Activision showed off the state of the art of real-time graphics on Wednesday, releasing this mind-boggling character demo. The character’s skin, facial expressions and eyes look so real, it’s uncanny.
Cliff Bleszinski, Chris Roberts, Paul Bettner, and Palmer Luckey share their vision for the future of gaming
The SXSW Gaming Expo is preposterously loud. At one side of the room, aStarcraft tournament is reaching its climax, but on the other side, one group of guys is yelling louder. They sound like a basement full of adolescents discussing the newest Electronic Gaming Monthly cover story, or like the NINTENDO SIXTY-FOUR kid unwrapping his Christmas present.
“Is the Oculus Rift, a virtual reality 3D headset, the future of gaming?” they ask. “Or, is it something bigger — the future of life on planet Earth?”
The Oculus Rift VR system has been steadily gaining more attention in the past several months, thanks to glowing endorsements from some major figures in the the video game industry and a wildly successful Kickstarter campaign that brought in almost US$2.5 million. We’ve been following the development of the Oculus Rift for some time now, so finding out the company had its virtual reality goggles available to try on at CES was an especially pleasant surprise. Naturally, we simply couldn’t resist giving the Rift a test drive to see if it lived up to all the hype.
Some day not all that far in the future, a new kind of entertainment is going to be perfected that will either be the coolest video game ever, or the media equivalent of a lethal man-made super-virus.
You can predict what that entertainment might be like just by extrapolating from technology that already exists.
Detroit— The North American International Auto Show is letting consumers get a taste of what it’ll be like to be behind the wheel of many new models.
In the middle of the Ford Motor Co. show floor, people can test their racing skills in the virtual simulation of the brand’s sports technology of the Focus. Technicians strap volunteers into an elevated two-seat cockpit controlled by four mechanical legs that allow the drivers to feel every twist and turn as they compete for the best lap time.
You might think augmented reality is the way of the future, but really, it has its roots in the 20th century. Morton Heilig, the “Father of Virtual Reality,” patented the Sensorama Stimulator, which he called an “experience theater,” on Aug. 28, 1962. Over time, the idea of using technology to create a layer over the real world has been honed and refined and put in our palms, thanks to the proliferation of smartphones.
Most games are designed with a computer screen or television in mind – but what happens when the screen is attached to your face? What happens when your body is being tracked? There’s a lot of things that go into making virtual reality systems work, and they all fundamentally change how games are experienced and designed.
The ultimate goal of virtual reality gaming is to convince players that they are actually the inhabitants of another world. A number of components are needed to make this a reality. While head mounted displays like the Oculus Rift bring us one step closer to feeling like we’re inside another world, there are yet more pieces to the puzzle; being able to naturally control the player-character — also referred to as body tracking or full avatar embodiment – within the game will be a massive jump in immersion compared to using the controllers of today’s video game consoles.
CEDAR FALLS — The teeth of a John Deere combine poke out into a dark theater.
Students raise their arms and try to touch the behemoth as it floats what seems like inches from their faces. But their efforts are futile. Their hands can’t grasp the 3-D image on the screen in front of them. But their imaginations can.
Image: Rendering of physical environment represented in the AbES software; in gamer mode, the player (yellow icon) navigates through the virtual environment using auditory cues to locate hidden jewels (blue squares) and avoid being caught by chasing monsters (red icons).
Blind people can learn the spatial layout of an unfamiliar building using a novel “video game” virtual reality environment that employs only audio-based cues, thus enabling them to learn skills that may improve functional independence, say US and Chilean scientists.