Make Every VR Game a Shared Experience With ViewR
When it comes to local virtual reality (VR) gameplay it doesn’t necessarily need to be isolating for the VR player, with PC monitors able to show friends what you’re playing, much in the same way as PlayStation VR’s social screen function. But what about when you want more control over what you’re watching them play, enter ViewR, a new solution for mobile devices.
Developed by Australian company #include, ViewR enables you to see into a VR world from a spectators view – rather than the VR player view – helping to get a sense of size, scale, and position of things in the virtual world.
ViewR works in two parts, a PC host which stream the VR content to a mobile device and the mobile app which displays the content. On higher-end devices, the software can track the position enabling you to walk around freely. Whereas lower-end devices will need a tracker to provide the same functionality.
“Virtual reality is a really exciting and fun experience, but it is extremely difficult to share what is happening inside the VR headset in a meaningful way. Seeing what the player is seeing through a computer screen or TV does not give you the spatial information required for the full picture that an observer needs to fully appreciate VR,” explained Chang-Yi Yao, founder and CEO, #include in a statement. “With ViewR, VR games can now be something that more than what one person can experience easily — all without the additional expensive, complicated set-up. You just connect to your computer through the app and use your phone as a camera to see what your friend is doing in VR.”
“We want ViewR to be everyone’s pocket portal into virtual reality; the instant interface between you and the virtual world,” said Yao. “As we grow, we see ViewR being an excellent way to incorporate VR into business use cases since your phone does not host the virtual world, the computer does, and it works beautifully even if the device is fairly limited. The potential for this new technology is incredibly exciting.”
ViewR is available today for everyone as a mod for games written in Unity, download it from here. Developers can add the API into their videogames for free, while gamers can run an installer to add ViewR to an existing title. So far #include has modded ViewR into Superhot VR, Beat Saber and Budget Cuts. For further updates on ViewR, keep reading VRFocus.
https://www.vrfocus.com/2018/12/make-every-vr-game-a-shared-experience-with-viewr/
