay engaging. The bigger idea behind the battle game is of a VR e-turnament. Stay tuned!

During all the talks it seemed that the VR lingo is expanding at a mind-boggling pace. Here’s a quick test to see how hard-core VR enthusiast you are. Try to find the hidden meaning in the following sentences: “I think this lighthouse thing is awesome. Have you seen the magic leap motion slam? I don’t believe in tango.” Check your answers from our dictionary 🙂

The demo sessions featured some local software (curtesy of Psychobus), triple-A titles (on behalf of Mario) and also interesting mobile headsets straigh from China (thanks to Criffin).

Next we had a spontaneous speaker Filipp Keks, who shared his thought about game design, programming and life in general. Can thinking like a painter benefit us all? Yes, yes it can:

Next things got really nostalgic and futuristic at the same time with tech entrepreneur Peeter Nieler on stage. He drew a clear distinction between virtual reality environments and the means by which to experience them. With a short history lesson the audience got to see the parallel progress in both fields that now have begun to finally merge properly. Peeter also pointed out some reacurring names in the process, like Ivan Sutherland and John Carmack. Then the time was right to reveal his own plans for the future – making man run in virtual reality. More precisely, the Criffin RunPad. He went over the many concepts and prototypes that were tried before settling on a simple and effective solution (not shown here until the proper time). A fortcoming full-body tacking system was also briefly discussed. Those interested in more detaild information can get in touch: Peeter.Nieler@criffin.com

The final talk was from a full-time game dev Filipp Keks, who is well known in VR circles for his EvilMech Runner. The problems and lessons learned from that demo was also the main topic of Filipp’s presentation, most of it happening inside Unity game engine. We discussed the different solutions to issues like walking through virtual walls, cheating the step detection algorithm and staying in camera range while in VR. Filipp pulled together different clues to suggest that Oculus is heading in the direction of a standing experience with the consumer version of the Rift. He finished with a call for action to all the developers to help make his freely available code better. Follow the link: https://github.com/taphos/oculus-natural-movement.

Mario “Zuurik” Saarik took the audience down the memory line with a quick review of VR history, starting from the 1930s! The slideshow had something new for everybody, as the VR scene was much more diverse than anyone had expected. Some headsets were super cool, slightly funny or epic failures, others never even saw a proper release. The talk
smoothly transitioned to todays technological advances. People discussed different input devices and their limitations, the possibilities of waking in VR and also the elusive soon-to-be-seen Magic Leap technology. All in all, a solid two hours of discussions. Next were the demo sessions.

Madis Vasser demonstrated the uncanny valley effect with a all-too-real looking 3D scanned self-portrait demo, done with the help of DollyMe3D. The players could see him run around, creep uncomfortably close or just mirror the headmovements of the rift to really mess with the senses. Madis also let people experience the presence of hands in VR through a rift-mounted Leap Motion and different demos found from the web.

Zuurik brought out his War Thunder cockpit –
complete with a joystick, steering pedals and throttle lever. Those who tried it were impressed – despite the crazy in-game dogfight and upside down manouvers the whole experience felt comfortable and quite immersive.

Siim Raidma premiered his special build for EEVR I called Ball Turret. In the game you are a Turret pilot that sits, well, inside a ball. The virtual world is TRON-ish, with a seemingly endless flat surface beneath and a city of blocks above. Your job is to roll about and shoot different targets high in the sky. The game relies on a joystick for movement and fire commands, the aming is done with head movements. Although rolling around in a giant ball might sound nauseating, the actual experience was super-comfortable. Drifting sideways was the most fun I’ve had in VR since the barrelrolls in Great Power demo.