FREE VR GOGGLES!

Coming to England any time soon?

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http://www.freevrgoggles.com

Samsung S5 and progress:

A progress report:

I got fed up waiting for a cheap handset to arrive from China, so bought an S5, which is perfectly adequate for testing etc.

I've since compiled a scene using two of Gokcen's models (a friend of mine who's a super-fast games modeller) and some sound based on a demo cardboard scene from google.

I know how to bake indirect lighting effects to lightmaps (which helps enormously) and am looking into how to get pre-rendered lit textures etc onto geometry.

Everything seems to be working fine, today I'm looking into:

How to create teleports and to create alternates to the single-click magnet/switch trigger input, including incorporating code to:

• Trigger down
• Trigger up
• Trigger click
• Boolean if the trigger is held
• Seconds trigger held for

I'd like to make a cube-room, with a couple of doors and teleport options to move between them, with something that demos some of those 'hooks' (?) I've bulleted.
Things I've learned:
Most VR content, especially videos are generally well filmed (ie from a company called Jaunt) but GOD their stories are crap and uninspired, and so far, for filmed work the sound has been mono.
Which is insane: There are no cues to turn to where I hear a door open or footsteps etc. In Unity it's super easy to create world-space sound (that sticks to things in the scene) so I don't know why they failed so badly in the films I've seen. ADR and Foley artists required?
I think my friend Jason would really enjoy creating 3D soundscapes and atmospheric effects.
I've not seen any cardboard that uses much more than 'sit and wait for things to happen to you' or a point-click or constantly-moving mode, so maybe other types of click don't work well - but I think they could.

Ozo: A 'Pro' VR camera rig from Nokia

Interesting thing here from Nokia.

The review was viewing unstitched video.
It seems odd that they'd give demos on Oculus and Vive without spending the money to get their footage looking absolutely awesome...

http://www.theverge.com/2015/7/28/9064499/nokia-vr-camera-ozo

Unity, Android, Windows and Erks*

Firstly: I'm not a developer.

Secondly: I've never used an Android

Thirdly: When I used Unity at work for some augmented reality iPad app for Land Rover, I had my hand-held by the in-house developer.

Fourthly: I'm now learning words like SDK. That Android devices are often different, and that the app needs to accommodate to lots of variants of things.

Phones need USB drivers and to be set into 'Dev mode' via a fun coundown that starts 'You're only 3 taps away from being a developer!' ...

I've got hold of a Galaxy S5, which is perfectly fine for what I want to do: Currently it's 'Load anything I've compiled in Unity'

.... I'm waiting for the Android SDK to load.

*Erks are the noises I'm making.

On the plus-side, I've got a keg of Purity Ubu under my desk.

Light Field cameras for VR

http://www.engadget.com/2015/03/02/nextvr-light-field/

Light-field cameras for VR will become a thing soon. This will be yet another game-changer.

I wish I had more money to spend on kit....

Oh Hai there >>>

http://stargatemedia.no/

Yes. I will get in touch with you soon ...

Polariod cube: Tiny 124' wide angle sports cam

Here's an interesting thing:

http://www.polaroid.com/cube