2 New Episodes + 2D Version and Windows MR Support Out Now!
We've got two new episodes up on Steam right now. We published Episode 3: Making Nanomachines with DNA featuring Shawn Douglas and Jason Brown a few weeks ago. Join us as we shrink from Shawn's lab in San Francisco all the way down to nano-scale to see how scientists can manufacture custom strands of DNA using phages.
Episode 4 takes us all into a VR representation of Adam Savage's shop with Adam and Norm from Tested, where you can take an extremely close look at some of Adam's favorite props, including an Apollo-era space suit, a replica of the Maltese Falcon, and his Admiral Ackbar mask. We also discuss the 3D scanning process and dig into Adam's inspiration for recreating his favorite film props.
With this update, we've also upgraded the technical backend for The FOO Show. Our 2D client, for people who don't have VR is now fully-featured and ready for everyone to use. You'll need a gamepad to control the camera, but you can access it by right-clicking on 'The FOO Show" in Steam and selecting the "Play 2D version" option.
We also support Windows MR headsets in beta form. You'll need to have the Windows Mixed Reality tools installed in Steam for it to work. Once you launch the game, you can use the trackpad to teleport and rotate and the trigger to pick things up.
If you enjoy the episode, please leave us a review on Steam! It's the best thing you can do to ensure we're able to make new episodes!
Episode 2 is out now! Take a very close look at Total War: Warhammer II
We recorded this episode back at E3 in June, and finally have a couple of new episodes of The FOO Show ready to show you. This week, we're kicking off with our Total War: Warhammer II episode. In it, Will talks to Creative Assembly's Henry Hankin and Al Bickham about bringing the tabletop world of Warhammer to the strategic RTS action of Total War. We take a VERY close look at some of the units from the game, and generally geek out about the classic Warhammer universe.
The episode is out now, so please enjoy and let us know what you think! We're almost done with the next episode, featuring nanomachines, will be up soon, and the 2D client will be up for everyone early next week, barring any showstopper bugs.
Version 1.01 Released!
We just released a patch with bug fixes and user interface enhancements for The FOO Show. Thanks to users who reported them, and if you have issues or questions, please post in the message boards if you have any other issues or suggestions. Issues fixed include:
Fixed issue that prevented some users unable to pick up objects in the Firewatch watch tower
Added rotation cues that tell people with 180 degree Oculus setups to use the thumbsticks to rotate
Changed thumbstick rotation from 90 degrees to 45 degrees and adjusted sensitivity to avoid unintentional turning
Controllers now hide when you pick up an object
Fixed lighting in the Firewatch tower
We're still tracking down the audio bug that results in hitchy or skipping playback. If you get it, restarting the application will fix the problem. If you get this bug, we'd love your log file! We need the output_log.txt file from the foo_data folder. If you'd email it to bugs@foovr.com, it would help us immensely.
Next, we're going to update the 2D client with these changes, so we can get it out ASAP.
New Episode - Quadrilateral Cowboy!
Our next episode, featuring Brendon Chung of Blendo Games and Quadrilateral Cowboy is live now. If you're a Kickstarter backer, you should have a code in your inbox, otherwise, you can buy it as DLC in Steam today!
The FOO Show Will Return in December
Good news everyone! We've finally got more episodes of The FOO Show coming! We've put the episodes up for pre-order on Kickstarter, and we'll start posting them on Steam (and Oculus Home) as soon as we can distribute keys to Kickstarter backers. The first episode should drop in December, with two per month following in January and February.
We had hoped we could make episodes available to you all for free, but the economics didn't work out. A lot went into that decision, but it boiled down to the fact that I'd rather be working for the people watching the show than advertisors or investors.
If you decide to back our Kickstarter, you'll get the entire first season of The FOO Show at launch for the lowest price and you'll have access to the episode as soon as we release it. We also have some cool merch that's exclusive to the Kickstarter, including some awesome enamel pins and FOO T-shirts.
If you don't have a VR headset yet, you can still watch The FOO Show. Kickstarter backers get exclusive early access to our 2D-only client. Using it, you can watch The FOO Show on most Windows PCs, no VR headset required!
If you want to know more about what's going on with us, the Kickstarter has a bunch of inside information. I've also posted a bit about what we've been up to, more about why we decided to charge for the show, and what we have planned for the future on our blog.
Whether you decide to buy episode of The FOO Show or not, I'm really grateful for your support and can't wait to show you what we have coming next.
///Will
Update 1.1
We had some problems with the latest SteamVR betas and our new headset autodetection, so we've taken a small step back and now have separate executables for the SteamVR and Oculus versions of the app. You can access the Oculus native version of the app by right-clicking on The FOO Show in Steam and selecting Oculus version.
Update 1
Hey gang, we just updated the first episode of the FOO Show with some stuff that we're pretty excited about. But first, thank you all for the overwhelming response to the first episode of our new show. We're one of the top-rated VR experiences on Steam, and that's thanks to you guys. We're reading all the reviews, comments you post on Twitter and Facebook, and anything else you want to send our way. We're really excited that you are into FOO.
We just rolled an update out that changes the way animations work and should improve the results dramatically while the avatars are seated. Let us know what you think on Twitter or our Medium post.
We've also added support for the Oculus Rift to the version of FOO that's on Steam. If you have a Rift connected, you can just download the app here and it should detect your Rift and work just like it does from Oculus Home. You'll need to enable third-party programs in Oculus Home, as we're using the Oculus 1.3 SDK for this build.
Other small stuff: We've done some behind the scenes work to shrink the space required on disk, fix a few annoying bugs, and generally get ready for regular weekly production later this summer.
That's it for now. We'll have some more small updates in coming weeks, and are on track to post a season of regular episodes later this summer.