Although it seems like a lie with all the virtual reality spotlight illuminating Valve, Oculus is also at GDC 2015 and has shown some new demos with Crescent Bay, in addition to having published the first version of the audio SDK.
Today, Oculus seems more interested in talking about mobile virtual reality with Gear VR than the commercial version of the Rift. Yesterday at the GDC, John Carmack gave a talk entitled “the dawn of mobile virtual reality”.
Two more talks are expected for today: one on virtual reality audio and another on application development using the Oculus SDK, we’ll see if they talk about a new version, which 0.4.4 has been with us for a while.
On the other hand, Thief in the Shadows has been shown, a new and spectacular demo in Unreal Engine 4 based on Smaug, the dragon from The Hobbit, for which they had to use the new Titan X from nVidia, which can give us an idea of its complexity. In this demo they have had the collaboration of Weta Digital, company responsible for the special effects of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings.
Another good news is the Back to Dinosaur Island demo, made in CryEngine, which is already an indication that there will be support for Oculus Rift in this engine, something that Star Citizen fans are eagerly awaiting. Demos based on Unity 5 have also been seen running in Crescent Bay, and this time this prototype has been seen throughout the fair, not only at the Oculus booth.
All the demos shown by Oculus used the new audio SDK that uses RealSpace3D technology, and finally the developers can download a preview version of it. It includes plugins for Unity, AudioKinetic Wwise, Firelight FMOD and VST digital audio stations. At the moment nothing is commented on Unreal, but it is possible that the integration will come directly from Epic Games, since the Thief in the Shadows demo incorporates this audio system. Anyway, at the moment Oculus does not seem that it is going to be the main protagonist of the fair, as it has happened on other occasions.
