March 16, 2023
min read
LIV has done so much experimental work over the years. Be sure to check out Part 1 if you haven’t already, where we talk about early Beat Saber experiments, cosmetics, and (partially) unreleased camera tools!
Otherwise: let's take a look at some products we've just released, products that are coming, and one LIV idea that we left on the shelf:
Quest-on-PC
Quest-on-PC is our bridge between the mobile app and PCVR mixed reality. At the end of the day, PCVR mixed reality will always yield the cleanest results, since you can record with powerful tools like OBS.
You can’t use OBS to balance your audio and adjust your keying with our mobile offerings like the Android app. The Android app only use a mobile phone and Quest, and OBS needs a PC to run!
What if your PC is strong enough to record VR gameplay, but you don’t have a mega powerful PC or dual PC setup to do mixed reality and recording at the same time?
Quest-on-PC is the in-between, you can use your PC to even stream your gameplay to Twitch, YouTube, or Facebook, while taking advantage of your Quest library!
This is one of the most affordable ways to get into mixed reality, a Quest and decent PC is much more affordable than an Index and beast gaming PC you’d need for PCVR recording.
Segmentive is available on Quest-on-PC too! Segmentive’s automatic background removal is available in every LIV offering so far, making all our apps accessible without a green screen.
StreamCom
This may be the world’s very first (and only ever) look into a LIV experiment we kept on the shelf: StreamCom! StreamCom is short for Streaming Communities and was based on exactly that; how can we use the pillars of chat interaction and the relationship they have with a streamer to make an engaging video game?
Against the backdrop of a cyberpunk nightmare world, a streamer and their community would have to work together in a 1v1 dual against a powerful entity. It featured a rock-papper-scissors-esque combat system, where the viewers had to help the streamer pick the best counter-attack to beat down the boss. The streamer would pose in VR with yoga-move-like attacks that matched what the viewers picked. The moves looked a lot like over-the-top Anime-style fighting stances, and each stance was better against and weak to another stance.
StreamCom would have only been available to play on a livestream, using a new and upgraded Gamechanger system (the same one that runs !bomb!) on LIV.Play (which doesn’t exist today).
We tossed around tons of silly ideas, like a system where viewers could shout into their microphone, and every viewers’ combined scream would grant the streamer even more power and the lapping audio files would play during a massive attack.
Ultimately, we decided to support other games with our software and recording options instead of making our own game. If you think this was a cool idea we should take another look at, let us know on Twitter!
LIV Spaces
Unlike StreamCom, LIV Spaces is coming to the internet very soon! Spaces stemmed from the same idea StreamComm did: connecting viewers and streamers in meaningful ways.
On a scale of hangout to video game, LIV Spaces definitely leans more towards a hangout, although there are little minigames included. LIV Spaces are customized streamer hangouts, where the streamer in VR uses their avatar to interact with tiny Buddies controlled by their audience.
Any streamer or content creator of any size can have their own LIV Space!
LIV Spaces supports full body tracking for our content creators’ avatars, and worked closely with the LIV community to give you all features that you need to make everything safe and homey.
One of our most requested features was an avatar encryption system. If you’re not careful, wandering around a game like VRChat could result in your avatar getting copied and stolen. That doesn’t matter if you’ve just grabbed a random one off the internet, but if you’ve poured hundreds of dollars into an artist’s time for a custom version of you in VR, you’ll want to protect it with avatar file encryption.
The streamer can see the LIV Spaces environment in any Steam VR game, as their avatar, in VR! It doesn’t even matter where you’re at, you could be starting in the SteamVR home menu, slashing bloqs in Beat Saber, or even fighting it out in non-LIV games like Creed: Rise to Glory! The LIV Spaces environment and buddies can be shown or hidden at will while you’re in VR, while the buddies can watch what your avatar is doing at any time.
We’ve also brought in custom branding for your stream! You can add your own little banner and change the fog in the world to colors that match your brand.
Remember Gamechanger? !bomb can spawn a giant explosion in LIV Spaces, and !booster spawns a jetpack for your viewers (we call them Buddies) to grab and fly around with!
It’s easy for viewers to sign in too, just connect your Twitch account to LIV.gg (or use an email to sign up) and you’re in! Don’t want to create a LIV.gg account? That’s okay, you can fly around without a Buddy on the map without signing in using Aquarium Mode. It does exactly what you think it does, it’s like looking into a fish tank with Buddies and a famous (results may vary) internet celebrity inside!
We really hope everyone enjoys LIV Spaces, whether you want your own Space to meet your audience, or you want to interact with your favorite VR content creator in a more interactive way than a typical Discord call.
LIV Spaces is still very early in development, so please provide us with feedback on Twitter or Discord so we can make LIV Spaces into exactly what the community wants.
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This was a look at everything we’ve worked on at LIV over the years, some secret and now some less secret! Let us know what LIV product you’ve lived the most or something you want us to show off in the future on Discord or Twitter.
