My zeroth year comes to an end.

That sure went fast …

This week is the end of my zeroth year working in my garage, and what a lot of fun it’s been!

I’ve messed with the Vive and the Rift, I’ve created and released my first solo Android project for Tango devices (Evryway Scanner - buy it now if you have a Tango phone!) I’ve scanned my whole house a few times, and my garage over a hundred times, and I’ve created some scans of people and turned them into Kinect avatars.

It’s been a blast. I think the most intellectually stimulating challenge has been shipping Scanner, as taking a sort-of-working prototype through to a release product that folks can use has been a real voyage of discovery. I think I had the most fun making the Orbitals demo, though, as that let me experience something that I’ve never experienced anywhere else (before or since). I also really enjoyed making the multiplayer drawing prototype. I’ve learned more this year than I did in the last few years, and hopefully it’ll be valuable knowledge over the coming year.

So, what’s next? At this point, I’m really not sure. There’s still loads of work to do on Scanner. I’ve got my Vive game prototype still sitting in a repo, waiting for some love and attention - I think the audience is just about large enough to make that something that could be commercially viable.

This year is going to be a big one for VR, if the ache in my bones is anything to go by. I think there is going to be a big swing towards mobile 6DOF headsets (with Wireless Vive kits and Tango-like mobile devices being the consumer end of a spectrum that may be capped out by Magic Leap - but probably won’t be!)

One thing is for sure, though - I’ve earned a couple of weeks of down time. My experiment in blogging my progress weekly has been a huge motivator for me to keep my head down and the pace up - but it’s also made it harder for me to mentally disengage from some kind of tangible weekly progress, and I think that’s stopped me from experimenting as much as I’d like. So, this is going to be the last weekly update for the near future. Instead, I’ll be moving to a more content focused approach. I have a set of posts I’d like to write about meshing and texturing, as well as more general VR commentary, and trying to pull these together in under a week while still doing any work is proving tricky!

I hope you folks have enjoyed reading these posts as much as I’ve enjoyed writing them. Feel free to like, subscribe, order the plushy toy and support me on Patreon, or just drop me a mail to say hi.

See you soon!