In.Block review: a nice 3D prototyping app for Oculus

In this period, an idea popped into my mind: why can’t I develop an app for fast 3d prototyping in VR? I know that there are cool drawing apps like Oculus Medium or Quill, with which awesome products have been made (fantastic Dear Angelica experience has all been made with Quill), but I wanted something really simple, really fast. Something like the Paint 3D of VR, with just cubes to sketch things in VR. As always happens when I have a great idea… well, it already exists.

The app is called In.Block and has been made by Run Dot Games. You can download it for free on the Oculus Store.

It is exactly as I thought it should be: a simple environment within VR, where using your Oculus Touch you can paint mega-voxels in space. Voxels can be of different colors and size. Stop. This is the simple concept of the app: draw cubes with your hands.

Ghost in The Shell VR experience review: I expected something better

I just tried Ghost in The Shell VR review on The Oculus Store. And I admit I’m a bit disappointed.

I’m not a huge fan of Ghost In The Shell (not because I don’t like it, but because I barely know what is it), but since I’ve friends fond of it and because this movie is having lots of attention by the media, I was very curious about its VR experience that was available on the Oculus Store. After having seen it, I can say that I liked it a bit… but I expected something more.

First of all, you have to know that there is not Scarlett Johansson in this experience. This is the first turndown: my dream was being next to her, at least in VR… but even this has been ruined. FFFFFF. So, if I had to give a score for this experience, I would start from -10 just because of this big issue :D.

In the experience (that is not a 360-video, it is a Computer Graphics VR short movie) you start on a skyscraper of a futuristic town and then you move forward until you reach the main character (the girl who is not Scarlett Johansson). Here you notice one of the problems of this experience, that you will feel all the time: motion sickness. Every scene makes you move forward and this is surely not comfortable, at least for newbie users. There is a reason why Ghost In The Shell has been flagged as “moderate” comfort on the Oculus Store.

Freedom Locomotion System Review

I finally had the chance to try the super-praised Freedom Locomotion System by ZapTruder (or Huge Robot, as you prefer). Freedom Locomotion System is this new locomotion method invented by this Japanese guy, that works this way:

• You stand in the VR experience (so, you’re not seated);
• You use the VR controller that you hold in your hand to decide the direction you want to go. You do not decide this by pointing the controller, but by pointing simply a thumbstick on the controller with your thumb;
• You walk in place to walk in virtual reality towards the direction that you specified at the previous point. The faster you walk-in-place, the faster you move in virtual reality.

Ashes To Ashes (VR short movie) review

Today I’ve seen a short VR movie: Ashes To Ashes. It is a movie made for VR by Dutch studio Submarine Channel, which has already won a gold prize at Dutch VR Awards. The video is accessible for free inside Jaunt App on lots of VR platforms (Oculus, Vive, etc..) .

The creators define it “a surreal tragicomedy in virtual reality about a dysfunctional family burdened with the bizarre final wish of their deceased grandfather”. Said shortly: a complete WTF in virtual reality 😀

The experience begins with the user immersed into water, like at the bottom of the sea (you’ll understand the sense of it at the end of the movie), with a girl looking at him from above the surface. I liked a lot this first scene because it grabs immediately the attention. It is super-original and makes you curious about the plot of the movie.

The movie begins this way, with a little girl looking at you from above the surface… and the water waves distorting the visual of her face

Just Relax (relaxation GearVR app) inter-review

I’ve been contacted by Paul, of Mostly Human Studios, to try his virtual reality relaxation tool: Just Relax. I was happy, because I’m super-stressed due to my startup life, so I just wanted to relax a bit. With DK2 I was a huge fan of Guided Meditation, so I was eager to try its app. But life is a b**ch and his app is not compatible with my phone (I’ve a Note 4 and the first GearVR… I feel so old) so I’ve not been able to try it.

So goodbye to my idea of a review and welcome to the idea of an interview. So I made Paul some questions about the Just Relax relaxation app and his experience in developing it. I found his answers very interesting… in a sense I’m more happy with this article than with a review 🙂

Monzo VR review: assembling model kits in VR is cool!

Some weeks ago I received an email from Madfinger Games that asked me to try their product MonzoVR. In the mail they defined their product in this way:

It’s called Monzo VR and it is something different than you might be used to.

It allows you to assemble and decorate a wide variety of models like animals, trucks, planes or even Da Vinci inventions.

It’s crazy, I know, but It’s also so cool to make all those things in ambient ZEN environments we prepared with LOVE.

I was perplexed… assemble models in VR? ZEN environments? LOVE?? What the hell are we talking about? A romantic adventure in ZEN environments when you assemble models with a girl you love?

As I always say, try something before judging it. So I downloaded the game and gave it a try on my Oculus Rift + Touch system (there’s also Gear VR version, if you’re interested).

When you launch MonzoVR, you find yourself inside a Japanese house (a Zen environment, as creators love to define it) and in front of you there is a table, with a model car box on it. A writing tells you to select the box to open it. This immediately got my curiosity… a box about a car model on a table… what are we going to do?

Can Standing in a Dark Room With VR Goggles on Your Face Really be Called Social?

Today I’ll have a great post here in my blog. Sasha Le Baron, who is a VR passionate that knows virtual worlds much more than me (he’s a Second Life user since long time!) has accepted to write an article about social VR for me. You should know him, since he’s the one that introduced me to BigScreen VR and VRChat. I’m very happy about this, because of his experience in this field. So… this time I won’t say any more words and I will leave all glory to him… so, here you are his article (after a funny video)…

First let me say I’ve partaken in the VR the Cool Aid, I have been waiting for VR to drop since @GreatDismal first described it back in the day. So, my opinions are, shall we say, biased. That being said, there is a lot of pushback from the uninitiated suggesting that VR is anti-social. Let’s unpack that in the context of the current state of Social VR.

Google Daydream, a little review

Thursday evening I was able to try for some minutes a Google Daydream headset, thanks to guys of GDG Torino that invited us of Immotionar at their Sognando La Realtà event. This is my very little review about it.

If you have ever tried a Samsung GearVR headset… well, the experience is quite identical. Only differences with it are that it is more comfortable and that you can interact using a little remote. And that’s it with this review. I’ve told you that it was little… 😀

Just kidding, but in fact these are the most important things that I have to say. Google Daydream is a nice mobile headset, where you can insert your mobile phone and live virtual reality.

Take a Google Pixel, put it in there and thanks to NFC magic, your Daydream home menu will appear!

Only supported phone is Google Pixel at the moment, but more are about to come (for example one Motorola and one Lenovo). The advantage of Daydream platform over GearVR one is that it will compatible with lots of phones from different vendors, so it will be an open platform (and this is the reason why it will outperform its competitor in the end, I guess). Google Daydream is all covered in fabric… this has been a choice of Google, so that the headset resembles a piece of cloting and seems more a natural thing to wear (a very hippy marketing thing in my opinion :D).

Unity VR Editor review

There’s been a lot of hype about game engines with VR editors in the last months. The first one has been Unreal Engine, showcasing a solution for HTC Vive (because at that time it was the only headset with proper VR controllers) and then of course Unity decided to do something similar, announcing a VR editor with Vive and then Oculus support. With “VR editor” I mean the editor of the game engine that instead of running on your flat screen with you interacting with mouse and keyboard, runs on your VR headset in 3D, with you interacting with objects with your VR controllers.