Blueplanet VR v2

For my full review with pictures, visit: https://jamespwmartin.com/2020/07/26/review-blueplanetvr/ Blueplanet VR has no relation to the BBC production, Blue Planet, however it does feature some pretty astounding sights. Though most scenes struggle from bouts of low resolution textures and ugly shrubbery, each scene has at least one convincing view that justifies the scene. The most stunning scene is of Antelope Canyon, which exhibits some of the finest modeling and texture work in the whole game. Looking up through the walls of the cavern, it appears so photorealistic, I feel like I can reach out and touch the rocks. Gentle music, sound effects and particle effects add a nice touch to the experience. Blueplanet VR’s biggest strength is its ability to completely immerse you in stunning detail, giving the feeling of actually being there. There are also fly-over scenes that give you the reins to soar over recreated landscapes. One that stands out in particular is that of a glacier. The texturing and modeling of the cracked landscape is so precise, flying over it feels astounding. Most scenes give you at least one view that is worth your time, for example, in a cave scene, the textures and lighting work together to create a single view that is pretty incredible. However, if you turn around, the immersion in the scene is broken by sloppy textures and jagged edges. There is a degree to how bad some of the textures are, but some of them are really bad, irreparably breaking the immersion. Pockmarks of flat textures, as well as some incomplete geometry, kill the immersion that is so meticulously created throughout other parts of the scene. For example, a path along some ruins has clear geometry errors as a result of how the photogeometry is captured, resulting in jagged edges and missing geometry. In general, the textures are not a high enough resolution to closely inspect. Blueplanet VR looks its best when viewed from a distance. For example, in this stunning scene against a watery backdrop, the textures and modeling look immaculate. However, upon closer inspection, the textures start to pixelate and blur. These lower resolution textures are typically not a big deal, as you get a sense of where your attention should be focused based on how focused the textures are. Avoid looking too closely. However, there are some areas where the lower resolution quality is definitely an immersion-killer. For example, one scene presents a beautiful tree, meticulously modeled and detailed; but if you happen to look at the ground, you see a jumble of undefined, blotchy, and pixelated textures. It’s really hard to feel immersed in a scene when there is such a variation in texture quality. Enough poor-quality textures make some of the scenes really underwhelming; for example, this scene with a bell. The texture of the bell looks flat, the letters aren’t three-dimensional, and the colors look patchy and blurred. It doesn’t actually feel like I’m looking at the real bell, even at more of a distance. It also doesn’t help that the surrounding pillars have errors in their geometry. Too many immersion-killers puts the bell scene on the list of scenes that I will never visit again — and there are a few. For instance, there are panoramic shots of abandoned warehouses, power plants, and other industrial buildings, which have far less appeal than the natural wonders, and are generally uninteresting. There is also an abandoned shed that can be explored, but again, why would you want to? One of the biggest immersion-killers for me personally was the shrubbery and vegetation, which, as a result of how the image is captured, appear blocky, with jagged edges, blotchy textures, and a lack of transparency. Many beautiful scenes are ruined by bulging green abominations made of jagged geometry. There was a moment I thought I was going to fall into the Grand Canyon, but then I saw the plants and the illusion was destroyed. Pretty much anytime shrubbery or vegetation is too close to the camera, it’s going to be a problem. There is something about looking out to a beautiful waterfront view and realizing that none of the trees are blowing in the wind, the clouds aren’t moving, and there are no waves in the water. Many of the scenes really leave a craving for something more, perhaps that is the desire to actually visit some of these locations; but more so, it is a vision for where this technology could move in the future. If video VR technology could add wind to the branches and leaves and rippling waves to the water, the immersion would easily be doubled in certain scenes. Pretty much every scene with water struggles to look realistic. They add some steam effects to waterfalls to make it look like water is moving, but you’re going to have to use your imagination to imagine the water is moving. Water and vegetation are the two biggest immersion-killers throughout the experience. Despite its flaws, Blueplanet VR is still worth your time, granted the spectacular views it has to offer. However, the price point does seem a bit steep. For the $30 asking price, I would expect some of the geometry to be cleaned up, especially in regards to vegetation. For instance, the Grand Prismatic Spring in Yellowstone uses image data from Google Earth to create the scene. Especially when it comes to vegetation, the Google Earth data does not always translate so well and certainly could use some clean up. This exact same location within Google Earth VR has sharper textures and more defined geometry for the surrounding vegetation — and Google Earth VR is completely free. It just seems that with a $30 price point, details like that could be cleaned up, especially when the image data is coming directly from Google Earth. For the content available, $20 seems like a more appropriate asking price, and even then, I would probably recommend buying Blueplanet VR on sale. Luckily, the developers have more content packages planned for the future, so you can expect more scenes to be added over time. The ability to snap-turn within scenes is also still being added in, as of review, so there is potential for additional features to be added in the future. It would be easier to recommend at it’s current price point if I had a better understanding of where the development was going over time and how many more scenes would be added. I would also be very pleased if currently-released scenes had more work done to them to sharpen their textures and geometry. Ultimately, Blueplanet VR is a staple for any VR library, especially given the competition. I used to keep The Lab installed, specifically so I could introduce new VR users to the experience of being atop a mountain range, to see themselves in a beautiful environment. Now, I’ve uninstalled The Lab and I keep Blueplanet VR installed and I show them some of my favorite scenes, and there are plenty to choose from. I may even come back here by myself just to relax and enjoy the view. Reviewed on: Valve Index RTX 2070 SUPER Intel i9-9900k 64 GB RAM

The idea of this VR App is something I love and really want. I would pay quite a bit for one that is executed properly. The visuals and ability to move around the environment are very poor. You don't get to visit much or explore. It's just executed in as basic a way as it possibly could be.

Купил недавно за 350р на временной акции и скажу, что ожидал от игры большего. 500р и больше такое изделие точно не стоит, здесь нет свободы, очень много кривых склеек и артефактов на комнатах. Комнат вроде и много, но делать там нечего, даже дали нормальной нет, очень мало пространства. Есть несколько интересных комнат, но их по пальцам можно сосчитать, и то просто посмотреть 3 минуты и выйти. Выполнена работа на среднем уровне. Я разочарован, думал увидеть нормальный хит по пейзажам, но его нет. Можете купить на скидках также за 300р с копейками, но не более. Поддержу проект только ради всей индустрии VR, оставлю себе для коллекции. Но если не купите эту игру и не потеряете ничего, потому что тут нет ВАУ эффекта, как нет и профессиональной работы на фото.

日本人にはお勧めできない。 自由度や操作性を求めている人にもお勧めできない。 アーリーアクセスではないので、「現時点で」というお断りは入れません。 ちょっと世界の大自然を見てみたい、という人にはお勧めします。 見栄え自体はいい。 リラックスに使えるかどうかはちょっと怪しいけれど、モデルのサイズに違和感がなく光加減もよいので臨場感はある。 けれど、プロモ動画レベルのものがたくさんある、わけではない。 動画では滑らかに動いているが、作品内での操作性はジャンプ移動。 これがかなり没入感をそいでいます。 大半はほんの小さな領域しか移動できない。 デモ版は多少広めのデータを採用しているような状態で、デモよりももっと広いシーンが楽しめるかも、と思っているならばそれは大いに期待外れとなる。 日本人にとっては追加で悪いことに、マルチバイトコードの実装不正か、もしくは日本語に未対応のフォントでも使っているのか、文字がまともに表示されない。 確かに日本語のフォントは第１、２水準まででもある程度十分な結果第３第４の文字未対応のフォントを使って文字化けを起こすことは他のゲームでもちらほらあるけれど、一切チェックしていないと理解できるレベル。 日本語に対応してくれようとしたのはわかるけれど、「対応」と謳えるかというと、長らく放置されているようなので即時否定。

BluePlanet VR EXPLORE is a MUST HAVE for anyone who appreciates cultural heritage sites and recognizes the imperative for their preservation. Add this experience to your your inventory if for no other reason than to show off the breathtaking potential of VR. Eric Hanson and his team of creatives have produced a masterpiece. A retired college professor, teaching all levels of photography for more than thirty years, including alternative processes, and specializing in 3D nighttime, light-painted images, I would have been ecstatic to present my students with BluePlanet VR’s potential. EXPLORE offers visual and experiential content that can best be described as mind-bending. In no way shape or form should this type of content be thought of as a game. Where else than VR can one perform a “face-plant” into the woody interior of a two-thousand-year-old bristlecone pine and, a fraction of a second later, soar like a red-tailed hawk over the frozen-lava remains of an Icelandic glacier? There’s a real kick in being able to Zen out in God-light illuminated Antelope Canyon, and when the brain shifts from alpha and delta waves towards mindful meditation, one’s heartbeat may even slow even to permit near-religious experience. Imagine my excitement when I discovered a floating sphere hovering fifty or so feet out in the canyon beyond Fallen Roof Ruins. In this masterfully designed VR experience, you can leap onto that floating sphere and gaze back at the ruins from a position only attainable by drone. BPVR's "Evolutionary Spiral" handheld model coaxes geology rockheads and budding paleontologists to grab onto a corkscrew shaped timetable and navigate their way up from Grand Canyon’s Vishnu schist in search of life forms more sexually active than slime molds. Smooth movements, vertigo minimal carpet rides, design architecture that would tantalize museum curators & students from any number of disciplines, and perhaps even sway constipated congressional legislators to consider alternative solutions to environmental and cultural preservation issues. If there were a rating scale of 10, I would pop this app to a 20!

Updated review (jan 19th 2023) I've owned this app since its release, and even with a couple bugs, this is still my favorite VR title for photogrammetry, even when compared to other contenders such as Brink Traveler. In the right scenes, the quality is unmatched, and the locations are far more special. For instance there is a whole scan of the Carlsbad caverns, and it's just a treat to be able to experience the scale of such unique locations in VR. While there may be individual scenes that you can find in SteamVR Home or Brink Traveler that do a bit better than the worst scenes here, I find the overall package of Blueplanet VR to be incontestably better, even with the bugs (and lack of proper smooth locomotion, etc) Highly recommended, even with the higher cost, given how much work is needed to capture these locations in such high detail & lighting. Also note: To properly experience these locations, you need to turn up the supersampling in your SteamVR settings by quite a bit.

Large VR locations that you can walk around in and enjoy as a virtual tourist. While a bit expensive, I think it is worth the money if you enjoy nature and 'going' places you never could in real life. Note for Oculus Rift users, after using Oculus Tray Tool and setting default super sampling to 1.9 as recommended elsewhere the graphics improved and most stuttering went away. Your experiance may vary of course.

This is complete nonsense. If you've never been outside or looked at nature pictures this might be worth downloading the demo. $30? not so much.

Primeramente probe la demo y me quede con ganas de más. Así que después de adquirir la versión completa creo que ha merecido la pena poder ver tantos lugares que de otro modo no hubiera conocido. Apto para amantes del turismo virtual. En esta nueva versión hay una gran cantidad de ubicaciones nuevas, es muy recomendable.