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5 Great VR Music Experiences You Must Try

Domagoj Bakota
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5 Great VR Music Experiences You Must Try

Ever since the light shone upon the mind of a primitive man, the music has captivated him. From the early bone bashing of the Neolithic to the new electronic waves sweeping the globe, there is no denying that music is something ingrained into our very fabric. It is the purest of all the arts, it speaks to us on the most abstract of levels, it touches our heart and soul and colours our days. There is no denying that the fascination with music is shared by no other than the human animal.

So, you have got your VR set and you would like to dive into the depths of the still quite new universe of virtual experience. You’ve found yourself wondering if there are some experiences which could satisfy your desire. Luckily for you, there are and we shall dive deep and see what the realm of VR has to offer.

SoundStage

Although the first association with HTC Vive would be gaming, one of  its most acclaimed pieces of software wouldn’t quite fall into that category. If you ever felt how would it feel like to be a DJ and produce your own music you can experience it using SoundStage. It is an application designed to put you in front of your own mixing table. It gives you all the necessities to start producing your own music right away, without the need for expensive equipment and instruments. This will make your neighbours happy as well.

The application gives you samples to work with, but the majority of the work is done by unleashing your own inner creativity. You do this by setting up the station with instruments as you see fit, while you combine tactile and auditory senses into the effort to produce something new and original, uniquely your own.

See how this youtuber is having the time of his life using it:

Audioshield

Audioshield is a new way to experience your music. You may remember the game AudioSurf, where you made your keyboard to dance to the sound of your music. Well, its creator decided to up the ante by creating Audioshield.

In this game you use your controllers  to catch the balls of light which move to the beat of your own music. It’s a new way to experience your old tracks and more importantly it helps you create new memories by moving while listening to the music you love. Next time you come to your favourite artist’s concert, you may become overwhelmed with the new kinesthetic memories you developed while playing this game.

It’s an extremely fun experience to enjoy, see it for yourself.

Harmonix Music VR

 

Not forgetting the PSVR market, Harmonix Music VR gives the field of interactive music experience a new spin. The game transports you into four different realms with varying levels of interactivity. It also uses your own music to create stunning visuals which you may consider delightful or dreadful. Either way it will change the way you perceived your favourite songs.

It’s something like being in the passenger seat of a car taking you to new, unknown destination with the surroundings melting and shifting according to the rhythm. Truly, an interesting auditory experience.

Starship Disco

Here is another game you may experience on PSVR. StarshipDisco is like a crossover between a retro shooter and Guitar Hero. In the game, you control a spaceship hurling down a wormhole seeking aliens which need some blasting. It’s quite a sensory experience with the enemies aligning themselves to the beat of your music, although a little bland and repetitive, coming in at affordable price, it’s an experience worth trying.

Harmonix Rockband VR

 

Now we have come to the end of our list, and the best has been kept last. Oculus has partnered with the creator of this marvel piece to bring you the best music VR experience up to date. If you have ever wondered how those rockstars feel while rocking their socks off in front of huge audiences, you may truly have an opportunity to find out. If you have ever felt like there is a rock legend deep inside of you waiting for his or her moment to shine, now is the time to release it from the chains and enjoy in this work of art. Strap on your guitar. Take your Oculus touch controllers and transport yourself into the alternate reality where you have decided to become a music god.

The environment is a bit simplified, but the feeling of stage is very real, it’s almost like you can touch the rows of fans screaming in ecstasy while you deliver your favourite riff whilst holding your guitar which responds realistically to your movements.
It’s a must experience for any music lover, especially if there is a part of you deep inside which just knows you could become a rock legend. Well, seek no further, for you have found your blessing!

In the conclusion, it seems that the industry has brought us some very interesting experiences and new ways to enjoy the music. The field is quite new, and although there are different approaches, in the passing of time there will be even more captivating applications and games which will truly lift the bar and standards and even our perception of what kind of experience music can bring us.

The Best iPhone VR Apps, Games and Experiences

Alex Phoenix
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The Best iPhone VR Apps, Games and Experiences

While a cheap VR headset that uses an iPhone may not quite be the Oculus Rift or another high-end headset, you can still sample a lot of interesting 3D experiences on it.

Google Street View

google-street-view-trekker

Google Street View has a cardboard mode that you can use with an iPhone based headset to get wonderful 360 degree views of places around the world. This is actually very interesting. Google has mapped not only the streets, but also the insides of some famous buildings. For example, you can enter Westminster Abbey in London, or the Palais du Luxembourg in Paris. Besides this, you can also wander the streets of famous cities around the world and look around in low-cost VR. It may not equal doing the same thing on  the HTC Vive, but it’s a wonderful experience. You can get the app free from iTunes.

YouTube

Youtube 360 degree videos

There are plenty of VR videos on Youtube, but you’ll need the iOS app in order to view them. Do bear in mind that sometimes the app gives trouble, so if this happens and you can’t see the videos, just install the app again. Once you have the app running, just do a search for 360 degree videos on YouTube, click the VR button and you’re good to go. You can now watch some excellent 360 degree 3D movies on your iPhone headset. This app is also free from iTunes.

The Jaunt VR app

Jaunt VR

The Jaunt VR app is another great source for superb 360 degree VR videos. They have some movies and even some TV shows, and of course lots of documentaries, especially ones that take you around the world to famous places like the pyramids of Egypt or Machu Picchu. It’s a great app to download, and it’s free from iTunes.

The amazing Jaunt Camera
The amazing Jaunt Camera

Discovery VR

Discovery VR Mythbusters

The Discovery VR app is Discovery channel’s gateway to seeing a lot of their wonderful feature movies in VR. While you can watch these movies on the Oculus Rift, the simple fact is that you can tune in to them on a humble iPhone headset. If you like the Discovery channel, you’ll love this app, and can tune into Wildlife, Mythbusters, and many, many more. It’s free on iTunes.

Prefer Games? Try these…

End Space VR

End-Space-Background

Unlike the previous four suggestions, End Space VR is a game. You fly ships against various opponents over three futuristic worlds. As you play, you can upgrade the ships that you fly as well as add in various new weapons. The app costs just about a dollar on iTunes.

The Hidden Temple Adventures app

While it’s true that VR games today tend to focus more on sci-fi, add-on space shooters, the Hidden Temple Adventures app makes a nice change. In the Hidden Temple Adventures app you will wander through ancient ruined temples in VR, solving all sorts of interesting puzzles. It’s a simple but entertaining game, and it costs about four dollars on iTunes.

VR Horror

If scaring yourself gives you an adrenaline rush, then this app is certainly the one for you. It’s a horror game set in an abandoned hospital and is a great game for the horror enthusiasts. Do bear in mind that you’ll need a good pair of headphones if you’re really to get mileage from this game. The game is free on iTunes.

InCell VR

InCell VR

The InCell VR app is one of the most innovative VR games around, because it takes you into the microcosmic world of viruses and the cells within the body. It only costs a dollar on iTunes.

DinoTrek VR

The DinoTrek VR app is a very interesting 3D game app that will take you back to the time of the dinosaurs. It might serve as an educational app for children as well. You can see the dinosaurs moving around and interacting with each other. While the app isn’t free, it costs just two dollars and thirty cents on iTunes.

Relax VR

relax vr

The Relax VR app is rather interesting and innovative one. Like most VR games, which are quite fast paced, the Relax VR app portraits various relaxing beach scenes. This app is a great aid to meditation, or you can use it to simply tune out from your surroundings and sit at the beach for a while, taking in the rolling waves. The app costs about two dollars on iTunes.

AR vs. VR – The Difference Between Augmented Reality and Virtual Reality

Alex Phoenix
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AR vs. VR – The Difference Between Augmented Reality and Virtual Reality

Just about everyone these days knows what VR is, but people still get confused when someone refers to Augmented Reality or AR.

So what exactly is the difference between the two?

Virtual Reality

Virtual Reality is used to create an alternate experience that is completely removed from the real world. Think about it. You put on a VR headset and you are completely cut off from your view of the real world. Instead, you see a computer-generated world in perfect 3D. You can look around. If you have touch controllers, you can even touch things.

Virtual Reality Game

The HTC Vive allows you to set a pre-determined movement area that you can move around in without bumping into things. This is because when you are in VR, you are so removed from the real world that you could very easily step on a pet or trip over a child, or a piece of furniture, for that matter.

Virtual Reality Gaming

This just underlines how Virtual Reality completely removes you from the real world.

VR in 4D

We haven’t even begun to discuss 4D, which is an enhanced form of Virtual Reality that includes effects like mist or wind or rain, these being generated by machines to mirror experienced reality in the virtual world. For example, you would see rain falling in Virtual Reality, an a machine would actually spray you with water so that you actually felt the rain.

Child explores space in VR

You see that Virtual Reality tries to create an immersive set of experiences that actually work to convince you that you are in another world, or in another reality. So that’s what Virtual Reality is.

So what is Augmented Reality?

Augmented Reality is a very interesting concept in which computer graphics are used to alter your experience of the REAL world. At first glance this may not be as exciting as Virtual Reality, but if you stop to think about it, it has a lot of appealing applications.

For example, in Augmented Reality, you would no longer look at a physical monitor.

Instead, you would wear an AR headset that would give you a view of your room, and the monitor and whatever was displayed on it would be generated by computer graphics. To all effects, you would see the display hanging in the air in front of you. You could even turn it transparent to see the room around you through the displays.

Augmented Reality

This is a very futuristic sort of interface, and the kind of thing that we are likely to see increasingly as AR develops, and as the technologies that support both Virtual Reality and Augmented Reality develop.

Augmented Reality

Other applications could be 3D modelling.

At the moment, to create 3D models you need to use complex software like 3D Studio Max or Maya to create 3D models. But if you had Augmented Reality, you would actually see ‘virtual’ modelling clay floating in front of you, and you could actually mould this with your hands to create the model you want. You could mould it, or carve it with a number of sculpting tools, all of which would be digitally created in Augmented Reality. You could set the texture of the clay, or even how easy it would be to mould or sculpt.

And that’s still only one more application of Augmented Reality.

You could display a Google map right across the floor of a large room, and actually walk around it pointing out different features to a friend or a business client.

If you were working on a complex project, you could generate as many monitors as you wish around the room in Augmented Reality, and these would all cost no more than the cost of your single AR headset.

The applications in terms of design interfaces are staggering. Engineering models or Computer Animations could be created entirely in Augmented Reality.

Design teams could work together in a shared Augmented Reality…

So these are some of the potential applications of Augmented Reality.

So, is Virtual Reality or Augmented Reality the superior experience?

Actually, the two are quite different experiences.

It is possible that at some point in the future, a headset will exist that can offer both Virtual Reality as well as Augmented Reality. But this would have to be a complex device, and it would require a great deal of miniaturization, as well as great many technical problems solved.

To be honest, I doubt such a device is even on the drawing boards as of yet.

For now, AR and VR are two different experiences, and they serve two completely different purposes. At the moment, there’s is no overlapping between Augmented Reality and Virtual Reality. Virtual reality is an experience of a subtly generated different reality, while Augmented Reality is more focused upon applications, interfaces and helping you to process information.

In the future, Augmented Reality could offer many benefits in the real world.

A surgeon could call up data on his Augmented Reality headset even as he operates. Similarly, a car mechanic could draw readings from a car’s sensors even as he worked on the car.

Augmented reality vs Virtual Reality - AR vs VR

Perhaps ten years into the future, business cards may be able to display three dimensional animations, or even a small video if a person looking at them were wearing a Augmented Reality headset or goggles.

A tourist walking around a new city could have all sorts of information displayed to them using their Augmented Reality headset, including maps and directions. At some point, as processing power increases, this could even include a language protocol providing the tourist with the appropriate local phrase to use when someone addresses him or her.

How much of this is possible today?

As far as Virtual Reality is concerned, it is on the high road to becoming an ‘actual reality’.

Of course, this still depends upon how many people ultimately buy the overpriced high-end headsets. But cheaper headsets like Google Cardboard have put Virtual Reality within the reach of everyone, and it is unlikely that VR is going to disappear anytime soon.

Whether the high-end headsets ever become common in every home is a matter of debate and we’ll just have to wait and see how that works out. I doubt it will happen unless mass production greatly reduces the cost of the headsets, and I doubt that will happen unless more people start buying the headsets.

So it’s a sort of vicious circle.

convince your wife to buy a vr headset

As for AR, it is still in the extremely experimental and prototype stage.

There are still some great apps available today. If you’re excited and want to venture into this bold new frontier, we suggest you get the Google Glass Headset today! There are lots of other AR headsets as well. The Epson Moverio is recommended as well.

Augmented Reality Game

Companies like Apple are conducting extensive research into AR, so both apps and hardware should improve exponentially.

But AR is still largely in the future.

Sure, there are apps around right now, and good ones, but there’s a lot of space for growth. Augmented reality has a lot of potential, perhaps even far more than VR does, and it can truly be useful in every aspect of our everyday lives.

It goes without saying that when it does arrive in every home, it will completely change the way we interface with our reality.

Augmented Reality Desktop

How to Stream PC Games to Cardboard?

Alex Phoenix
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How to Stream PC Games to Cardboard?

If you have a reasonable gaming computer that could handle VR, but if you can’t afford a VR headset like the Oculus Rift or the Vive at the moment, you might be interested in streaming VR games to a cheap headset like Google cardboard.

Is this doable?

Well, not with all games, obviously, but there are apps that can allow you a reasonably fulfilling experience.

What you’ll need…

You can do this if you actually have a PC that can handle VR. Also, the cheap VR headsets that you buy should have a good strap for the head, or you’ll have problems. You’ll also need a fairly modern model of Android, and a Leap Motion tracker.

elite-dangerous-vr-game
A cardboard star-fighter good enough for you?

Start by arranging streaming

Getting your PC to stream games to your Android requires you to install RiftCat. Here’s where you can get the installer. Once you’ve installed RiftCat on your PC, the next step is to pair it with the VRidge app on your phone, so you’ll need to install that on your phone next.

Once you have RiftCat on your PC, and VRidge on your phone, then things really start to happen.

Log into RiftCat, and then set up a VRidge connection to your phone (there’s a tab for this).

Connecting the Phone and PC

This is done through local WiFi, though USB connections are also possible, and can be more reliable. Now your phone and computer should recognize each other through the network.

RiftCat-Vridge connection

RiftCat games

We suggest that you test-run your setup on the database of RiftCat games, all of which have been well-tested to run through VRidge.

Here’s a step-by-step video in case you’re confused about any stage of the setup…

Playing SteamVR Games

Remember that the RiftCat-VRidge connection must be active before you launch SteamVR. Once you launch SteamVR, there is a button in VRidge that allows you to “Play SteamVR Games”.

Now just start the game of your choice in SteamVR.

Set your ‘room settings’

We’ll be going into how you can activate some simple tracking, but for now, once the game begins, you must remember to set your virtual world settings to the minimum of standing room only.

Passive streaming

The games will now stream into the headset in an essentially passive experience controlled by a handheld controller.

Movement and Tracking

If you want something more interactive than this, then you will have to buy either a Leap Motion controller, or a small gyro mouse.

For Leap Motion to work with the VR headset, you’re going to attach the tracker to your headset and connect it to the computer. Do bear in mind that there will be a cable reaching from your headset to your computer, and you  need to make sure this cable is long enough, and that you won’t trip over it with the headset on.

farpoint-vr-game
Colonizing known space… at a fraction of the price!

After this, just install the Orion Beta application.

It has a nice tutorial that will take you through the remaining steps of the process. It goes without saying, of course, that you will have to mount the controller on your headset.

A gyro mouse is also a nice way to institute tracking

It’s very efficient and there’s no lag detectable. It is also, unlike the Leap Motion controller, wireless.

You’ll have to mount it on your headset, but once you do, you have a lovely wireless tracking headset that can allow you to use a fairly wide range of VR experiences.

And that’s all that it takes to stream VR games to cardboard, or any cheap mobile-based headset. Bear in mind that the system isn’t perfect – some games will run, and others won’t. I wouldn’t suggest that you buy a game to use on this system, unless it has a shareware version you can try for free to make sure it works – but there are lots of those! Try out a game, and if it works, go ahead and buy it.

And if you’ve added tracking, you can have quite an immersive experience… at a fraction of the price of a high-end headset.

What’s the Purpose of The Camera on the HTC Vive?

Alex Phoenix
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What’s the Purpose of The Camera on the HTC Vive?

One of the signs that VR is still a developing technology is the fact that people are, for all practical purposes, blind when they put on a VR headset. If you stop to think about it, you’ll wonder how companies that make VR headsets could be so, well, blind.

After all, how convenient is it to be completely without vision while playing a game, even in your own living room?

vr-headset
I see you! No, not really!

A lack of fore-sight

Those words can be taken in two ways.

But seriously, the fact that companies that make VR headsets did not foresee the problems ‘virtually blind’ users would have, or develop a means to counter this with the first generation of headsets, shows that VR is still a technology in its very infancy. I think that the tracking technology ‘leaped ahead’ – that is to say, the headsets were actually designed for ‘passive gaming’, when suddenly some pesky programmer or hardware guy came along and said – ‘Hey, why not add tracking – then players would actually be able to move around in a game.’

The idea was too good not to implement, but it had to be implemented on the already-designed VR headsets, which effectively left the first generation of VR players ‘blind to reality’ so long as they wore the headsets!

After involuntary protests from stepped-on animals, and small children…

Yes, now that enough people have tripped over cats and stepped on children, HTC Vive has developed a camera that can allow you a glimpse of the world when you activate it, or at certain preset instances, such as when you come to the boundaries of the pre-set play area.

VR and cat
Don’t you DARE VR right over me!

However, even now, the forward facing camera does not offer you a true-to-life glimpse of the real world.

Instead, you get to see a strange greenish version of reality, as viewed by ‘the terminator’ or ‘the borg’.

Camera View HTC Vive
VR Borg – Yes, really… on the HTC Vive!

A better camera system would be great for Augmented Reality

Ideally, what I think should be the system in place on any VR headset is two cameras, the average distance apart of the human eyes, which provide direct feeds to each of the screens inside the headset if necessary, actually creating, for all practical purposes, a binocular three-dimensional view of the real world.

This isn’t much use today – but it would be a massive advantage to developing augmented-reality systems that would completely change the way we interface with PCs.

However, let’s not predict the future… it isn’t here yet!

Yes, Augmented Reality will be a reality some day…but not today!

For now, a forward facing camera is an option that is certainly, despite the distorted view it provides, a great option to let you know when a child enters the room, or when your pet is somewhere around. It also allows you to execute simple tasks that you may want to do while still not completely exiting virtual reality.

HTC Vive in Virtual reality
Is this man blind to reality?

It’s very easy to set up – all you have to do is start SteamVR, and in the settings, select the option for the camera. When you click on it, there will be a checkbox that allows you to enable the camera.

There are lots of fairly self obvious settings, which you’ll have to go through. One nice option is getting the system to automatically activate the camera when you reach the limits of your play area. Other than that, you will be able to activate the camera whenever you please, simply by “double clicking” the system buttons. After you’ve done all this, you need to exit and restart SteamVR once again, and your forward facing camera should be operational. As I said, it’s easy and simple to set up, which I applaud, but at the end of everything, you’ll end up with the creepy, rather distorted visual experience of your real environment that you can see in the videos below…

Another example…

Is the system satisfactory?

Not entirely.

Will this allow for augmented reality at a later stage?

Unlikely. If it does, it will be an augmented reality solely accessible by terminators and borg.

Does it work, for the purpose for which it is designed?

Yes. Kids and cats now have a relatively ‘protected’ status, and are no longer on the endangered list.

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