DJI 大疆发布最新经纬M200 V2系列无人机 带来更高效行业解决方案
动力、性能、精度和安全性全方位升级，助力用户加速提升效率
（2019年2月21日 ）全球领先无人机系统及解决方案提供商DJI 大疆创新，今天推出了经纬M200 V2系列无人机及大疆司空政企版。经纬M200 V2系列全面改进的功能为全球无人机行业应用带来了全新格局。第二代经纬M200系列无人机保留了上一代的坚固机身设计、简便操作设置和便捷定制功能等特点，同时飞行系统性能得到多方位提升，以提供更安全、更可靠的飞行操作；大疆司空政企版帮助各行业客户提供全面的数据及组织管理平台。
大疆创新高级总监谢阗地表示：“2017年经纬M200系列一经推出便深受欢迎，不仅是因为设备所具有的卓越动力和高可靠性，更是因为它开启了无人机解决方案的全新篇章，更多机构通过使用经纬M200获得了不可替代的价值。经纬M200 V2较上一代有全面提升，功能更强大、操作更便捷、飞行更安全，且在处理复杂作业时更得心应手。可以预见到，更多行业客户将得益于无人机解决方案带来的效率提升，为生产力注入新动能。”
卓越性能担当，无惧严苛环境
经纬M200 V2系列飞行平台保持此前的机身设计，在可靠耐用的优点之上，显著优化了控制系统与飞行性能。经纬M200 V2系列的图传系统升级至OcuSync 2.0，可实现8公里图传距离，同时可以根据环境在2.4GHz和5.8GHz两个通信频段之间自动选频和切换 ，抗干扰能力增强。
经纬M200 V2系列所搭载的全新 TimeSync 时间同步设计将飞行精度与可靠性提升到全新水平。通过持续同步飞控、相机、GPS 模块、RTK 模块、第三方负载及机载配件的时钟系统，并对 CMOS 相机镜头中心点位置和天线中心点位置进行补偿，经纬M200 V2系列在任务中可以感知更精确的位置信息。
经纬M200 V2系列配备了自加热双电池系统，在低温环境下可自动升温，在低至-20 ?C的严寒天气到高达 50?C 极热环境中均可正常工作，并且续航时间长达38分钟，可较长时间进行飞行作业。
给予飞行与数据多重安全保障
经纬M200 V2系列拥有强大的自动避障能力，全新升级的 FlightAutonomy 系统结合前视、下视传感器，可自动感知并躲避障碍物，实现精准悬停，在复杂场景下也可安心飞行。同时，机身顶部及底部均配备夜航灯，在夜间指示飞行平台位置，保障飞行安全，并为附近无人机和传统飞机的操作人员提供额外的空域飞行信息，保障飞行安全，并保证特殊地区的夜间作业符合政府安全法规。
此外，经纬M200 V2系列新增飞行及数据安全等功能。其采用的AES-256加密技术，可协助各类行业客户控制或授权数据访问权限，为重要信息安全提供保障，在数据采集、传输、存储中加强安全性，避免通过飞行器硬件窃取或泄露数据的问题。
多版本机型搭配多样负载选择，满足不同行业应用场景需求
此前经纬M200第一代已经销往全球将近100个国家，在基础设施巡检、安防搜救和测绘等领域都有突出表现。经纬M200 V2系列将在第一代的优越表现上更进一步。与第一代相同，经纬M200 V2系列也具有三个机型版本，包括：经纬M200 V2、经纬M210 V2和经纬M210 RTK V2，以满足不同场景与任务需求。
经纬M200 V2提供单个下置负载支架，可用于安装相机镜头或其他数据采集设备。经纬M210 V2提供两个下置负载支架或上置负载支架，可按需求搭配不同镜头或负载，应用更广泛。 经纬M210 RTK V2包括内置的高性能RTK模块和兼容D-RTK 2移动基站，可为复杂的操作（如2D和3D建模等）提供厘米级精度测量。
经纬M200 V2系列支持一系列负载设备，包括DJI大疆官方推出Zenmuse XT2、Zenmuse X5S、Zenmuse X7、Zenmuse Z30、Zenmuse X4S和Zenmuse XT； 同时，还兼容通过DJI负载软件开发套件（Payload SDK）生态中认证的第三方负载设备。经纬M200 V2系列对负载设备可靠性进行了一系列优化，如飞控系统可以实时采集数据自动修正指南针误差，配套的DJI Pilot App可在负载更换后进行重心校准，大大提升了飞行安全，保障作业任务。
经纬M200 V2系列的解决方案一如既往地深入洞察行业客户需求。通过搭载禅思 Z30变焦相机，执法和作业人员可快速高效安全地完成警务侦察及基础设施巡检工作，提高行动效率；通过搭载禅思 XT2热成像相机，利用热成像数据可迅速定位设施异常部位、发现灾害现场受困人员等。
全新升级D-RTK 2移动站，提供更精准全球卫星导航
经纬M210 RTK V2兼容大疆全新升级的高精度GNSS接收器D-RTK 2移动站，以支持所有主要的全球卫星导航系统。 D-RTK 2 GNSS 高精度移动站支持GPS、GLONASS、北斗和GALILEO信号，可提供实时差分校正，并允许飞手或数据管理员获得厘米级定位数据，以提高相对精度。内置的高增益天线可提高卫星信号接收效果，加强抗干扰能力。
大疆司空升级政企版本 私有云助力用户灵活管理数据
专业软件能卓有成效地帮助行业用户更好地管理、使用及保护无人机的数据。DJI大疆创新同时推出了大疆司空政企版，并全面支持包括此次发布的经纬M200 V2系列在内的多款无人机。大疆司空是无人机综合在线管理平台，通过便捷易用的控制中心，实现视频实时传输、无人机数据自动同步和人员及设备管理等功能，帮助团队高效协同，降低运营成本。此次升级后，用户可以统一管理飞行器固件版本，使设备始终保持最佳工作状态；智能规划并保存航线任务，大幅提升重复性任务的工作效率；记录飞行器及电池使用时间及状态，为设备维护提供数据支持。大疆司空政企版特别支持在私有云或本地服务器环境部署，搭配私有化版本DJI Pilot PE APP，与客户原有的数据管理方案融合，针对客户灵活、 安全的数据需求，提供更完善的无人机解决方案。
然世界仍在怀疑虚拟现实是否真的会成为下一个计算平台，但数以亿万计的资金仍在不断涌入该领域，这意味着人们已经在追逐那些非常真实的美元。但这些人并不都是企业家。许多人是代码的战士，他们想出了最具创意的方式来向越来越多的VR初创公司发送简历：VR本身。
日前多个平台（包括YouTube）出现了一份沉浸式简历演示，这位求职者通过视频网站的360度功能，在田园诗般的虚拟森林中向公司提供了简历的沉浸式版本。
虽然这还未演变成一种趋势，但至少在一个社区已经兴起了这种潮流。Sketchfab中的VR简历正在不断涌现，其中包括使用《Tilt Brush》制作的沉浸式简历（无需任何开发者技巧）。
一些VR简历包括动画，其他则包括静态视觉谜题。在大部分情形下，在VR中设计工作历史记录文档的方法存在一定的积极作用。
虽然VR尚未成为主流，高盛预测VR在2025年将会成为800亿美元市场的一部分，所以像这群VR求职者一样早日投身于VR行业或许是明智的选择。
（转自YIVIAN）
Well, it’s happening.Nintendo is getting into VR. Sort of.Labo VR might not be a fully fledged headset, but it does open the floodgates a tiny bit. When Labo VR launches next month it will let players morph their Switch into a makeshift headset using cardboard. It’ll probably only play a handful of family-friendly mini-games as opposed to full Zelda-style VR adventures. We have wish lists for those types of gameshereandherealready.
But allow us to dream a little. Below we’ve thought up seven mini-games that we think would be a great fit as Nintendo Switch Labo VR games.Tom Nook’s Fishing Training
Animal Crossing’sbreezy life and whimsical pace is perfect for a VR introduction. But if there’s one series staple that would work best in VR? It has to be fishing. We can see ourselves sitting out by the lake on a sunny afternoon, kicking back with a cold drink as we cast our rods. It’s either that or Tom Nook’s Interior Deco training which, to be honest, we also really like the sound of.Link’s Crossbow Training
Here’s a deep cut in the Wii’s library. Link’s Crossbow Training was a spin-off packaged with the Wii Zapper peripheral. You tore through the same environments as seen in The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess with a crossbow, taking down ghouls and goblins. We’d love to see an updated take on the game for Switch VR. Perhaps revisiting some of the most stunning locations from 2017’s Breath of the Wild so we can admire them in VR?Mario Kart VR Grand Prix
Mario Kart is actually the only Nintendo series to havealready brushed with VR. We know the series can work inside headsets, but now it’s time to let everyone join in. Mario Kart VR wouldn’t have to convert all of Mario Kart 8 (though we wouldn’t scoff at that). Instead we could see this offering a cinematic taste of the games frantic racing, just like the arcade version. The full game could wait for a better headset.Yoshi’s Safari Returns
UploadVR Gaming Editor David Jagneaux brought up this deep cut from the SNES library. Yoshi’s Safari was an on-rail first-person shooter using the Super Scope peripheral. You played as Mario, riding on Yoshi’s back, gunning down enemies of the mushroom kingdom. That’s right, Yoshi drive-bys. This is not the Nintendo we know. Still, it does sound like it would make for a good VR game, doesn’t it?Hey You, Pikachu!
This is my personal favorite pick. Hey You, Pikachu! was essentially a Pokemon Tamagotchi game for N64. You looked after your very own electric mouse, playing games with it and trying to earn its trust. The original game uses a microphone to let you communicate with Pikachu. Here, though, we’d love to simply build a bond with the little guy like never before.Samus’ Ship Piloting
The day we can play a full Metroid Prime game with native VR support is the day we die happy. But, until then, Labo VR could offer just a taste of the universe. We’ve had basic interactions with Samus Aran’s gunship in the past but we love the idea of a full space piloting experience where we have full control over the ship.Pokemon Snap VR
I mean, this has to happen, right? Pokemon Snap never got the sequel it truly deserved and, now that VR is coming to Switch, it’s time to right that wrong. Pokemon Go evenjust recently got a Snapshot mode.The original on-rails adventure had you snapping shots of Pokemon in their natural environments. VR’s head-tracking would prove to be the perfect way to handle a camera in 2019.
Platforms: Rift (reviewed), Vive, and Windows VR with Quest and PSVR planned
POSITIVES
- Enrapturing colors and presentation- Satisfying combos with a solid gameplay loop once you nail it- Extremely high level of polish- Laser gun-based rhythm mechanic is unique
NEGATIVES
- Small selection of tracks- Lack of music style diversity- Not immediately intuitive- Lacks physicality
Beat Saberwas the VR shotheard around the worldand clearly Harmonix was listening closely. For a studio that is literally named after an element of music and has established their legacy asthemusic game creation game company with titles like Amplitude, Rock Band, and Dance Central to their credit, not to mention VR games likeRock Band VR,Singspace, andHarmonix Music VR, it’s no wonder they were listening.
Audica is clearly and simply inspired by Beat Saber, which isn’t inherently a bad thing, but its relatively unwieldy mechanics and lack of overall fluidity makes it harder to recommend than its competitor’s dead simple pick-up-and-play approach.
The basic premise here is that you shoot blue and orange nodes inside VR using motion controllers to the beat of the music. Instead of slicing boxes,punching orbs, orblocking objects, you shoot colorful targets. It’s just different enough to feel distinct, obviously requiring a different type of hand-eye coordination than physically punching or swinging. And when you nail it and rack up a huge combo, it feels extremely satisfying.
Once you get in the zone Audica has a way of feeling almost more like a dance than anything else. You’re not only aiming at targets as boxes close in on the center, but also swinging your arms to swat down orbs trying to hit you and scanning the field with your head to locate the next target. Engaging your head and forcing you to move and look somewhere other than straight ahead was definitely an adjustment for games like this. We’ve yet to really see a rhythm game in VR that takes full advantage of the 360 space.
When you watch footage of this game it’s a bit hard to tell the nuances of each movement, but there are actually a lot of different ways to shoot a target in Audica. There are basic shots with circle targets, diamond shaped shots (shown below) that require holding the trigger to channel electricity, as well as dual combo shots, chain shots that require tracing a pattern while holding the trigger, as well as both vertical and horizontal shots. It’s a lot to digest.
Even though the tutorial throws everything at you quickly the actual difficulty stages are pretty diverse. In a game like Beat Saber cranking up the difficulty usually just means more blocks moving faster, but in Audica you have entire new game mechanics to contend with depending on which setting you pick.
As it turns out, gameplay is actually very similar to an obscure downloadable rhythm game you’ve probably never heard of calledOsuwhich involves dragging your cursor through circles as they shrink and timing it as the outer circle hits the center. Or like inElite Beat Agents for DS. Basically that, but in VR and with two guns.
I think my main issue with the core gameplay loop is that it doesn’t feel as fine-tuned as it should be. For example, playing on the Rift, one of the most popular VR headsets on the market, it’s very easy to miss new targets. Frequently on the second difficulty tier and above, new targets will appear outside of the headset’s field of view. The only indication that target is there is a faint aura that emanatesjust beforeit appears but if you’re turning your head or already looking at an existing target it’s way too easy to miss it. A headset with a wider field of view would help, but I only tried it on Rift for this review.
Another issue is that the key action you’re performing (quickly aiming and shooting shooting targets) doesn’t feel natural. Usually when you shoot a gun in real life or in other VR games you’re holding it up, arms steady, and taking aim carefully or at least with some stability. On the contrary in Audica your arms are swimming through the air, almost like you’re in a ballet, as you swat away objects and quickly take aim at new targets just as they appear. There is basically zero down time for you to register what you need to do exactly. However, this does foster a need to memorize the song patterns and it becomes a much more skillful game, which will appeal to hardcore players.
Right now Audica only has 10 songs, the same number that Beat Saber launched with and they’re planning to have at least 25 by the end of the year along with a Campaign mode, Practice mode, more environments, more weapons to use, a more expanded leaderboard, and (possibly) more gameplay mechanics such as borrowing from Rock Band’s “overdrive” feature. Right now you get those first 10 songs with four difficulty levels each, a basic online leaderboard, one level, and one weapon set. The current track list isn’t bad, but all of the music just sort of sounds the same. Electronic music fits the style and genre well, but it definitely lacks diversity.
As it stands Audica is definitely something different, for better and for worse. The gameplay mechanics are enough to make it stand out, at least on the surface, in a crowded VR rhythm game market, but the circumstances surrounding how and why it’s different aren’t always in its favor.
I hate to have made so many comparisons to Beat Saber in this review, butespecially on the PC side of thingswhere the active modding community is providing Beat Saber with anear infinite number of songs,moddable sabers in the game, and so much more, it’s hard not to. For a lot of people the question is: Why should I buy Audica if I already have Beat Saber? And it’s hard to make a compelling argument right now to be perfectly honest if you’re knee deep in Beat Saber.
Final Score:TBD
Since this is an Early Access game, we are not issuing a final score. The game is still in development and is not officially “finished” so we are withholding final judgment. However, in its current state as of publication, we do not recommend Audica across the board. If you’re a big fan of rhythm games then there is plenty to sink your teeth into and you’re gonna have fun, but if you’re picky about styles of music or already enamored with Beat Saber, we don’t think there is enough here to pull you in just yet.
Audica is available nowon Steamfor Vive and Rift as well ason Oculus Homefor $19.99 on both stores. Read ourGame Review Guidelinesfor more information on how we arrive at our review scores
byJAMIE FELTHAM?MARCH 8TH, 2019
“Bulldogs are a symbol of the British spirit,” Captain Oliva ‘Liv’ Rhodes tells you as you inspect her Union Jack-sporting dog ornament wearing a Churchill hat. “We don’t want to know when the odds are against us.”
“Ah,” your character, an android named Jack, replies. “Sounds familiar.”
In a few hours’ time, it will to you too.
Lone Echo did a lot of things really, really right. From the revelatory zero-gravity locomotion to the unmatched visual fidelity, Ready at Dawn’s VR debut remains a must-play. But much of the game’s atmosphere and action would be for naught if it wasn’t down to the remarkable bond you grow with Liv. It’s arguably the game’s crowning achievement.
VR itself plays a part in that. Liv, an assured and regimented captain, isn’t afraid to get right up to the player’s eyes and make sure they meet her own. The developer’s flair for visuals also helps. Liv is one of VR’s most expressive and detailed NPCs. She shows herself to be equal parts confident and kind, ready to get the job done but with compassion for those that do it. Her tone is stern but welcoming. Actor Alice Coulthard gives her equal parts authority and approachability.
But it’s also true that Liv herself is a compelling companion. She’s funny and fierce, with little time for the protocols and formalities her rank implies. In the opening, Jack is trapped. He begins to over-explain a possible malfunction. Liv waves her hand to interrupt and bangs on the pod. A lever appears to release you. She shoots you a playful smile. “You’re all set.”
She’s strong and capable, too, held back only by her own mortality. When a mid-game development leads her to believe Jack is gone, she packs up and ventures into uncharted space on an ironically suicidal survival mission.
It’s Liv’s curious relationship with Jack that gives it all weight, though. It feels partly paternal but somewhat cautiously romantic, too. Dialogue between the two is relaxed and open, yet Liv is playing one part mother, one part partner. At some points she mockingly picks at Jack’s AI constraints as if he’s a child learning the ways of the world. In others, she fondly recalls the pair’s relationship as if it were something more intimate. The game opens to Liv learning she’ll leave Jack behind when she finishes her tenancy at a mining facility. It’s a conflict she carries with her for the rest of the story, informing every fond memory with a hint of sadness.
Lone Echo’s closing act solidifies that work. The climactic ending, in which you battle to save Liv’s life, carries genuine desperation. But, perhaps more tellingly, it’s how Jack inherits some of her qualities that shows you her strength. “I will walk you through the procedure,” an AI construct named Apollo says, referring to how to keep your ship intact.
“Or, we could just break them,” Jack replies.
And yet, like I said in my review two years ago, we stop short of getting definitive answers as to what these two are to each other. Lone Echo plays like the first act in something wider rather than the complete story. Getting back in to further explore the dynamic between Jack and Liv is one of the main reasons I can’t wait for Lone Echo II. The five minutes we spend with her in the experience trailer suggest Ready at Dawn is reassured in who Liv is. She plays cards with your dismembered arm and shrugs it off when you notice. It also hints we might see more of the history between the two explored.
What Ready at Dawn did with Liv in Lone Echo was lay a foundation. Not just for the developer to build upon with a sequel, but also for others to start experimenting with. Years from now, Liv will be one of the original templates for VR character interaction. We’re eager to see how she evolves from that.
“Just sit tight,” the British bulldog says with a wink in the Lone Echo II teaser. We’ll gladly wait.
Sporting a new engine, big new features and even bigger ambition,Insurgency: Sandstorm, the sequel to the mod-turned-indie FPS hitInsurgencyfrom developer New World Interactive, released at the end of last year to critical acclaim.
Now, with more than500,000 playershaving played the tactical FPS and hot on the heels of the game’sfirst major content update, we spoke with New World Interactive community manager Alex Blonski to learn more about listening to player feedback, plans for the future, the newfound popularity of tactical shooters, whether or notInsurgency: Sandstormmight ever go into battle royale territory, and much, much more.
Q:Insurgency: Sandstorm’sfirst major content update just released last week. Tell us more about what all that includes.
The new update has been a long time coming for us. I think the last update was December 21st, so it’s been a bit over two months. We’ve been working through all the bugs, feature requests and that sort of thing from the community, trying to get as many of them into the game as we possibly can. At the same time, we’ve been working on new content including a new game mode; basically an Arcade game mode where we can switch between simple game modes and make adjustments overtime, so it stays fresh — almost like a new game mode every month or two. [The plan is to] put those in on a rotating basis. People that also host community servers, host their own servers, they can run those whenever they want after that point. The point of that is we are going to start these smaller game modes that we’re going to be rotating in and out over time so we have something fresh for people to look at. There’s also a lot of new weapons in the game, including two variants of the MP5. We’ve got a couple new machine guns, one for each side, as well as a replacement pistol for the Glock. Lots of new stuff and we’re hoping to continue pushing these updates over time.
If you know anything about our last game we continued doing updates for three years, for the originalInsurgency. While we can’t commit to a specific amount of time that we’ll do it [update support], that’s kind of the model we want to follow, having a very long tail in terms of updates for the game.
Q: You mentioned listening to the community for this most recent update. What kind of features have players been requesting and how influential is the player base in charting the future of the game?
It’s interesting, basically our community, because we are kind of situated in between being a very hardcore, mil-sim (military simulation) type of shooter and almost like a casual shooter likeCall of Dutyor somewhere in the middle, we get influences from both sides of what they [players] want. The really hardcore mil-sim guys want very realistic weaponry, they want new maps that reflect a bigger area they can play in. The guys that want hardcore shooter stuff want gameplay changes, performance based stuff, because they are very much twitch shooters. And then you have people who like specific type of game modes. We have co-op only players. That’s become a huge game mode for us in terms of our player population and something players have been taking more seriously. In other games, usually playing versus AI is something that is a beginning game mode, a teaching game mode. There are guys in our community, they’ll have custom servers, they’ll put bot difficulty as high as they can, adjust it as much as they can, put in way more bot waves than you’d ever think possible, and see how far they can push their own personal limits against a wave-based or capture-based system.
So we have to satisfy all those different groups. I think what we’ve learned over time, starting as a mod and then moving on to the original Insurgency, which was an indie game, is that we have to listen to our playerbase. We do not have the same marketing resources that a lot of AAA game publishers and game companies would. It’s important for us to satisfy our communitys needs. Word of mouth and them being satisfied with the game is how the game gets passed around and how 8 million people own a copy of the originalInsurgency.
Q: What is the split between the playerbase of Co-op and PvP? Is there a lot of crossover, or does it seem like people who play Co-op mostly just play Co-op and people who play PvP just play PvP?
There is some crossover. Some people do play both. But typically what people do is they find the game mode they like and they stick with it. Guys who are competitive players, they will play the 5v5 Competitive mode and that’s pretty much all they’ll play, unless they want some downtime to relax and they’ll play a round of Push or something like that. The Co-op guys, usually you’ll have guys who go in there to relax and take a break from PvP, but I’d say generally the community is split between those game modes and they’ve found which ones they like already. There almost seems to be an even distribution between our most popular PvP mode and our Co-op mode right now. But some of our other modes, like Competitive, are catching up as well.
Q: You said you’re hoping to be updating the game for years to come. I know there was a single player campaign that was cut over the course of development. Is that something that could come back? Is there player demand for that, is it something players are passionate about?
I think it’s difficult for players to be passionate about it because of how long ago we decided to cancel it for the launch, but we do hear people asking about it. The original idea for that game mode was to have a female character in a different environment and atmosphere than you’d see in most military shooters, especially bombastic AAA ones, and tell a unique story with it. I think there were a lot of people who found that interesting.
For us on our side, I think early on we bit off a bit more than we could chew in terms of the amount of resources it takes to put out a single player version of the game. Going forward our primary focus is making sure we get some quality of life features in for people to keep people playing over a period of time and getting the console version ready for people who want it on console, because there are a lot of them — to serve them with an experience they don’t normally get, a more hardcore shooter on console. Typically big mil-sim games are PC only, so it’s something we’ve seen a lot of demand for. We haven’t ruled out going back to the single player storyline or releasing it in bits and bites, but right now those are our major focuses, really polishing the game for our PC playerbase and working towards a console launch later this year.
Q: You mentioned adding quality of life features, what are some examples of that?
A few things. Optimization is a big thing, trying to make sure as many people as possible can play the game. Not only trying to make it run better on people’s systems that own the game now but for people who played our original game. [The originalInsurgency] was on an older engine, and if we can polish down [Insurgency: Sandstorm] even more to let even more people play the game, that’s very big for us.
Another big thing is community servers. We’ve added a cosmetic system inside the game, you earn experience by playing games, but right now the only way to get experience is to play on a NWI (New World Interactive) server, just so we don’t have people creating their own servers, putting in a billion waves, turning down bot A.I. or having a custom level in a small space and just reaping those points. One of the big things is to have a method to allow these community servers to start earning that experience. It sounds like a small thing, but in the originalInsurgency, a lot of people would go into community servers where, it’s likeCheers(laughs), you build up a community through that and you go where everybody knows your name. You start playing with them, some of those servers would have their own leaderboards and tracking, you’d try to get to the top of that, it has a custom ruleset you like. For us on our side, it’s making sure we lock down the experience to servers that go by a specific set of settings standards, basically they are approved for experience to be gained on those servers so we aren’t adding it to ones where you’re changing that ruleset beyond what would be on one of our servers. It’s something we are working on, hopefully that should be coming a bit sooner than the two month gap we had in the last update. This last update took a little bit longer because we were changing over to the latest version of the Unreal Engine at the same time as well. It delayed us a little bit.
Q: The originalInsurgencywas on Source engine, and now you’re on Unreal. What kind of challenges did that present that the team had to overcome?
The majority of the team had been using Source basically their entire career. We hired a lot from the original Source modding scene for a lot of our development team, so it’s [Unreal] a brand new engine we haven’t touched before, it’s a lot newer. Everything in Source, Source isn’t updated that often at this point. I think they literally released their last major update this week in the last year. It’s old, it hasn’t been updated, so everything there is to find out about that engine has already been found out.
Moving to Unreal, it’s cool because it gives us a lot of different options and, of course, graphics capability that we’ve never had before. There’s a huge community in terms of development as well because there are a lot of games that are using the Unreal Engine at this point, so we can lean on a lot of the development community in terms of making changes to the game, optimizing it, inserting new features. It’s not like we lose out on that. I know the downside, something that was hard to foresee, is there are a lot of people who could run our old game. Our old game could basically run on a potato, so a lot of people didn’t get to come with us [toInsurgency: Sandstorm]or came with us without looking at stuff like system requirements and thought the game would run like it was on a 10-year-old engine. That part has become harder. We’re working to get as much graphical prowess and make the game run as fast as possible so we can get as many as people possible from the original community into this game. Like I said, we have a long tail and people’s systems will continue to get better over time and we’ll continue to make the game run faster over time.
Q: Earlier you mentioned Arcade mode. New modes, are those going to be limited to Arcade mode, or is there a chance for a more permanent core mode to go along with some of the existing ones?
I think it’s possible to get more game modes in there. I think the interesting part about Arcade is that it’s there as a fun side addition and it’s refreshing for people when they go in there once in awhile to see something new. The bigger game modes, the thing we do want to avoid is we don’t want to split our community too much. We’re notApex Legendsor something like that where we have a billion players playing at any given time. So it’s important to keep people together as much as possible. The more divisions, the more options you get for them to split from each other, the harder it is to keep people together. If we do add more game modes, we want to make sure they are going to continue to grow the community and that we’re serving either a new playerbase or that our older playerbase is going to continue to grow over time. We do have ideas, and, of course, our community has sent us a ton of ideas, but we’re trying to be sure if we do work on a new game mode, it’s going to continue to grow our community.
Q: So you’re saying a battle royale mode is still on the table then?
(Laughs) I wouldn’t rule it out. It’s not something we are actively working on or planning, but any of these game modes, you have to make sure your map system, every little bit is thought out. You can’t just throw a game mode out there and assume people are going to love it or do no testing on it and just create a ton of game modes. We had a lot of game modes in the last game and some of them just didn’t get played. You want to make sure you’re working on the things that are going to benefit the most people or what people are asking for in terms or modes or weapons or whatever features people are wanting you to add.
Q: Are there any plans for future maps to expand out of the Middle-Eastern setting, or is that the focus for now?
I think right now we are focusing on the Middle-Eastern environment. We have a lot of maps in the hopper that look a little bit different from the desert landscape that we have with a lot of our maps right now. In the originalInsurgency, it’s kind of the same thing, we went to a lot of different places inside that environment that people don’t think about. We had a mountain map in the lastInsurgencywhere it’s all snow-covered. People assume it’s not Middle-East, at least if theyre North American or European and don’t know much about the Middle-East. There’s mountainous regions that have snow. You can do indoor environments. In the last game we had Ministry, which is an almost entirely indoor map in a gigantic ministry building. You can switch up the type of environments pretty easily. We want to maintain an aesthetic. I don’t want to say we’ll never go to another environment, but we want to get through the maximum environments that we have right now in this aesthetic.
The cool part too is community maps. That’s the first modding thing we want to do, allow mapmakers to go out there and make their own maps. If they have cool ideas we’ve promoted those maps in the past and have worked with map creators to get those maps as official maps in the game, and some of those creators have gone on to be hired by the team or paid for their services. We’ll continue to look at doing that as we release support for custom map development.
Q: What is the mod support like right now?
The first thing will be custom map support. And then we’ll try to get a lot of the same support for mods like custom voice lines, UI changes. People went hogwild with our last couple games so we want to see how far we can push that inside the Unreal Engine. That will come a little bit further down the road. We’re going to start out with custom map support.
Q: Realistic shooters, games likePUBG,Rainbow Six Siege, and of courseInsurgency, are having a bit of a resurgence recently. Do you have any insight as to why you think that is?
I think as players develop over a period of time, they also want more complexity inside their games, so not just “I’m going to run-and-gun, run-and-gun, run-and-gun.” That’s the typical style you see in a AAA shooter. Some people want to have a more tactical experience as they grow as players, they get better and expect more. There has been a pretty decent market for realistic shooters over time. You have yourArmas(America’s Army) andEscape from Tarkovon the very realistic end. For those guys, they sometimes want a break from that style and have things happen a little bit faster. So we kind of position ourselves in the middle of all those with our game mechanics. We take some of the realistic elements, or authentic elements, from the military-sim shooters and some of the pace and faster mechanics, more fun mechanics, from theCall of DutysandBattlefieldsand mash them together with our own mechanics, and you haveInsurgency: Sandstorm.
It’s really weird. You find people inside of our game, because they come from these different backgrounds and communities, they play the game really different. You see that even when they get higher up there in skill level. Some will be methodical and slow and peek around every corner and communicate a lot. And you have people who rush out into the middle and play it as a run-and-gun style. Both are viable tactics and can be used at any given point as long as the player is good at them. We do have very fast paced Competitive players who play at a really fast pace, trying to out-speed others, and you have the guys who are playing and just holding angles tactically. It’s funny to see those metas develop over time and how players gravitate towards one side or the other depending on what games they’ve played.
I think there are these middle grounds. The first person-shooter market is so big, you can cut off a slice of that and have something. It’s this rainbow of games, all these military games, you can slot them into basically a chart from most realistic and the fastest to the most realistic but the slowest, and you can probably name 15 games at least that are very popular and are getting played a lot even years after they’ve launched. Indie game development has made a much easier path to get your game out there and give gamers a lot more options in terms of the style they want to play.
Lale Akyol was born in 1963, Ankara. She began her arts education in 1999 with Saadet G?zde as focusing on drawing and watercolor. She continued her works between 2000 – 2002 with Sabri Ak?a. In 2003 she continued working on watercolor with Orhan G?rel in his atelier, also she worked with I??l ?z???k in 2005. At the same time, between 2003-2009 she worked at Hikmet ?etinkaya Atelier focusing on oil paint. She keeped working on oil paint with G?lay Y?ksel at 2010. She works at her personal atelier since then. She has performed 15 personal exhibitions, has been invited to well known art events like Dakar Art Fair and Florance Biennial, attended art fairs in Ankara and held more than 50 group exhibitions. Lale Akyol examines and questions birth, death and the life between them. She leads her audience to think about how life is miserably very short for some and about the unfinisihed dreams and hopes. She conveys this message through the women characters in her works. As to the artist, women are maybe the most affected ones by birth and death phenomenons, as feeling the deepest and tense emotions since they are able to give birth. She draws attention to the loss of babies, children and young people by using the butterflies as metaphors considering their short lives. She wishes by heart that we will all enjoy long lives as long as the olive branches and we will be connected to life with our hopes as we are connected to life once through the unbilical cords.
? Lale Akyol | Artist Biography | Artworks |www.instagram.com/laleakyol/
作为世界上用户量最大的操作系统，Android成为新游戏崛起的热门平台并不令人意外，比如说《堡垒之夜》和《荒野求生》。但是，这样的3D游戏对Android设备而且要求非常高，而且实现起来相当复杂。
为了帮助开发者能够更好地控制3D图形的复杂细节，同时无需针对每个Android设备进行单独优化，谷歌正在开发一个名为“Android Game SDK”的项目。
首次于2018年9月与大家见面的SDK目前主要包含一个库：Swappy。它是基于Vulkan图形API，并且旨在帮助Android游戏开发者对交换间隔等项目进行精细控制。
根据日前关于Anrdroid Q的泄漏信息，开发者选项中的Settings app“Game Update Package Preferences”同样有可能与这个新的Android Game SDK有关。
谷歌Android Game SDK的其中一个目标是优化Unity 3D引擎在Android上的性能。为了做到这一点，其中一个示例将旨在用于Unity。
事实上，谷歌曾在一次提交中计划将示例输出直接包含在“Unity源码树”中。由于Unity 3D不是完全开源，因此谷歌必须直接与Unity合作以推进Android Game SDK。
这不是谷歌和Unity的首次合作。在2016年的谷歌I/O大会上，Unity的首席执行官John Riccitiello曾上台帮助演示了DaydreamVR。
目前要看到Android Game SDK能够为Unity或其他引擎带来任何提升仍为时过早，而且我们可能尚需数月时间才会听到有关它的官方消息。不管如何，谷歌显然十分重视Android游戏。
大家或许不会对注视点渲染这个概念感到陌生：由于我们的眼睛只能在视场中心范围内看到高保真度内容，所以VR系统可以集中渲染注视点位置的图像，并降低外围视场的图像质量较低，从而降低整体系统的渲染消耗。对于这一点，眼动追踪可确保系统能够始终在用户视场中心渲染高质量图像。如果足够优秀，用户将完全不会察觉到任何的不同。
注视点压缩同样利用了类似的原理，谷歌在文件中写道：“处理单元配置为渲染代表图像高敏锐度区域的第一像素，以及代表图像低敏锐度区域的第二像素。塑形器配置为根据低敏锐度区域的至少一个维度重新组织第一像素。多路复用器配置为多路复用重新组织的第一像素和第二像素以形成显示数据流。编码器配置为压缩传输至显示器的显示数据流。解码器配置为解压缩显示数据流。解复用器配置为解复用第一像素和第二像素。另一个处理单元配置为混合第一像素和第二像素以形成表示图像的混合像素值。”
相关专利：Foveated Compression of Display Streams
简单来说，谷歌系统将利用眼动追踪把图像划分为中心注视点的高敏锐度区域和外围视场的低敏锐度区域，然后利用算法尽量保持高敏锐的原始像素，并重点解压缩低敏锐度区域，从而有效降低无线传输所需的带宽，并且提供中心注视点区域“几乎无损”的质量。
值得一提的是，谷歌研究院在2017年同样撰写了一篇名为“Strategies for Foveated Compression and Transmission（注视点沿所与传输策略）”的论文。
另外，这篇论文的作者是负责谷歌VR渲染研究工作的Behnam Bastani，而Facebook已于2018年将其挖到了专注于沉浸式技术研究的Facebook Reality Lab。
刚刚起步的虚拟现实产业的前进道路从来就不是一帆风顺。但行业普遍认为NextVR是一家领先的VR开拓性企业，因为他们曾陆续与NBA，NFL，福克斯体育和WWE等机构与体育赛事达成了合作协议。
一位知情人士透露说：“这真的令人感到非常难过，因为在广播方面，NextVR被视为VR的里程碑，而这（裁员）对VR来说是一个坏兆头。”
无法完成C轮融资，低于预期的头显销量，以及NextVR难以从合作伙伴协议中实现营收，这一切都是导致公司裁员的原因。截至目前为止，NextVR已经完成了1.15亿美元的融资，投资者包括Comcast Ventures, The Madison Square Garden Company和RSE Ventures等等。
两位消息人士指出，联合创始人兼首席执行官大卫?科尔（David Cole）和首席运营官大卫?克雷默（David Cramer）在周一举行的每月例会中表示，公司的规模对于当前行业条件而言过大。他们认为NextVR当前的窘况是因为NextVR在2018年未能完成C轮融资，这导致公司不得不从约130人的团队中解雇至少50人。
三位知情人士透露，本次裁员是在全公司范围内进行，包括销售团队的裁撤，以及产品运营副总裁陶德?克刚（Todd Cogan）、战略合作伙伴关系副总裁安德鲁?阿达谢克（Andrew Adashek）等高管离开。
另有三名消息人士指出，公司尚未为员工提供离职补偿，而且根据美国加州法律，他们同时需要支付员工余下的带薪休假日工资。
NextVR的一名发言人通过邮件证实了“多个部门”的裁员，但部门运作不受影响。
尽管需要裁员，但NextVR将继续与NBA的直播合作协议。下一场迈阿密热火 vs 纽约尼克斯的VR直播将在1月27日进行。
对于2016-2017赛季，NextVR和NFL合作制作了一系列的VR精彩杂锦体验。但在今年，这种关系并已经停止。两位消息人士称，NextVR无法继续支付美国第一热门赛事NFL的高昂合作费用。另外，在NextVR在2018年与WWE达成了为期一年的合作伙伴关系，同样是制作VR精选体验。目前尚不清楚这种关系是否将在2019年继续下去，而NextVR拒绝就合作伙伴关系的细节发表评论。
四名消息人士称，高昂的成本和不必要的开销对公司的损益表造成了非常大的打击。
例如，这家公司至少拥有两台VR制作卡车以部署在体育馆等区域，预计总成本介于200万美元-500万美元之间。消息人士称，保守估计，制作一场NBA赛事VR体验的成本大约为75000美元。
其他开销包括在2018年3月包下了一家电影院以供员工观看科幻电影《头号玩家》，派遣20多名员工参加2018年的CES大会，以及租赁了位于圣塔安那的一个仓库作为研发实验室等等。
NextVR没有对其开销进行任何评论。
在2018年的CES大会上，科尔宣布了公司的增强现实支持计划，以及六自由度内容。但直到今天，这家公司都尚未发布面向消费者的增强现实产品或六自由度内容。
科尔通过一位发言人在邮件中表示：“我们将与合作伙伴一道完全致力于VR市场。”
企业市场营销机构Wasserman的市场营销部门执行副总裁珍妮弗?范戴克（Jennifer van Dijk）指出，NextVR遭遇的挑战表明，专注于与希望通过先进技术来进一步吸引粉丝参与的体育机构合作存在一系列的限制。例如，头显的社交交互十分复杂，她认为观影体验“有点尴尬”，除非所有人都位于一个专门的房间中。
这位前NBA及洛杉矶快艇队的高管认为，VR行业尚未明确自己在体育领域的作用。尽管她十分看好VR在特定领域的应用，但对于VR广播而言似乎并不可行，至少目前是这样。
她指出：“实况比赛直播可能暂时还不是VR的正确用例。有什么能够比得上用60英寸的电视来观看NBA的高光杂锦呢？一个都没有。”
