Leap Motion is teaming up with IndieCade for a ‘3D Jam’ dev contest which utilizes the company’s motion controller. Leap recently released a ‘VR Mount’ for their motion controller which connects to the front of the Oculus Rift and the company is hoping to see VR-based and desktop submissions from developers pining for $75,000 in prizes.
Leap Motion has been working to breathe new life into their compact low-latency motion controller by aligning themselves with the burgeoning VR industry. Using the Leap Motion controller in VR was an interesting idea early on, back during the DK1 days, but it didn’t see much true development, possibly because the company’s SDK wasn’t friendly to head-mounted usage. Recently, however, the company revamped their SDK to allow the device to better work with how it might be icorporated into VR setups. They even went so far as to release a VR mount, specially designed for the Rift DK2, that makes it simple to mount the motion controller to Oculus’ latest developer headset.
See Also: Leap Motion’s Next-gen ‘Dragonfly’ Sensor is Designed for VR Headsets
Now the company is teaming up with IndieCade for a ‘3D Jam’ developer contest which offers $75,000 in prizes. Anyone familiar with Oculus’ 2013 ‘VR Jam’ (also in collaboration with IndieCade) will see similarities between the two contests, including the two tracks for submissions: Select, with teams chosen at IndieCade, and Open, which is open to anyone globally. Each of the two tracks will have 1st, 2nd, and 3rd place prizes:
Prizes
- First Place: $5,000 USD and up to $2,500 in travel costs to exhibit with Leap Motion at IndieCade East 2015
- Second Place: $3,000 USD and up to $2,500 USD in travel costs to exhibit with Leap Motion during IndieCade East 2015
- Third Place: $1,500 USD
- Any honorable-mention teams will receive $500 USD
Finalist Prize
- Featured spot in a Leap Motion marketing campaign and (of course!) a free Leap Motion Controller for each team member. VR Developer Mounts will also be included for each team member if a VR game is produced
Participation Prize (for final submission)
- Code for discount submission to IndieCade 2015 for 3D Jam Game
The 3D Jam contest opens on October 19th and final submissions are due on December 1st. Official rules can be found here. The timeline is below:
- Oct. 19: 3D Jam begins
- Nov. 15: Milestone: initial build or video of progress due
- Dec. 1: Jam ends. Last day for submissions on itch.io
- Dec. 20: Finalists announced
- Jan. 10: Winners announced
If you don’t have access to the Leap Motion hardware, Leap and IndieCade are hosting nine ‘hardware hubs’ around the world for developers to get access to the motion controller and the VR mount for use with the Oculus Rift DK2. Those hubs will be in San Francisco, NYC, LA, Paris, Berlin, London, Shanghai, Edinburgh, and Toronto. Currently their specific locations have not been announced but more info should become available on Leap’s official forum thread about the contest.
