Bigscreen is a social VR app which lets VR users bring their PC desktops into virtual reality, as if sitting at their computer next to friends or co-workers. Users inside of Bigscreen can see each other’s desktops which means they can watch movies, play games together, and plenty more. A new update launched today brings a range of much needed interaction improvements and better avatars.
Following a major update in July which drastically improved desktop streaming performance within the app, today’s ‘Avatar Update’ to Bigscreen finally gives avatars torsos; prior to the update, players were represented simply as a floating heads and hands.
Players can now choose between seven different body shapes, and hundreds of combinations of shirt types and colors, in addition to existing hair, eye, and skin options. Players can customize their avatar in a new mirror interface which offers easy experimentation.
Bigscreen may offer cool functionality, but using it with motion controllers was, in many ways, unintuitive. Today’s update makes things much easier: screens now have an in-world menu bar for making quick adjustments using direct input from your controllers (rather than needing to open a separate menu and fiddling with sliders). Meanwhile, the handy ‘Tablet’ window, from which you can control all of Bigscreen’s functions, has been updated for touch-input. So instead of using a laser pointer cursor, you can now intuitively poke and prod at the large buttons for more direct and intuitive control.
AMD users who have had issues with Bigscreen may want to take second look; the Avatar Update is said to “greatly [improve] stability and performance” on AMD graphics cards.
Bigscreen is available on both Oculus and Steam. Facebook Spaces recently debuted a similar desktop sharing feature.
