Virtual Reality

VRC Volleyball (website listing here) is the latest attempt in a decades-long quest to create a seemingly simple thing: A physics-enabled game involving a ball that people can play together from around the world in a 3D virtual world in real time. Most attempts end up being comically, unplayably laggy. This new version in VRChat, however, has been playable enough to generate not only a large returning audience -- over 300,000 visits since launching last November -- but also player leagues... and even live sport casters on YouTube. (Watch above.) The world's creator, mamemoyasys (on Twitter/X here), had never actually played volleyball in real life when they started building it, but was inspired after reading the volleyball-themed manga Haikyuu!! They also saw a need for such games on the platform: "Many game worlds in VRChat are similar to FPS games," they explain, "where even if people are playing together, they often feel like they are acting separately. I wanted to create a game world where everyone interacts with a single target, leading to natural communication."

Made this looping video on a whim this morning because you'd think they would've fixed this problem by now (after ~5 years and multiple headsets).

Wasn't sure where to share it so here you go, lemmy.world/Virtual Reality 😁

Orion Drift will open early access next Tuesday, February 25.

Orion Drift is the next game from Another Axiom, the studio behind Gorilla Tag, one of VR gaming's biggest hits of all time. It's a zero-gravity sci-fi sports game reminiscent of Echo VR, which Meta shut down last year.

Embracer Group, the media conglomerate behind a host of game studios, announced in a recent financial report that Metro Awakening (2024) “underperformed” financial expectations.

Developed by Embracer Group’s Vertigo Games, Metro Awakening brought the storied post-apocalyptic shooter franchise to VR for the first time, serving as the latest ‘AAA’ quality VR game to target all major headsets, including Quest 2 and above, SteamVR headsets, and PSVR 2.

Now, in an October – December 2024 financial report, the company detailed revenue generated by its various properties, which included Let’s Sing 2025, Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver 1-2 Remastered, Goat Simulator Remastered, and Metro Awakening.

“Metro Awakening had a positive reception from critics, winning the Steam VR Game of the Year award, but underperformed management financial expectations,” the Embracer Group report states.

The company says revenue for Q3 2024 was led by those releases mentioned above, amounting to SEK 235 million (~$22 million USD), marking a decrease of -50% year-over-year for the same period in the year prior.

Following its debut last year, the VR Games Showcase is back with “major reveals and updates on anticipated games.” Initially announced last month, it's now been confirmed that the upcoming spring 2025 edition will be headlined by Hitman: World of Assassination on PlayStation VR2, while Flat2VR Studios will provide updates on Roboquest VR, Wrath: Aeon of Ruin, and more.

"I think were going to get to a point where things like TV you’ll no longer need a physical TV, you'll get $1 app that you can watch a screen on and it will just interesting exercise to see how many of the things that we have that are physical things don't actually need to be physical in that world."

This quote is from Mark Zuckerberg. He said it on an earnings call with shareholders on May 3, 2017.

As you can see, the vision that VR headsets and AR glasses will make physical screens obsolete is anything but new. Almost eight years have passed since that pitch was made to shareholders, and such devices are still a niche market, even though the technology has come a long way since then. The best example of this is the Apple Vision Pro, which is already being used as a viable monitor replacement by a small group of early adopters thanks to its high-resolution displays.

For virtual screens to become more widely accepted, the technology will have to overcome many more technical hurdles than just the display resolution. VR headsets and AR glasses need to be able to communicate with each other, regardless of manufacturer, so that we can see the same virtual screens in the same place in the room. And the technology itself needs to be miniaturized to the point where it fades into the background and looks good when worn. The biggest problem with VR headsets and AR glasses will always be that they are headsets and glasses. You have to wear them on your face. This sounds obvious, but it is something that the enthusiasts tend to ignore.

MIXED founder Matthias Bastian posed an interesting thought experiment in this context: What if VR headsets and AR glasses had been invented first and had been around for decades, and we were currently experiencing the advent of physical screens? We would probably celebrate it as a technological revolution. After all, you don't have to wear anything on your face, and you can share the same content without any fuss.

Physical screens have their purpose and use cases, as do VR headsets and AR glasses, and I don't think one category will completely replace the other anytime soon. The latter class of devices has the advantage that you can carry one or more large screens in your pocket and place them anywhere in the room, and that the content is private, which can be very useful. Whether these advantages can outweigh wearing a heavy headset or ugly glasses in public is another question.

I expect that as technology advances, we will increasingly look at virtual screens rather than physical ones. But I think this evolution will take a long time, as Zuckerberg's 2017 quote shows.

Seven months after the shutdown, Ready At Dawn co-founder Andrea Pessino gave a two hour interview with MinnMax about the studio's history, including its time under Meta.

Over eight years since its initial launch, multiplayer shooter Onward will now receive “its biggest update ever” this year. Meta confirmed this will introduce a “massive” graphical overhaul across weapons and utilities, new map content, and a new Operator system with over 20 new characters being introduced. Further details will be shared on this “very soon.”

MoonHood’s upcoming adventure game The Midnight Walk is officially headed to PSVR 2 and PC VR headsets on May 8th, 2025.

The new release date trailer shows off some of the first extended gameplay we’ve seen of The Midnight Walk, including some interesting-looking object interactions and shooter mechanics.

In The Midnight Walk, you become ‘The Burnt One’, who befriends a lost lantern creature named Potboy, using his flame to light your way.

The following games added:

Civilization VII - VR
Dreams of Another
Elsewhere Electric
Farming Simulator VR
The Smurfs - Flower Defense

Trailer updated:

Aces of Thunder
Five Nights at Freddy's: Secret of the Mimic
The Midnight Walk

Release dates added:

Five Nights at Freddy's: Secret of the Mimic
The Midnight Walk

While Survios aims to bring the tension and atmosphere familiar to fans of the beloved franchise, the mobile release features several disappointments. After playing the game to completion on both PC and PlayStation VR2 for our full review last year, being back in this world again on Quest points to the numerous compromises made to get it onto the hardware.

Sony first demonstrated hand tracking on Playstation VR 2 two months ago. Waltz of the Wizard is the first VR game to be updated with the technology, so you can try it out for yourself.

I should have posted this yesterday but Godot XR jam is happening now. It's hosted by Godot Devs

Originally launched in 2022, Shores of Loci developer MikeTeevee confirmed the next chapter offers a “brand-new horizon to explore” across other dimensions with new challenges and worlds. Though it's initially launching on Quest on February 12, the studio confirmed that the Steam edition will also receive this update “shortly after.”

“SkyHaven ushers players into a harmonious future filled with your favorite familiar little characters and their now evolving civilizations. In harmony with nature, their castle in the sky harnesses the sun and wind to foster sustainability, leaving space for permaculture farmland and cinematic horizons,” described the studio in a press release.

Pricing for the upcoming chapter is currently unconfirmed. However, touching upon the recent Southern California wildfires, Executive Producer Ellen Utrecht confirmed that the Los Angeles-based studio will donate 1% of proceedings to support recovery efforts. “As our studio’s roots in Los Angeles make the city’s recovery personal for us, we never imagined how timely SkyHaven’s themes of rebuilding and community would become. We hope this new chapter can offer both a momentary escape and inspiration for reimagining our communities,” said Utrecht in a prepared statement.

It begins by acknowledging the problem. Head-mountable displays (HMDs) are developed to be comfortably worn for extended periods of time. The ever increasing desire to improve performance, functionality, and battery life of HMDs results in a device that includes several electrical components, each of which add weight to the system. There is a constant balance between maximizing user comfort while maintaining or excelling the performance and functionality of the device. Unbalanced weight distribution experienced by a user while wearing the headmountable display, particularly weight distributed in front of the user’s face, can negatively impact the user’s experience. Thus, there is a need for a light-weight HMD assembly that does not sacrifice performance or functionality. Apple also admits the heat issue, stating that there needs to be a way to more efficiently dissipate heat. The company already keeps the weight down somewhat by using a tethered battery, and the patent document says it could also incorporate the processing power into this puck, which Apple refers to as a cartridge. A cartridge can include a housing, a processor positioned within the housing to provide video output to a display unit of a head-mounted display (HMD), and an attachment interface to removably attach the cartridge to the display unit. One option Apple describes is to have the processing unit in a removable unit that could be inserted into the headset or into the tethered casing. A head-mountable assembly can include a processor and a display unit defining a slot to receive the processor. In a first mode, the processor can be positioned within the slot to provide image data to the display unit. In a second mode, the processor can be removed from the slot and provide image data to the display unit.

I'm using a PSVR headset with iVRy but I haven't gotten controller tracking working. I'm wondering what games or applications I can use in the meantime while I work on this.

If I recall Trover Saves the Universe has what I'm looking for where you can use the headset and a typical game controller.

EmuVR has controller support. So does VorpX but I don't know if motion controls are needed for accessing menus and what not. I imagine Skybox would be fine.

I've tried searching Steam for controller friendly + VR but I am not sure how many games are coming up because they have a full VR mode that would require motion controllers. It seems like several driving and flight simulator games would work just fine in this configuration.

There is a problem in gamedev where you have to make unique locations even though the underlying assets are the same.

I think it would be cool to solve it not by randomisation but by embodying first person perspective and throwing trash around using physics, spray walls with grafitti, use liquids, brushes and then bake it and save as complete level. Sort of 3d painting but on surfaces and uses physics so it is natural.

it would be much better than painfully placing stuff by hand and making grafitti, oil spill, dirt textures manually in photoshop with pain and torture for each corridor. You would just hop in instead and do a bit of a mess, kick some props with a baseball bat. Piss blood on the walls

The history of virtual reality goes back a long way, and I wouldn't be writing this today if there hadn't been a technological revolution in VR about 15 years ago that made headsets compelling and affordable for a much larger number of people than in the decades before.

At the time, Palmer Luckey was working on his first VR headset prototypes, which offered an exceptionally wide field of view and high image quality at a relatively low price. This has been made possible by the widespread availability of low-cost smartphone displays that combine small size with high pixel density.

There were many other factors and inventions that helped virtual reality become a consumer product, but it was this technological revolution that got the ball rolling. A second major step was arguably standalone virtual reality, which was also made possible by existing smartphone technology. Without efficient mobile chipsets, devices like Meta Quest and the millions of VR headsets in use would be unthinkable.

Reflecting on these past leaps raises an interesting question about the future: Is virtual reality on the verge of another technological revolution of this magnitude, and what might it look like?

Will it be standard eye tracking and OLED microdisplays, integrated body tracking, or virtual reality streamed from the cloud? Meta CTO Andrew Bosworth pondered last year what a Meta Quest might look like in 2031. It could have near retinal resolution and be much lighter. Mirror Lake, Meta's futuristic research concept that combines a holographic and varifocal display in a compact, lightweight, and energy-efficient headset, also offers intriguing hints at possible future VR developments (the article image shows a rendering of what Mirror Lake might look like).

VR technology has so much room for improvement in terms of features and quality that it is fair to say that we are still witnessing its early days.

But back to your question: I think the third major revolution will be another display revolution, just like the first. Not because it will significantly improve image quality, but because it will allow headsets to be much thinner and lighter. The third revolution will be a form factor revolution and potentially the next big leap in the adoption of VR by the masses.

With the Holocake 2 prototype, Meta has shown where the journey could go, but it is unclear when this technology could find its way into products. My guess is that it will not happen in the next five years. Therefore, I don't see an immediate technological revolution coming, but rather evolutionary steps.

The latest version of Nvidia's DLSS technology, DLSS 4, brings massive improvements for VR gaming, according to numerous user reports. "It's a real game changer. About 95% of all artifacts are gone, you can see sponsor logos and lettering clearly and see the road very far," reports a user named VicMan73 on Reddit about the game EA Sports WRC.

In older versions, he has not been able to use DLSS4 at all. Big leap "I was able to switch from ASW without DLSS at 40 fps to a full 80 fps at the same resolution — and with DLSS in quality mode. While DLSS was previously practically unplayable in VR, version 4 now delivers razor-sharp and clear images."

So far I have my original PSVR headset connected to my PC and I'm using the premium version of iVRy. This allows me to use the actual headset but I don't have any body/control.

I believe the PS Move controllers can be used if I pair them with Bluetooth and using "iVRy PSMoveServiceEx for SteamVR on Steam" but I think this gives me button input, momentum, and rotational support. No tracking.

I own both Xbox 360 Kinect and PS4 camera to USB adapters. It seems like both work with Driver4VR but a lot of the setup videos are dated. Using the PS4 camera configuration option causes the application to crash and the UI has changed for example.

K2VR, now known as Amethyst, says it can do lower body tracking but people seem to recommend it for overall tracking.

iVRy seems to recommend dual PlayStation Eye cameras which I do not have.

Right now I have everything setup through iVRy and I believe I have Amethyst setup correctly. My test game was Arizona Sunshine and my hands are appearing as in my head and not moving. The game says to stretch out your arms and press both triggers but this doesn't seem to work. I don't know if it is a button input thing or the fact that the game detects my hands as not moving.

I'll probably find another game to narrow this down.

Does anyone have any suggestions? I've been reading a lot guides but they're mostly from 5 or 6 years ago. Many projects have ceased development or rebranded. Most posts now are about the PSVR2.

I'd be happy to try and answer any questions from people who want to try this out themselves.

The groundbreaking 2007 release of Crysis has long held its legendary status in the gaming world. "But can it run Crysis?" became a serious and unserious question across multiple generations of PC hardware, but for some it truly was the benchmark for the hardware of its day. Now, it runs in VR.

cross-posted from: https://discuss.tchncs.de/post/29574981

Until now I used OpenTrack with my DIY IR tracker or the Neuralnet tracker. I knew that my XR glasses feature IMU data though and the xr_driver of the Breezy Desktop project allows to access the data via IPC on Linux PC. So I did what Linux user do: I wrote a script to access the IMU data and forwarded it via UDP to OpenTrack:

Pick your poison to watch the video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=njuumLUvqrM / https://makertube.net/w/2bNyxJhdyydTeFq17onikv

This reminded me that I also wrote a proof of concept to implement the FaceTrackNoIR (or OpenTrack) protocol into FreeSpace 2 Open on Linux PC ( https://makertube.net/w/7VtfAjW7EiAUS5aiPwG7if ) so I gave it a spin to test the data bridge. That was smooth sailing!

The mod is Diaspora: Shattered Armistice, still awesome today: http://diaspora.hard-light.net/ (Warning: This may fuel a desire to re-watch the BSG series again 😀).

The bridge code can be found at https://github.com/bekopharm/xr_to_opentrack (pending changes).

It works with the Breezy GNOME xr_driver: https://github.com/wheaney/breezy-desktop (but the Vulkan one works probably too but that’s untested). It should also be compatible with other glasses that have IMU for Breezy available.

Following its work on hit co-op RPG Demeo and its more recent PvP focused spinoff, Demeo Battles, Resolution has officially unveiled its upcoming Dungeons & Dragons crossover with Wizards of the Coast.

Detailed in a press release, this collaboration promises to “summon both battle-hardened veterans and eager newcomers to embark on adventures steeped in the world and lore of D&D.” It uses Demeo's gameplay systems as the base and you can play with friends via cross-platform co-op multiplayer. However, Battlemarked doesn't use a Dungeon Master (DM) to run campaigns like D&D requires. In a prepared statement, Tommy Palm, founder and CEO of Resolution Games, elaborated further. He advised that Battlemarked is “adapting the classes, actions, and lore of Dungeons & Dragons to this system for all new adventures and a whole new experience built from the ground up with D&D in mind.” At launch, Demeo X Dungeons & Dragons: Battlemarked will include two narrative-driven campaigns and further DLC campaigns are planned with different D&D settings. It's currently unknown if these additional campaigns will be paid DLC additions or free updates, and we previously saw the latter with Demeo post-launch.

Demeo X Dungeons & Dragons: Battlemarked is coming to “to multiple platforms” across “PC, console and XR devices.” Specific headsets and a release window remain unconfirmed, and the official website is now live.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/24863721

Gaijin Entertainment, the studio behind War Thunder (2013), announced that its upcoming aerial VR combat game Aces of Thunder is headed to PSVR 2 and PC VR headsets sometime this year.

Announced in 2023, Aces of Thunder was originally supposed to launch in Q4 2024, tapped to bring a host of the world’s most recognizable World War planes to SteamVR and PSVR 2.

So far, Gaijin has shown off not only a wide range of WWII-era planes, but now also a slate of WWI-era planes too.