X

New Oculus Update Embraces 360 Room-scale, Adds Mixed Reality Capture

Version 1.16 of Oculus Rift software is beginning to roll out to all Rift users, adding support for Mixed Reality capture, a redesigned interface for future updates and issue reporting, a new Home environment and multilanguage support. The Store now supports 360°-only apps, and provides alerts before purchases if you don’t have an appropriate tracking setup.

Following the recent version 1.15 update, which added further optimisations to room-scale support and dropped the ‘experimental’ tag, Oculus have taken another step towards embracing room-scale VR experiences with version 1.16, which now allows 360°-only apps. Until now, all Rift content on the Oculus Store was required to support the ‘front-facing’ tracking mode, i.e. with one or two Oculus Sensors pointing in the same direction. When Oculus launched the Touch motion controllers in December, it included a single Oculus Sensor in the package, to add to the existing Sensor used for the Rift headset. The recommended setup of placing the two Sensors 3-6 feet apart directly in front of you remains the default configuration, but is no longer a requirement for Store approval. Now, developers can choose to support 360°-only, which is achieved by placing the two sensors diagonally opposite each other across the play area, or with the recommended three-sensor configuration.

Early support for mixed reality capture has also been added, but the release notes warn of a delay before this is practical, as developers will likely need to update their apps to fully support the feature. Mixed Reality footage has been shown with Oculus hardware before using custom solutions; this update marks a positive step towards simplifying the process.

The new update also improves the language support and redesigns the interface and technical process for updates, with the ability to read the full release notes from the Oculus software. Users will now be able to report issues directly from the software too. Oculus Home has also been given a new Cityscape environment, with the promise of more environments to come.

Full details and a recent history of Oculus software release notes is available here.

Related Posts
Disqus Comments Loading...