The new year’s arrival means we’re just about three months away from the next Game Developers Conference, an industry-spanning event that never fails to provide huge VR news. You can look forward to plenty of news on what to expect at this year’s show in the coming weeks but, for now, the first VR-centered talks of the year have been announced.
Three sessions dedicated to VR development have been revealed so far. Perhaps most excitingly, Against Gravity will be opening up on its popular social VR platform, Rec Room, with a talk entitled ‘Room for Everyone: The ‘Rec Room‘ Approach to Community VR‘. The team’s Cameron Brown and Jon Gill will discuss how they built their platform, which now features on the Oculus Rift, HTC Vive and PlayStation VR, including a rapid approaching to iteration and creating a positive environment for players. If you’re interested in social VR you won’t want to miss it.
Next up, Google takes the stage to discuss an important topic: ‘Designing Human Avatars for Virtual Reality‘. David Bond and Brian Pullen will be on-hand to discuss how the Daydream team is building avatars for both VR and AR. Again, this might be one that those working in social VR will want to attend.
Finally, we have VR storytellers Penrose Studios, known for Allumette among other pieces. In the session ‘Water Simulation and Rendering in the VR Film, ‘Arden’s Wake’‘ we’ll get a detailed rundown of the work that’s gone into the team’s latest piece. As the name suggests, you can expect a deep dive into water effects and how VR changes what’s come before in this area. It’s sure to be beneficial to anyone making a VR project right now.
GDC 2018 runs from March 19th – 23rd and you can expect plenty more from the show.
