Hello, Virtual World!

About

In preparation for the Philippine Mobile VR Jam on June 10-12, VR Philippines and Samsung brings you a Workshop on Mobile VR App development. This workshop is intended for beginners, and will cover everything you need to develop your first Mobile VR App for the Samsung Gear VR.

What topics will be covered in the workshop?

Basic 3D Modelling with Blender
Developing with Unity
Introduction to VR
Developing for Gear VR
Design Guidelines for VR

Take note that you have the option to choose only which topics you want to attend (e.g. If you already are a 3D artist/game developer just interested in getting into VR, you can skip the first or second topic)

What is the Gear VR?

The Samsung Gear VR is a mobile virtual reality headset developed by Samsung, in collaboration with Oculus. When in use, a compatible Samsung Galaxy device (Galaxy Note 5, Galaxy S6/S6 Edge/S6 Edge+, or Galaxy S7/S7 Edge) acts as the headset's display and processor, while the Gear VR unit itself acts as the controller, which contains the high field of view, as well as a custom inertial measurement unit, or IMU, for rotational tracking, which connects to the smartphone via micro-USB. This IMU is more accurate and well calibrated with lower latency than internal smartphone IMUs, such as those used for Google Cardboard.The Gear VR headset also includes a touchpad and back button on the side, as well as a proximity sensor to detect when the headset is on. The touchpad and button allow for a standard minimum input capability for users to interact with the virtual environments, whereas Google Cardboard devices only feature a button.

For more info, check out: https://www.oculus.com/en-us/gear-vr/

Who can participate?

This workshop is open to everyone - students or professionals, artists or programmers. You don't need to have prior experience in Blender, Unity or C#, but basic coding knowledge is expected. Since this workshop is intended as a primer for the Philippine Mobile VR Jam (more details soon), we will be prioritizing those that are interested in participating in the Jam, but it will not be exclusive to them nor will it be a prerequisite for the Jam.

What do I need to bring?

We'll be providing the Gear VR units (including the phone) that can be used during the workshop. If you have your own Gear VR, you are also very much welcome to bring it.

The only thing you need to bring is a laptop with the latest versions of the following free software and tools pre-installed:

• Blender
• Unity
• Android SDK (no need for Android Studio)
• Java Runtime Environment
• Java Development Kit

Make sure to also bring a mouse and extension cords for your laptops.

Program

08:00AM - Registration
09:00AM - Introduction
09:15AM - 3D Modelling with Blender
12:15PM - Lunch
01:00PM - Developing with Unity
03:00PM - Developing for the Gear VR
04:00PM - Design Guidelines and Best Practices for VR

What are the payment options?
You can either pay online through Paypal, but you can also choose to pay at the venue itself on the day of the workshop.

If you have any questions or concerns, please feel free to contact me at: toph@vrph.co or 09989661002

You should also confirm your attendance by joining the event page on Facebook.

The Philippine Mobile VR Jam
The Philippine Mobile VR Jam is a Virtual Reality hackathon that will bring together brilliant minds to learn and collaborate on creating applications and hardware solutions with immersive mobile virtual reality technologies over the period of 48 hours. It is intended for participants ranging from students to independent and professional developers. Its goal is to cultivate the development of local Virtual Reality content in the Philippines and help define the future of the technology. 

Registrations for the Philippine Mobile VR Jam will be opening on May 27.