Oculus Connect Is Happening Now, Here’s What You Can Expect

Oculus’s biggest event of the year, Oculus Connect 3, runs from October 5 to October 7. We expect to hear big announcements at the developer conference, not least of which includes the price and release date of the Oculus Touch motion controllers.

Oculus Connect is Oculus’s annual developer conference. The company pools together its resources and the wider VR development community to showcase the latest innovations in the VR space. In the past, the conference showcased the latest prototypes and games under development. Now that the Rift is out in the wild, this year’s conference should be more about showing off finished, or near finished software, rather than prototype experiments. In short, we expect OC3 to be more in line with E3 than previous Oculus Connect events.

By the time you read this, day one of Oculus Connect will have already begun. The first day likely won’t be exciting for the general public. You won’t find a live stream (unless you find someone streaming it through Facebook or Periscope) of the first day. Oculus is reserving that time for developer workshops and game demos.

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Oculus Connect 3 - Day 1
9:00 AMRegistrationThe Hub Until 7:00 pm
9:00 AMHelp DeskConcourse Until 7:00 pm
10:00 AMIntroduction to Gear VR Development with Unity211C Until 1:00 pm
10:30 AMJohn Carmack Live App ReviewsExecutive BR 210E Until 3:00 pm
11:00 AMDemosHall 1 Until 9:00 pm
3:00 PMIntroduction to Unreal VR Workshop211D Until 6:00 pm
4:00 PMMinecraft: Breaking the rules of VRExecutive BR 210E 1 hour
4:00 PMVR for good: The social impact of empathy in VRExecutive BR 210H 1 hour
4:00 PMGetting funded for your first VR titleExecutive BR 210F 1 hour
5:20 PMBring your 360 Videos to life with spatial audioExecutive BR 210F 1 hour
5:20 PMVR filmmaking: What we know nowExecutive BR 210H 1 hour
5:20 PMMaking Arizona Sunshine: Cutting and Polishing a VR GemExecutive BR 210E 1 hour
6:30 PMWelcome ReceptionHall 3 Until 8:30 pm

Day 2 is what the world is waiting for. The opening keynote presentation, which is undoubtedly when Oculus will reveal all there is to know about Touch, is scheduled for 10:00 am Pacific on October 6. The keynote is the only presentation that the public can take in live. Oculus promised to discuss the long-awaited Touch controllers at the event, and we expect to hear everything; the games that support the motion controllers, the cost of the hardware, and the date that you can pick them up and play with them in your home.

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Oculus Connect 3 - Day 2
8:00 AMBreakfastHall 2 Until 10:00 am
8:00 AMRegistrationThe Hub Until 7:00 pm
8:00 AMHelp DeskConcourse Until 7:00 pm
10:00 AMOpening KeynoteGrand Ballroom Until 12:00 pm
12:00 PMLunchHall 2 Until 2:00 pm
1:00 PMDemosHall 1 Until 10:00 pm
2:00 PMElevate your VR experience with ambisonic audio designExecutive BR 210E 1 hour
2:00 PMArt in VR: The creative potential of Quill and MediumGrand Ballroom 220B 1 hour
2:00 PMThe evolving landscape of PC VR game designGrand Ballroom 220C 1 hour
2:00 PMLightning Tech Talks: Your Guide to the Oculus Social PlatformExecutive BR 210H 1 hour
2:00 PMBuilding a content ecosystem for customers and developersExecutive BR 210F 1 hour
3:20 PMUnder the hood of the Rift SDK: Building for TouchExecutive BR 210E 1 hour
3:20 PMDesigning for comfort in VRGrand Ballroom 220C 1 hour
3:20 PMGoing cross-platform: Taking your VR game from PC to mobileExecutive BR 210F 1 hour
3:20 PMLessons learned: Developing mobile VR gamesExecutive BR 210H 1 hour
3:20 PMWebVR: Create Portable VR Experiences on the WebGrand Ballroom 220B 1 hour
4:40 PMCreating social presence in VRExecutive BR 210E 1 hour
4:40 PMSolving the First Person Shooter in VRExecutive BR 210H 1 hour
4:40 PMFailure Workshop: Things that didn’t workGrand Ballroom 220C 1 hour
4:40 PM360 video, live action and rendered: Tips from the trenchesExecutive BR 210F 1 hour
4:40 PMOculus Mobile SDK UpdateGrand Ballroom 220B 1 hour
6:00 PMWhat's New in Unreal VRExecutive BR 210H 1 hour
6:00 PMDesigning TouchExecutive BR 210E 1 hour
6:00 PMA look inside VR games from a QA PerspectiveExecutive BR 210F 1 hour
6:00 PMAmplifying the experience: Music in VRGrand Ballroom 220C 1 hour
6:00 PMProfiling VR Games and Applications for Optimum PerformanceGrand Ballroom 220B 1 hour
7:00 PMClosing ReceptionHall 3 Until 10:00 pm

Following the keynote, attendees of the conference will have an array of developer workshops, such as “Designing for VR Comfort” and “Failure Workshop: Things That Didn’t Work.” Day two is also filled with game demos from 1 pm until 10 pm.

Day 3 is a short day. Game demos start bright and early at 9 am PT, and workshops begin at 10 am. Day three’s workshops include “Accelerating Your VR Applications with NVIDIA VRWorks” and “The Making of Dead and Buried: The (almost) Port-Mortem.” John Carmack will round out the event with an hour and a half long closing keynote that starts at 1:30 pm.

Swipe to scroll horizontally
Oculus Connect 3 - Day 3
9:00 AMRegistrationThe Hub Until 2:00 pm
9:00 AMHelp DeskConcourse Until 2:00 pm
9:00 AMDemosHall 1 Until 3:00 pm
9:00 AMBreakfastHall 2 Until 11:00 am
10:00 AMBeyond gaming and film: Bringing experiences to VRExecutive BR 210E 1 hour
10:00 AMEducation and VR: Changing the way we learnGrand Ballroom 220B 1 hour
10:00 AMThe secrets of building great multiplayer games in VRGrand Ballroom 220C 1 hour
10:00 AMAccelerating Your VR Applications with NVIDIA VRWorksExecutive BR 210H 1 hour
10:00 AMIntroduction to Gear VR Development with Unity211C Until 1:00 pm
10:00 AMVR: Storytelling's New FrontierExecutive BR 210F -8580 minutes
11:20 AMAdvanced Interaction Concepts for VR Using Tracked ControllersExecutive BR 210F 1 hour
11:20 AMThe Making of Dead and Buried: The (Almost) Post-MortemExecutive BR 210H 1 hour
11:20 AMCreating a safe environment for people in VRGrand Ballroom 220B 1 hour
11:20 AMSocial VR: A conversation with Mike BoothExecutive BR 210E 1 hour
11:20 AMBest Practices using AMD’s LiquidVR and introducing AMD’s Project Loom Real-time 360 video stitchingGrand Ballroom 220C 1 hour
1:30 PMClosing Keynote with John CarmackGrand Ballroom Until 3:00 pm

 Kevin Carbotte is a contributing writer for Tom's Hardware who primarily covers VR and AR hardware. He has been writing for us for more than four years. 

  • WFang
    My prediction? $149.99 available for order 'now'.

    Secretly hoping it will instead be "$2xx available for pre-order now, with expected delivery November/December."
    Reply
  • jaber2
    Is Palmer Luckey going to be there? are they going to boo him?
    Reply
  • bit_user
    18689729 said:
    Is Palmer Luckey going to be there? are they going to boo him?
    I think it would be unprofessional to go to his event and make a such a disruptive gesture.

    Perhaps protests might take the form of what T-shirts people wear and some content quietly slipped into some of the demos, however.
    Reply
  • Kimonajane
    Oculus = Facebook and that leftist hack for the new world order Mark Zuckerberg, nope don't want to touch either one
    Reply