Week 8 : Oculus Launch Pad 2018 - Due Aug 27 @ 11am PST

[Anonymous]

Things have been going incredible, some folks are feeling like they are excelling and some are not feeling too great, stay in there. We want to hear how this week has gone being the 8thweek! Keep going 

[aa_lique]

Although I am having difficulty with the mechanics,I am happy and excited about how my concept which continues to expand with more. I am learning so much about the subject matter: Climate Change with more research. And as usual what usually happens when you focus on something, more comes your way.

I am posting early because I am facing an extreme family crisis which is taking me away from my beloved project. I can not even focus or concentrate and don't know how long I will be away which is devastating.

[shashkes]

The highlight of this week was helping out with an after party of UX week in SF and demoing Emovji to UX designers. Some of them even agreed to go on camera, here is some of what they said. 
Its been really amazing seeing how much people enjoy the prototype and when we hear people say they would like to give this to their grandparents and teach them how to use VR we know we are on the right track!

[Anonymous]

I just completed providing another round of VR tech training & consulting I was hired to provide out in Kamloops & Vancouver British Columbia. We drove through some heavy scary thick smoke to get between the two workshops last weekend.  That contract work will help me meet some of our own OLP VR project expenses so I can put more focus on my OLP and Oculus Start projects for the next few weeks now.  

I'm hiring a contract programmer to finish one of the tasks that I have not been able to focus on yet; while I focus on completing other requirements for our OLP and Start projects.  I posted to all our social media accounts including Unity Connect: https://connect.unity.com/jobs/5b81da23edbc2a3ba9842730

The past few weeks flew by and I got a TON of very relevant experience with setting up, facilitating, teaching and supporting new upcoming VR Film Producers with the Indiginous Matriarchs group. They are now very excited to share their films on Oculus Go with various museums, exhibits and corporate sponsors in Canada, USA and Australia.  I'm so very excited for all of them and honored that I've been able to help them transition their traditional big screen film work from traditional film production and into VR / 360 Film Production. 

Our growing network of XR producers, programmers, designers and many other creatives is helping me power through my own OLP project in ways that are probably not immediately obvious to anyone that is not in the middle of my life's work with Endangered Language Revival.

This next week I will be completing the tasks that were being blocked from lack of money and/or my available time.  My schedule is packed to complete the final portion of my Oculus Start project (Father Sun VR)  and to get a large portion of my OLP Project ( iAmAi )  ready for my second television appearance this summer - just before Oculus Connect Event! omg, I can not wait to attend that and see everyone from OLP again!  

I've been juggling many XR projects while in the OLP program (3 of my own XR projects, 1 completed client contract - AR mobile app, 2 VR projects in Vancouver, 1 VR project in Victoria and 1 VR project in Kamloops).  Now I can focus on 2 of my own projects and some minor fast tweaks / consultations for a client's new Oculus Go title.  

OLP has been helping me keep going even while I occasionally do feel overwhelmed with time and funding. 
The weekly tech talks have been a really nice inspiring break for me to be the learner for a little while before I go back to getting my brain picked & challenged (it's all good, I really do love the work I do). 

[SkyeShark]

I've been on vacation this week, but I've been working to get some useful imagery and data to be used for Stay Hydrated whilst I'm away! In fact, I added a stop to my trip --- I went to the real world location (Desert Wildlife National Refuge) from which I generated height map used to create the base terrain for the Mojave map. Whilst I was there I took lots of reference photos and got some material for my photogrammetry lead to work with to generated 3d models from later on. In addition to that, my unreal developer has finally gotten her headset and begun work on some of the gameplay dynamics!

Here's a 360 image from the Desert Wildlife National Refuge, that I'll be editing later to use as a reflection probe.

[MichaelAdrian]

via GIPHY

LIGHTS, CAMERA, ACTION

Pre-production is all but over. We have many things still in process such as the 3D modeling of one space and whether or not we will be able to get a green screen space or have to McGyver together a few green screens of our own. That said we technically have every person in place and most of the little details ironed out in regards to creating a prototype.

By the time tomorrow (Monday comes) we will have had a crew meeting to hash out the last big problems. SKYPE will connect me, the AD/editor, cinematographer, sound designer, composer, UNITY developers, and the PA. The major question I will have to answer is just how deep do we want to dive for the prototype. As Nathalie has mentioned a few times, doing a live-action film is less flexible as once you have all the people in places it doesn’t make sense to not shoot everything. I have to determine how much interactivity I want everyone at Oculus to see to be able to judge the project as a whole.

On one other positive note the one company that is signing on to help market/promote and generally think of ways to amplify the film's message has put me into contact with a national organization which hopefully will do the same about this important topic.

[ndshort]

Neil D. Short
OLP18: Week 8
Project Title: Adventures of PICL Jones
Type: VR Game
Genre: Comedy/Adventure,
Sci-Fi/Western

The team is continuing to work while get established in my
new home and job at Idyllwild Arts Academy. The sound team is working on audio
assets and beginning to plan the dialogue system. The idea is to use the
Wwise
Unity Integration, which is “a Unity plug-in that allows the
use of the Wwise Sound Engine in Unity games.” https://www.audiokinetic.com/products/wwise/

 Due to scheduling conflicts with actors
and available studio times we were not able to record dialogue as originally
planned. Instead I will be working to complete that on my end.

 The writers finished another pass on
the script and created a dialogue flowchart. This will come in handy when
creating the dialogue system.

Concept art of the ship’s lounge is looking good. 

We're putting the pieces together and keep on keeping on!

[belmorea]

Week 8: We have some thoughts about how to adjust the game to incorporate the scoring and player “roles” (and corresponding UIs for the cell phone players), but we are waiting on feedback before we decide what to work on. We have a fairly complete art/animation list for our artist, but are also waiting to send it until we get the feedback and feel confident about what UIs to factor into it.

[kinjutsu]

Hey all,

Had a very productive week on the Mail Snail prototype.  After being mired in the land of blueprint spaghetti code the game systems are really starting to come together.  

This week's rundown

• Completed a texture pass on the snail character models
• Completed the narrative system (finally!)
  
• Continued working on the mail delivery and stamp collection systems
• Misc. polish, lighting tweaks, adding SFX to UI
  

Here's a shot of the updated textures and materials for the snails.  I did a quick pass on both in Substance Painter to give them a little more polish for the prototype.  The last character will be an inchworm and the model is still in the early stages. 

Goals for next week

• Mail delivery and stamp collection systems done.
• Start a second pass on the controls
  
• Really dive into perf and start any optimization needed
• Complete the inchworm character

Signing off for now!

[Antelles]

OLP Learning

OLP weekly tech talks have been incredible and a starting point for an array of topics I have follow up on myself. Mentors - so much knowledge and experience sharing here. Social on FB group has been invaluable information and encouragement from cohorts.

A VR Ready Computer

Quietly waiting for my OLP Visa card, I’ve pushed the limits using my MacBook Pro. Working with Unity and Oculus Go setting up the devise and development environment has not been fun. In previous VR courses high VR ready PC’s were provided  and already set up for Oculus Rift. I just got to make things.

Now that funds are on their way, I am ready for advice. I began researching  VR Ready Computers - by reading the Hardware and Software Recommendations for VR development in Unity.  From there Unity referred me to the Oculus documentation, and the Oculus Ready PCs guide for recommended hardware. Beginning with the The family of Oculus Ready Certified machines I know I have bandwidth for a portable PC. 

According to Oculus The World's Most Powerful VR Ready 15" Laptop! The TLX from Falcon | Falcon Northwest is a Falcon. Ok let’s back up a minute. Years ago I worked with an advanced technology lab working on research looking at girls and gaming. We focused on user research and design around girls age 7 to 12-years old. Our demographics included girls from all economic groups and from around the United States. From all this research I can summarize a few things:

• Girls really care about visual quality
• Girls really care about audio quality
• Girls really care about accessories
• Girls really care about personalization of experiences and products

Now back to the Falcon VR Ready computer. When you are lead to the Falcon Configurator you get to choose your color - personalization! Every Falcon laptop ships in our custom designed backpack. OMG! Not only a backpack but a long list of personalized items including: Power brick pocket, Shieldron lined pocket shields your cell phone from signals on aircraft, On-strap pocket for quick for access to essentials (candy). A place for Candy! OMG gotta get this one! But Falcon is way too expensive for now.

Then there is the Razer - Blade 14" Laptop - Intel Core i7 - 16GB Memory - NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1060 - 512GB Solid State Drive - Black which is unavailable within 250 miles of San Francisco. What? Scrolling down on these Oculus approved PC’s there are Aliens, Omens, Falcons, …. 

Cohorts Help!

I need a basic portable PC I can use to create 3D graphics, photogrammetry on historic objects, render 3D environments, 

Suggestions Plez! Thanks!

Next week: Get a VR Ready Computer