3 VR Geeks teams participated in the Paris GGJ13 edition. 

Hi, did you hear about the last VR Geeks event we planed? Here is a brief summary:

The 15th November we visited a CAVE: the "LiVES" at Dassault Systèmes.

In this big system, we shared a great and exotic journey through virtual universes!
We tried some cars, sailed aboard an Egyptian mortuary boat and flew side by side with some racing aircrafts in the desert!
Other minor things happened like shooting ghosts and some strange flashbacks to our childhood...
But we were safe in the end!

All along this fantastic night, the group of 13 VR Geeks had time to share experiences, make their own experiments and have some geeky conversations about hardware, software and other VR topics.

 

Here are some pictures of what happened:

You can find more pictures at http://cb.nowan.net/galerie/VRGeeks-Lives/index.html.

 

More about the LiVES:

This system is an approximately 2 million Euros CAVE built in 2008 by Barco and Dassault Systèmes. It is 5m long, 2.7m deep and it is up to 2.4m. Four 1080p projectors generate the image for the front screen (5mx2.4m), two projectors do the right screen (2.7mx2.4m) and one does the floor screen (5mx2.7m). The front and side screens are retro projected, so the user cannot create immersion-breaking shadows on them. The floor screen is projected from the ceiling. An optical ART tracking system broadcasts the inputs through a VRPN server and a seven nodes cluster (and a master computer) runs the experiences.

3DVIA Virtools and 3DVIA Studio are the main software used to run the immersive experiences.

Here is a video about the system and its creation: http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=TKlyDl0aE34#!

 

Thanks again Dassault Systèmes for the trip!

 

Virtually yours.

(Thanks Sylvie Brunet, I paraphrased some parts from your last enthusiastic mail. ;)  )

Here are some pictures of the event : 

Hi all,

last year we participated in the Global Game Jame, which "is the world's largest game jam event occurring annually in late January. GGJ brings together thousands of game enthusiasts participating through many local jams around the world. GGJ is a project of the International Game Developers Association (IGDA) ( http://globalgamejam.org/jam )"

The goal is simple, create a game in 48 hours with a team of people you don't necessarilly know in advance: we met great 3d artists, sound and game designers there !

The jam happens all around the world in lots of different locations at the same time.

There, we created VR Escape :http://www.vrgeeks.org/vr-experiences/vrescape



Usually the games are more 2d games, and we were probably the only ones attempting to create a VR game.

We were thinking that some of you might be interested in participating.

There is nothing to win and it basically costs nothing, appart from some sleepless nights and pizzas.
But it's a great challenge to create something from start to end and to participate in such an event.

So the plan would be to either go to one of your local GGJ site, or stay at your favorite coding location.

The event will be during 27-29 January 2012, and the registration for the official event should begin soon.

Let us know what you think, by mail or in the comments and if you're interested please fill out this form, which is in no way engaging :

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/viewform?formkey=dFREZVVlQXd6NnZRbVNzdGl6alBjQUE6MQ

Cheers,
cb

Hi VR Geeks,

VR Geeks Newsletter - 01

Welcome to the first VR Geeks newsletter !

The VR Geeks is a non-for-profit association of Virtual Reality enthusiasts (professionals and amateurs), whose goal is just to have fun with VR.
A consequence is that we’re looking for cheap ways to do VR.

The VR Geeks association is part the French VR association AFRV.


A lot has happened since one year, so here’s a review !

Association

The association has been created in February 2011, and the board was elected :

- David Rauline : Secretary
- Geoffrey Subileau : Treasury
- Sébastien Kuntz : President

The association now has more than 60 members and 4 honorary members :

- Jaron Lanier: VR Pioneer, “found(er) VPL Research, Inc., the first company to sell VR goggles and gloves” (from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jaron_Lanier )
- Carolina Cruz-Neira: VR Pioneer, co-creator of the first CAVE
- Christophe Chartier, CEO Immersion SAS
- Didier Bouchon, video game pioneer

The mailing-list now has 145 members.

You can also follow us on our Facebook page.

Activities

Our main activity during this year has been to meet-up regularly (in bars and in Le Cube, digital technology center) and share knowledge.

Visit

We have visited the VR center of the Mines-ParisTech robotic center :

Creations

VR Kits

We created two Do-It-Yourself VR kits and a set of specifications to try to be able to share our applications with different hardware.
One kit is based on a HMD and costs 500€ :



The other kit is based on a 3D projector and costs 1000€ :

Games

We have created two games :

- VR Escape : a dark “escape-room”. The game was created in 48h during the Global Game Jam





- VR Sadistic : An original game by game designer Tahir Vico (and us), where the goal is to escape from a giant cube-shaped puzzle :

YouTube Video

Events

We have been invited to Laval Virtual, the main VR tradeshow in Europe.
We had a booth and also presented a poster at the VRIC conference. Here’s a full review.






Then we were invited to Intel’s Geek So In event :






And finally we gave a presentation at the Web3D conference during the Art Show organized by La Bibliothèque Francophone des Metaverses :

Press

We got quite a good media coverage :

What’s next ?

We have lots of plans for this year: visit more VR centers, create more applications, train our members on VR tools, take part in events … This is going to be an exciting year !

We’re looking for hardware to be able to create more applications, so if you have spare hardware that you don’t use anymore, or if you’re a company and you’re willing to sponsor us, let us know !

How to become a member ?

You can freely join the mailing-list.

You can support us by becoming a member. Membership costs 10€. You will receive an official “VR Geek” badge. Simply send us an email stating that you want to become a member and we will send the full instructions to you!

We've created a tutorial so you can write your own VRPN server !
All you have to do is fill in the blanks and share your server with us so we can centralize them here !

The tutorial is here : http://www.vrgeeks.org/vrpn/tutorial---vrpn-server

At last, a blog for the association :)
Long live !