The Epic Showdown VR demo for Unreal Engine 4 will be the one that will use the OpenXR API through a plugin.
Khronos Group he has announced that tomorrow (August 15 at 22: 00) in SIGGRAPH will make for the first time a demonstration of the OpenXR standard, which comes to simplify the task of developers and manufacturers, having the former only to implement OpenXR to reach all viewers and the latter only to support said standard. Thus, according to the theory, the incompatibilities between viewers and contents will be put to an end.
Epic Games Showdown VR Demo.
The demo will consist of the legendary Epic VR Showdown running on StarVR viewers (probably the new version they will present today and which apparently is also oriented to business use) and Windows Mixed Reality, which will use the OpenXR runtime through an Unreal Engine 4 plugin. The first demonstration will take place during the talk “Standardizing all realities: A look at OpenXR”, and there will be a second that will be shown throughout the event at the StarVR booth.
As detailed, OpenXR uses an action-based input abstraction, which allows applications to define any action they want to perform (e.g., “teleport”, “move”, “jump”, etc.) and link them to the physical input they want to drive that action, i.e., by a click of a button, a slider, or a gesture. This way, applications can support any existing or non-existing input hardware. Applications are also abstracted from all positioning technologies.
At the moment there is no date for version 1.0 of the OpenXR API, but it is certainly a great step to see the public face how the runtime begins to take shape. The next generation of viewers may not only be accompanied by a new standard for connection (VirtualLink), but also by this fully operational API.