Oculus
Crescent Bay isn’t a consumer version. But it’s getting there.
Over 1,000 developers attended Oculus’s first developer conference this weekend. The conference, Oculus Connect, aims to gather engineers, designers, and creative artists from around the world to develop breakthrough virtual reality experiences.
At the event, Oculus introduced the latest iteration of its VR prototype. Crescent Bay, as it is called, features a new display technology and 360-degree head-tracking capabilities. It’s is a big step from the Development Kit 2 (DK2). Oculus didn’t just improved the weight and ergonomics. Crescent Bay also sounds better, thanks to its high-quality audio and expanded positional tracking volume.
Audio is an important element to virtual reality. This time, Oculus licensed a special audio technology from RealSpace3D. The company hopes to harness RealSpace3D’s high-fidelity VR audio with a mix of HRTF spatialization and integrated reverberation algorithms.
During the demo, Oculus showcased a new demo content called Crescent Bay Experiences which offered a quick glimpse of the device’s VR capabilities. The demo included games and a few movie clips.
Speaking of graphics, Oculus has partnered once again with Epic to develop a new Unreal Engine technology called Showdown. However, Crescent Bay isn’t a consumer version. But it’s getting there.