Masterpiece X: Unleashes the Creative Power of 3D Remixing for Modern Creators

Masterpiece Studio has introduced Masterpiece X, a cutting-edge 3D remix platform designed for modern creators. In collaboration with Meta, Masterpiece Studio aims to revolutionize the creation of 3D media for the rapidly expanding user base of over 20 million Meta Quest 2 headset owners. This innovation is driven by the rise of platforms like TikTok, augmented reality filters, and avatars, and the solution is 3D Remixing.

Remixing, a universal and intuitive method of content creation where new content is generated from existing material, is already a common practice among creators of various backgrounds, often unconsciously. However, the concept of remixing 3D assets has been relatively unexplored due to a lack of user-friendly software. Now, with the advent of Masterpiece X, 3D remixing is gaining traction and unlocking the creative potential for everyone to engage in 3D content creation effortlessly.

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Jonathan Gagne, the Founder and CEO of Masterpiece Studio, likens the process of 3D remixing to that of a DJ, allowing individuals to unleash their creativity by transforming and remixing 3D assets according to their imaginative vision. No longer do creators have to start from scratch, endure complex tutorials, or wait for inspiration. Masterpiece X empowers and facilitates the 3D creation process by providing a range of features, such as starting with existing models from the Community Library, intuitive remixing of various aspects including shape, texture, and animation, fostering a community of like-minded creators for sharing and learning, contributing back to the Community Library to inspire others, and discovering new sources of inspiration.

Masterpiece X offers simple and intuitive control over all major stages of the 3D creation process and is compatible with Meta Quest 2. The Community Library plays a vital role in enabling 3D remixing, serving as a growing resource of freely available 3D assets, including models, textures, and animations. These assets are curated and owned collectively by the community, making them accessible for creative endeavors.

While the platform’s end-to-end generative AI functionality is currently in limited access, interested individuals can join the waitlist for future access. To experience the editing and remixing capabilities of 3D models, users can download the Masterpiece X app directly or find more information at www.masterpiecex.com.

Masterpiece Studio’s overarching vision is to simplify 3D creation. Their dedication to pushing the boundaries of 3D creation software has garnered recognition over the past eight years. As proud members of esteemed industry associations such as the Khronos Group and the Metaverse Standards Forum, Masterpiece Studio remains at the forefront of advancements in the field.

Check out the announce trailer for Masterpiece X below:

A Rogue Escape Screenshot

Best VR Games for Quest 2 If You’re Just Getting Started

I Just Got An Oculus Quest 2 What Games Should I Get?

It was the question that rocked the internet the day after Christmas 2021. After years of speaking about VR’s promise and it often being declared dead on arrival, VR and more specifically the portable wonder that is the Oculus Quest 2 mobile Virtual Reality headset had become as seemingly popular as Cabbage Patch dolls, or the Super Nintendo Entertainment System in decades past.

So you just got an Oculus, er, Meta Quest 2 for Christmas and after a few rounds of Beat Saber and themed rollercoasters, you’re wondering what else there is to do. Here are some great choices to try out if you want to go beyond the front page of ideas! Some of these we just find ourselves going back to time and time again, while others we discovered off the beaten path at festivals like FIVARS or IndieCade.

Of one thing we are sure – you will find hours of delight for any mood with the choices below! Hopefully, this list will help you discover a few choices off the beaten path to level you up from day one!

Scary and Exciting

These are not for the faint of heart!

Want a deeply immersive and thrilling horror adventure? Resident Evil 4 was ported over to the Quest just for you. Goes especially well with Halloween or people who like scary action.

You might also want to check out Cosmodread a VR survival horror roguelike that procedurally generates its haunted horrors experience in space.

Affected: The Manor has been around for a while and scared the lights out of almost anyone who has dared enter the super haunted halls of this seemingly endless house of eerie dread from another plane.

Fitness

Supernatural requires a monthly or annual subscription but there is a reason Facebook paid 500million dollars for this easy-to-pick-up and social-friendly fitness titan. Beautiful 3D vistas surround you as you swing your bats at targets or box to hundreds of big hit songs ranging from Kanye to Bono Jovi to Swan Lake.

If you really want to knock yourself out try Thrill of the Fight boxing. Warning though, it will seriously raise your heart rate.

Storytelling

Often people ask why bother purchase a story that you can’t even affect. Well, it’s not unlike buying a movie on DVD or from Video on Demand. You can always be sure that it’s yours to keep, even if they stop renting it. I mean unless of course the entire store goes down, in which case we have bigger problems.

That said the following are some form of story or interactive story or game as story. They are experiences that are worth experiences more than a couple of times before you inevitably reach for them the next time you want to share the wonders of VR with a non-gamer or someone who just wants to get blown away within moments of putting on the headset.

Moss is one of the original and still most beguiling story-type games to play on Quest. 3D dioramas in a rich and wonderfully realized adventure tale about your little mouse going on a big quest.

Debuted at the FIVARRS festival in 2018, but only commercially available for the first time in 2021, Battlescar is a must-see story set in the 70s – 80s punk music scene of New York. This is VR storytelling at its best. It also stars Rosario Dawson in the title role alongside a killer soundtrack.

In Madrid Noir a young woman arrives at the apartment of her estranged and deceased uncle. Tasked with picking up the pieces of her life, she is unexpectedly thrown back into the past to relive a summer she spent with him as a child. It’s a wonderfully thematic adventure game with fairly simple puzzle and lots of interactivity.

If you want pure hilarity in the style of something you might find on Adult Swim – check out Trover Saves the Universe. Though sometimes its sheer abstract comedy might make it a little confusing as to how to proceed, if you can swing it, (or borrow a playthrough guide) that laughs are legitimate and the world-building is great.

Music and Rhythm

Beyond Beat Saber – try Synthriders which has a great catalog of electro, trance, even electro-swing punk from bands like Rancid. This neon glowing world is great for workout, player vs player and 360 spin modes.

We also love Dance Central from Harmonix which has you dancing to songs from artists like Dua Lipa in various rooms of a nightclub, checking your cell phone, and making new friends while it tracks your dance moves. Super fun night out.

Audio Trip is a hand-crafted dance-style fitness game worth checking out for its creative movements.

Sports and Leisure

We love Real VR Fishing for its beautiful 360 setting and high precision fishing experiences – feeling the tension on the line and playing give and take with your catch. Successfully catching new fish leads to adding them to your giant aquarium for later study and viewing pleasure.

If you ever wanted to take your date to mini-golf but were too afraid to ask, now you can make your wish come true with a gorgeous look VR experience anyone can enjoy: Walkabout Mini Golf has nice physics and fun and (mostly) harmless mental timeout playtime.

Puzzles

ROOM VR: A Dark Matter is a series of complex puzzles in what could be seen as an Escape room game but also feels connected to the classic Myst series. Room and VR are a match made in heaven.

Not quite puzzle not quite action is A Rogue Escape – the name kinda says it all – you will be attempting to pilot a craft with a lot of unlabelled interoperable controls as you flee from dark forces that don’t want you to get away. Thrilling and fascinating.

Another fun and unique puzzle game is Squingle – where you maneuver glowing different colored spheres through translucent tubes, to their goal point. It is absolutely awesome in 3D. You can find Squingle in the App Lab.

Travel

Wander is the Google Earth equivalent for Quest. Travel all over the globe and get facts and walkthroughs of actually 360 photos and 3D scans of locations you may never otherwise get to visit in your lifetime. If you’re lucky, you might even find your childhood home!

Creative Tools

The original creative breakout smash hit – Tilt Brush created a cottage industry of its own for painting in 3D space. It was eventually abandoned by Google and released free to the public.

Gravity Sketch is for designing actual 3D models and lets you import images, videos, and 3D files (.jpg, .png, .mp4, .obj) and export snapshots and 3D files (.png, .obj, .iges).

Multiplayer Action

Cookout: A Sandwich Tale is like Job Simulator meets Space Team meets Cook, Serve Delicious. If you have no idea what any of those references mean – you and your friends have different prep stations and are attempting to fulfill sandwich orders for an ever-growing lineup of hungry anthropomorphic (animal characters) villagers. You can also hear each other when you play so the hysterics can be shared across the network as you collaborate to chop, sautee, dress and serve your sandwich orders on time!

Demeo is a good tabletop-style dungeon crawler to play with your friends where you roll dice as you fight an increasingly dangerous dungeon filled with monsters and treasure. If you survive you can level up with new cards to add to your deck before you descend to the next floor!

Mind, Body, and Relaxation

Tripp is just what the name says – a lot of trippy soothing visuals created by different artists, designed to elevate your thoughts and mood.

Nature Treks is a relaxing way to get away to virtual nature retreats. An early title for Quest, the animation quality may not have aged as well as with some titles, but it still does the job of dropping down your stress levels as you interact with and enjoy nature and its inhabitants.

We hope you enjoy these suggestions – let us know your favorite VR games in the comments!

falcon age

Top New Releases for Oculus Quest – September 2020

September 2020’s Best Releases for the Oculus Quest

Now that we know the Quest will be discontinued for its younger, sleeker, cheaper successor, creatively named the…uh…Quest 2, this almost seems like a fruitless exercise. But we can console (no pun intended) ourselves with the fact that there are roughly 700,000(source) Quest users out there, hungry for new fodder.

Cubism

by Thomas Van Bouwel
Release Date: September 17th, 2020

Essentially a series of Tetris-like puzzles in 3D, Cubism scratches that itch for puzzles that are both thought-provoking and relaxing.

The compulsive need to fit blocks together will have you “playing” this on your inner eyelids as you’re falling asleep, long after you’ve taken off your headset and put your controllers away, but the clean, pastel color scheme and gentle piano score will keep you relaxed enough that your waking Cubism dreams will be a pleasant experience, not a lingering effect of psychological trauma.

Falcon Age

by Outerloop Games
Release Date: September 3rd, 2020

Falcon Age was a pretty cool indie game release, but it clearly always wanted to be a VR title. That has now become…er…reality. We love the story, the setting and the central concept here. As a young revolutionary on a dying planet, it’s your job to fight against the oppressors and bring freedom to your people.

It’s not all grim and political, though, because you have a bird friend, and you can put a hat on the bird!

In all seriousness, Falcon Age really does do a wonderful job combining cute bits – the falcon uses her beak to put the hat on! Sometimes she also wears glasses! – with sci-fi Western robot-fighting action, and the combat, which involves both falconry and an electric whip, is more innovative and interesting than the typical double-wielded pistol VR developers usually settle for. Also, learning increasingly nuanced behaviors that you can teach or understand about your Falcon creates what feels like a true relationship with the avatar.

Sphere Toon – VR Comic

by Studio HORANG
Release Date: September 10th, 2020

Just in time for Halloween, Sphere Toon is here to offer you loads of scares. This free program acts as a platform for the animated supernatural horror comics of Studio HORANG in Korea.

There are currently eight short, sweet web-comics available in English, weighted toward ghost stories with titles like Ok-Su Station Ghost, Bongcheong-Dong Ghost and Ghost in Masung Tunnel, plus loads more Korean-language material.

Holopoint: Oculus Edition

by Alzan Studios
Release Date: September 10th, 2020

Holopoint was a game that we returned to over and over again on the now-venerable HTC Vive. Now, on the tether-less Quest, it all makes so much more sense.

If Beat Saber is a physically active game with Star Wars influences, Holopoint takes things back to one of George Lucas’s original Jedi inspirations: the venerable Samurai epic. In fact it predates Beat Saber!

You’ll barely have time to appreciate the minimalist but beautifully presented Kyudo dojo, though, because you’ll be firing arrow after arrow, hoping to defend yourself against that last wave of swordsmen before keeling over with exhaustion.

Void Racer: Extreme

by Coplanar Games
Release Date: September 17th, 2020

Look no further than Void Racer: Extreme to get your fix of arcade hoverbike racing action…if you’ve got the legs for it.

Inspired by franchises like Wipeout and F-Zero, Void Racer features over a hundred levels, a dozen tracks – with individual comfort ratings, if you’re the type who gets motion-sick while riding hoverbikes – plus multi-player modes.

And of course, there are weapons to take out rival racers, if speed alone isn’t quite giving you the adrenaline rush you need.

What were your favorite new Quest releases in September 2020? What did you think about Facebook Connect? Will you buy a Quest 2? So many questions….