GDC 2015 Day 0: Opaque Details Kinect Enabled ISS Virtual Reality Demo [Video]

[[Coi] Mr.CLuBBeR]

What it feels like to be Sandra Bullock in Gravity

If you've seen the movie Gravity, you may have found yourself wishing that you too could have a chance to explore a space station, if for nothing else than simply the view from so far up above. Or the thought of doing so might now make you soil your underpants after watching the flick. Not to worry because Opaque Multimedia's Earthlight demo lets you virtually explore the International Space Station through an Oculus Rift headset with motion tracking technology from Microsoft's second generation Kinect.
It also uses a proprietary Kinect 4 Unreal plugin to combine the technologies with Unreal Engine 4. The result is a realistic experience of what it would be like to actually visit the ISS, but without the fear of floating helplessly into space or having to go through all the training that real astronauts have to.
Where the Kinect comes into play is to go beyond the capabilties of the Oculus Rift. The Kinect allows users to see their limbs and combine it with the Oculus, and the way you move around Earthspace is by using your hands.
We sat down with Opaque for an in-depth discussion on the topic and the technological challenges they faced in the gaming space. Check it out:

And if you haven't seen the Earthlight demo, here's a look at that:



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