The reality version of Ready Player One that Facebook dreams of

At the annual Oculus Connect 6 presentation held by Facebook, Horizon, which feels like a real ready player one, can do anything you like in a virtual reality space, was announced.

In Horizon, players can build their own worldview, create games to play, or socialize with friends with animated avatars. As mentioned earlier, Facebook and Oculus seem to have been heavily influenced by Ernest Klein’s Ready Player One, a social film directed by Steven Spielberg. Of course, Horizon is a cartoon world made of virtual reality, not a realistic world like a movie.

Players choose pants and shoes, etc. After optimizing their avatars to suit themselves, they interact in places like town squares, and visit warp (move), worlds created by other users through virtual portals, or dock developed by Facebook from scratch. You can participate in games such as the Fighting Flight Simulator. In addition, users can create games or program themselves using tools that do not require coding knowledge.

Facebook hasn’t mentioned whether it will be able to charge users who come to the world they create, but as the number of games etc. increases in the future, Facebook will be able to find a way to monetize this experience.

This project is quite ambitious. Of course, it is not yet known if there will be any killer apps that will be popular success. Of course, it may not be important, but one thing is certain: it is strange anyway that the avatar has no lower body.

https://youtu.be/Is8eXZco46Q

Horizon is expected to appear around 2020. Users with virtual reality headsets such as Oculus Quest or Rift will be able to try the beta version. Other players will have to wait until next year, but Facebook is expected to open Horizon to all Oculus users in the end as it will shut down social networks such as Facebook Space and Oculus Rooms VR on October 25th. It is said to be.

Facebook also announced LiveMaps, a project that maps the world in 3D. What Facebook has done so far is a structure in which augmented reality glasses are worn and a real landscape is reproduced in front of the eyes based on 3D data, and various information is displayed there. Augmented reality is the display of something in the real world. However, Livemaps intends to replace the real world with 3D images that closely resemble the real world. To create another real world.

In the world reproduced in 3D, it is also possible to freely look around. The 3D model released this time uses aerial image data, but in the future, it plans to make a 3D map faithfully based on information such as photos brought by users around the world. It is said that it aims to use distant users as a communication tool marked with a hologram or to help them learn what they want regardless of where they live and to use them in terms of economic support.

Meanwhile, Oculus also announced Oculus Quest, which features hand tracking. In addition, Oculus Quest announced that Oculus Link, a new feature that allows you to enjoy high-quality content for the Oculus Rift, will be available in November.

This means that Oculus Quest can take the place of Oculus Rift by connecting a virtual reality-enabled PC and Oculus Rift through a USB Type C port. You can enjoy high-end games and virtual reality videos that were exclusively for Oculus Rift in Oculus Quest.

Oculus has three lineups. Quest, an independent type that can reflect head movements and positions in virtual reality without cables, Lift S, which is a cable connection type with a PC, and GO, which only reflects head movements for entertainment purposes.

Oculus Rift S uses the CPU and GPU in the PC to display premium content. On the other hand, Oculus Quest had a limit on the quality of content that can be seen because it is processed by the processor built into the headset. If you connect this to your PC via Oculus Link, you will be able to benefit from PC processing power.

The virtual reality support PC required by Oculus Rift S is high-end. Requires NVIDIA GTX 1050Ti or AMD Radeon RX 470 or higher graphics card, Intel i3-6100 or AMD Ryzen 3 1200 FX4350 or higher CPU, and a Windows 10 PC with 8GB of memory, DisplayPort 1.2 and Mini Display Port, and one USB 3.0 port. that. If you connect Oculus Quest to such a PC and use the link function, you can enjoy Rift-only content. There are currently 109 titles for quests and 875 for lifts.

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