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VR brings better motion capture to your video games
The problem with conventional motion capture is that you can't see the world you're supposed to be acting in. How do you get a feel for that epic fantasy landscape when you're staring at an empty room? Cloudhead Games has an idea. For its upcoming The Gallery: Call of the Starseed, it's using HTC's Vive virtual reality headset for motion capture, not just gameplay. The headset immerses actors in a scene while giving them more helpful teleprompting and visual cues. And when it's combined with a camera-free motion system like the Perception Neuron, you don't need a big, dedicated room -- performers can wander around a quiet corner of the office.
One of the first Valve VR games is inspired by '80s fantasy films
The Gallery: Six Elements is a magical fantasy exploration game created by Vancouver Island studio Cloudhead Games for Valve and HTC's new virtual reality headset, the Vive. It includes motion controls and a soundtrack by Elder Scrolls composer Jeremy Soule, and at first glance it's a truly gorgeous 3D, puzzle-solving experience -- the game's first trailer, released today, shows that much. The Gallery was successfully Kickstarted back in April 2013, where it was pitched as an Oculus Rift game. Perhaps sensing a hit, Valve jumped on Cloudhead early on in Vive's development, Creative Director Denny Unger says. "Valve has been stellar," Unger says. "They brought us into the process very early and genuinely listened to what we had learned about the VR space since its 2013 rebirth. Valve shared a common goal with Cloudhead Games in that they saw a vision for VR that was tantamount to the holodeck. This is the closest we've ever been to breaking down the boundaries and letting users physically step into virtual worlds. It is the fracture point all sci-fi geeks have been waiting for. It's here and its incredible."
