Today at the Oculus Connect conference, Vice President of Product Nate Mitchell not only showed the third version of the Oculus Rift, the "Crescent Bay," but also revealed that the nascent platform is now a Unity 5 build target, opening up the device to a wide range of developers and potentially additional host platforms beyond Windows and OS X. Additionally, the company announced that it has licensed the RealSpace3D audio technology for future versions of the hardware and software.
The Crescent Bay prototype is still not yet the retail hardware. The new version has a better display than the DK2, has 360-degree head tracking, lighter weight, integrated positional audio, and better positional tracking. Oculus VR CEO Brendan Iribe said of the new hardware that "its' not perfect, but its a huge step forward" to the consumer release of the product. The new version is on display and at demo stations for attendees of the Oculus Connect conference to try.
While most of the current VR demoes at the conference are built on the Unreal Engine 4, future development is expected to take place in the Unity 5 engine. Both the free and pro versions of the hugely cross-platform Unity 5 game development engine will support Oculus. Full audio and 3D support has been implemented in the kit.
Oculus claims that the licensing of the RealSpace3D technology will enable "high-fidelity VR audio with a combination of HRTF spatialization and integrated reverberation algorithms." Several developer conferences will discuss the advantages of the new technology, as well as improvements made in immersion utilizing a robust soundscape in titles. More information on the integration is expected in the coming months.
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