Integrating Rocketbox Avatars with the Ubiq Social VR platform

Having a truly ethical, unbiased technology, requires people devel-oping and using this technology to have an equal opportunity to participate in its creation. In this sense, open-access tools are a way to share best practices and enhance collaboration. In this paper, we will present the integration of the Microsoft Rocketbox avatar library into the Unity networking library Ubiq. We will see how they may contribute to the research in the field of populated virtual environments

User Motion Accentuation in Social Pointing Scenario

Few existing methods produce full-body user motion in virtual en-vironments from only the tracking from a consumer-level head-mounted-display. This preliminary project generates full-body motions from the user's hands and head positions through data-based motion accentuation. The method is evaluated in a simple collaborative scenario with one Pointer, represented by an avatar, pointing at targets while an Observer interprets the Pointer's movements. The Pointer's motion is modified by our motion accentuation algorithm SocialMoves. Comparisons on the Pointer's motion are made be-tween SocialMoves, a system built around Final IK, and a ground truth capture. Our method showed the same level of user experience as the ground truth method

Immersive competence and immersive literacy: Exploring how users learn about immersive experiences

While immersive experiences mediated through near-eye displays are still a relatively immature medium, there are millions of consumer devices in use. The level of awareness of the forms of the interface and media will vary enormously across the potential audience. Users might own personal devices or might encounter immersive systems in various venues. We introduce the term immersive competence to refer to the general practical knowledge and skills that users accumulate about how typical immersive interfaces work—the ways in which buttons are used, main locomotion techniques, etc. We then introduce the term immersive literacy to refer to awareness of how immersive interfaces are unique, when they might be appropriate, typical forms of media, etc. We sketch out how users develop competence and literacy with immersive media, and then highlight various open questions that are raised

Ubiq: A System to Build Flexible Social Virtual Reality Experiences

While they have long been a subject of academic study, social virtual reality (SVR) systems are now attracting increasingly large audiences on current consumer virtual reality systems. The design space of SVR systems is very large, and relatively little is known about how these systems should be constructed in order to be usable and efficient. In this paper we present Ubiq, a toolkit that focuses on facilitating the construction of SVR systems. We argue for the design strategy of Ubiq and its scope. Ubiq is built on the Unity platform. It provides core functionality of many SVR systems such as connection management, voice, avatars, etc. However, its design remains easy to extend. We demonstrate examples built on Ubiq and how it has been successfully used in classroom teaching. Ubiq is open source (Apache License) and thus enables several use cases that commercial systems cannot

Ubiq: A System to Build Flexible Social Virtual Reality Experiences

While they have long been a subject of academic study, social virtual reality (SVR) systems are now attracting increasingly large audiences on current consumer virtual reality systems. The design space of SVR systems is very large, and relatively little is known about how these systems should be constructed in order to be usable and efficient. In this paper we present Ubiq, a toolkit that focuses on facilitating the construction of SVR systems. We argue for the design strategy of Ubiq and its scope. Ubiq is built on the Unity platform. It provides core functionality of many SVR systems such as connection management, voice, avatars, etc. However, its design remains easy to extend. We demonstrate examples built on Ubiq and how it has been successfully used in classroom teaching. Ubiq is open source (Apache License) and thus enables several use cases that commercial systems cannot