Release The Kraken

Release The Kraken

with HTC Vive, Google Tilt Brush & Sketchfab

So I recently invested in a virtual reality headset, the HTC Vive and BOoooyY it was a dream come true (hear the “In the air tonight” by Phil Collins while you are reading this!). It it near impossible to describe what it is like. The immersion is just too damn high!

There are just so many awesome things you can do with it. Unfolding your creativity in 6 degrees of freedom (XYZ) with google tilt brush (my creations are comming up soon, so stay tuned), visualizing your sketchup architecture through prospect (I will show a demo soon), and the gaming, damn the gaming is just a whole new level of immersion.

Almost everyday there are new software, demos & games released for this new platform and it’s kind off nice beeing onboard the “for some” hype train or platform. Very exciting for me personally to follow the development.

I have found Upload VR & RoadtoVR to been good sources for my daily VR fix

So as a little example I would like to show this awesome google tilt brush creation by Andreas N. Grontved (the lead animator at Playdead, – creators of INSIDE & LIMBO), called Jolly Bones. Guess for the average viewer, this new medium can realy make you feel inadequate about your creative skills, or as Joe Durbin from Upload VR put it:

“It looks like it will easier than ever for people like me to marvel at and enjoy creations that remind us just how little artistic talent we have.”

I must admit it is way above my level of drawing skills, but it feels awesome to dig down and explore all the details.

Click on the play button bellow to inspect the 3D creation. OR Click here to see the behind the scenes & the drawing process of this amazing creation. Enjoy

Jolly Bones, Yarrrr by andreasng____ on Sketchfab

How to get started?

First of all, you have to have a powerfull machine for running a virtual reality headset as HTC Vive. We are talking about a min Geforce 970/AMD Radeon R9 290 for just the graphic card (GPU) but you can see all the required specs on RoadtoVR here

Then you need the headset itself. You can grab yourself one from the official HTC Vive store (like me) or find a local vendor near you (probably the best solution, if you want to find a place with the best customer support/experience).

For now google tilt brush is only supported on the HTC Vive, but it may be avialble for the Oculus Rift too soon enough, when the touch controllers for the Oculus are released. Currently you get Google Tilt Brush as a free bundle exclusive with the HTC Vive from the official store. But if you bought it from a vendor, you can easily pick up a copy for around $29 bucks on steam

Blog image credit goes to Mach Kobayashi