Magic Leap praises diversity and pleads for video game developers



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Presented in partnership with Magic Leap. Watch the full speech here and discover the game L.E.A.P. from Gamasutra. Cover of the conference here!

Magic Leap held its first evening L.E.A.P. Conference in Los Angeles this week, with the company's first presentation. From the beginning of the event, it was clear that Magic Leap was expressing his vision of himself and his products, and also pleading for developers to join the ground floor for something special.

Part of the company's vision is that of diversity. Magic Leap CEO Rony Abovitz gave the floor after a few introductory remarks to Marketing Director Brenda Freeman, who said the company intended to "create a culturally relevant system".

She added, "We are committed to making significant investments to support the efforts of minority and women creators."

Robin Hunicke, veteran game developer and co-founder of the independent game studio Funomena, said: "When platforms such as radio, television and film were developed, diversity and inclusion did not not part of the zeitgeist. "

The same goes for the development of the Internet, game consoles and mobile phone technology, she said. "We were not yet completely honest with ourselves about how our subconscious prejudices would shape these new forms of communication, perpetuating stereotypes that pull people away from each other, and sometimes from them. -Same. "

But, she explained, Magic Leap offers the opportunity to create new ideas that, unlike previous technologies, take technology, culture and people into consideration from the start.

This became clearer in the preliminary discussion with Magic Leap's CEO, Rony Abovitz, Snow Crash's chief futurist and author, Neal Stephenson, and senior vice president of creative strategy, John Gaeta. The trio explained what makes Magic Leap technology so appealing to game design by outlining the four "northern stars" of the company's philosophy: Sensory computing, Life Stream, AI focused on the human, Experiences at the scale of the city.

"We are committed to making significant investments to support the efforts of minority and women creators."

By combining these four elements, developers can create the most desirable Magic Leap experiences.

Sensory computing, for example, is the way users experience a program or game during their Magic Leap experience. Using haptic feedback, 3D audio, and bright fields, Magic Leap tecj provides a deeper gaming experience than traditional PCs and consoles.

Life Stream follows the emotional state of users, using the biometric information and knowledge of the user's environment. This opens doors to everything from horror games to dating simulators.

The focus on AI focused on the human appeared on several occasions during the presentation, mainly in the form of Mica, a woman with the strangely realistic AI presented in a mixed reality. The AI ​​focused on the human, according to the definition of Magic Leap, is an artificial intelligence that takes into account human emotions and empathy. The AI ​​Mica presented by the company has been able to communicate with a user through a wide range of interactions. In theory, Mica will be able to tell if you like the people around you, remember a song you mentioned love and talk to you as a normal person. Think Siri if she did things right and had a personality.

The last star of the North is the one that has the impression of becoming essential to the future use of Magic Leap as a platform of play: Experiences at the scale of the city. In a practical setting, this allows you to orient yourself in the city while walking or by inserting information about buildings or places when you arrive at a place.

But for game design, it raises the specter of a city full of interaction. Imagine a superhero game where you look in the air and see Spider-Man swinging over your head, or a Pokemon Go where you do not have to follow your phone wherever you go. At the scale of the city, augmented and mixed reality comes out of your living room or your laboratory and enters everyday life.

Although these general concepts are fascinating in principle, they are useless by themselves. Fortunately, Magic Leap has provided a number of solutions for developers wanting to integrate these ideas into their projects.

LuminOS is an operating system developed by Magic Leap that uses the free source code and open standards of W3C. What impressed LuminOS most is the large number of options it offers developers for user interaction. Normal humans interact by looking, grabbing and placing objects. But in the interface of the magic jump, users can interact via the pose of the head, the look, a controller, gestures, voice, mobile applications or even a keyboard. This opens up a whole new world of possibilities for developers looking to expand the boundaries of how players control their games.

In the end, Magic Leap games could allow you to talk to a character, who would be able to tell through the look that you're bending your eyebrows in response to their reaction. Although many of these features are yet to come, the options they present are fascinating and worth exploring today.

Leading futurist and famous author Neil Stephenson has come again for a solo presentation of the "Goats" project, which aims to help developers map and create creatures in Magic Leap. GLDS 0 and 1 are programs that teach basic mapping, while GLDS 2 and 3 are useful tools to help you learn how to map and build creatures in an RA space.

Magic Leap has also announced an Independent Developer Grants program in which Magic Leap will provide hundreds of thousands of dollars in hardware, financing and training to new studios and qualified developers.

Epic Games also made an appearance highlighting a close partnership with Unreal Engine, highlighting a developer-centric strategy while Magic Leap One strives to gain ground in these early days.

The presentation left us questioned about the impact of Magic Leap's technology on game design: if a character needs to enter a scene, for example, how can you introduce this concept using MRI? ? Why not make a door appear on the wall? Could a scan locate a door and simulate a doorbell behind it? These types of intriguing ideas could be used for revolutionary games in the future.

"We're excited about what we're going to do, but we're particularly excited about the damn shit you're going to do."

After having had the chance to play with the demos yesterday and see the vision that society has of its future today, Magic Leap has gone from a smart novelty to an honest competitor for future consoles and computers .

The exhibition possibilities are endless, and society's goal of creating an inclusive space, open to all, leaves more doors open than roadblocks. We are excited to see the adventures that the developers are leading us by using the Magic Leap built foundation as a roadmap.

Ant Williams, vice president of Magic Leap Studios, said: "We are excited about what we are going to do, but we are especially excited by the damn shit you are going to do."

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