Cloudhead Games is a pioneer in VR comfort, locomotion, and hand interactions.
From garage-hacker beginnings, Cloudhead was among the first to introduce the use of hand-tracking into VR with the Razer Hydra, a motion control system designed for use with traditional PC games. Following a suite of technical experiments and tech demos, Cloudhead garnered the attention of industry legend Valve and became one of the first developers for what would eventually become the HTC Vive.
As VR’s commercial release became imminent, Cloudhead committed to developing comfortable solutions for VR locomotion — a major point of friction for mainstream adoption. Cloudhead introduced Comfort Mode (now “snap turns”), to mitigate vection in hardware without positional tracking. After the dawn of roomscale, Cloudhead developed Blink Locomotion (now “teleport”), as a vection-less form of traversal intended for use in variable sized playspaces.
In 2016, Cloudhead became the first-ever developer to utilize VR performance capture, a method now used in major hollywood productions. Using VR, actors immerse themselves in the CG environments their characters appear in, allowing raw performance capture live within a CG scene.
Cloudhead’s innovations have led them to be selected as a partnered developer for VR hardware since 2013, producing technical demos for the reveals of HTC Vive, SteamVR Knuckles, and Valve Index.
Blink Teleportation
VR Performance Capture
VR Comfort Mode
PRESS
How Cloudhead Games fixed VR Movement and Created an Adjustable Sized Holodeck
Cloudhead Games is working on what amounts to a holodeck: A way to create large-scale environments you can explore in virtual reality, no matter the size of your home office or space around the computer.
Is this the World’s first full virtual reality motion voice capture session?
Forget latex suits and white ping-pong balls. Motion-capture sessions for video games and films have only gotten more intense over the years, thanks to advances like improved, LED-loaded motion-capture outfits and the ability to see robust TV-screen renders of an actor’s performance as soon as a take is complete.
Denny Unger on VR Comfort Mode for locomotion, VR design elements of scale, pacing, & motion tracking + Valve’s VR Room
Denny talks about the challenges with working with integrating so many different types of hardware at a point where it is still really new and raw. He sees that motion control is the future of VR because it can help create that natural sense of presence.
Awards:
Nominee 2018 Technology Impact Awards
– Startup of the Year
Nomination 2017 UploadVR Awards
– Best Developer of the Year
Nomination 2016 UploadVR Awards
– Breakout VR Game Studio
Nomination 2016 UploadVR Awards
– Most Innovative VR Game
Winner 2016 Canadian Video Game Awards
– Best Technology
Winner 2016 Canadian Video Game Awards
– Best Game Innovation
@cloudheadgames