
It’s time to get up close and personal with the latest in VR and AR at VERSIONS 2017 workshops. On Sunday February 25th in New York we’ll be hosting sessions with VR experts from all aspects of the field to offer insights into new ways to use this technology now, and how best to take advantage of VR in the future.
You can peruse the full workshop lineup over at our conference website, but here’s a few sessions we definitely won’t miss:

LIGHTNING IN A BOTTLE: HAND-DRAWN ANIMATION IN VR
Sunday, February 26th
1:00 PM | NEW INC
The rise of 6DoF (six degrees of freedom) controllers—wands you can move in 3D space—is one of the most exciting developments in virtual reality today. (Just ask anyone who’s played with apps like Tilt Brush, Medium, SculptrVR, or Quill.) The Lightning Artist Toolkit (LATK) is a set of tools for Unity, Blender, and WebVR that lets you work with frame-by-frame, hand-drawn VR animation in game engines and mature 3D animation packages.Its output is readable in any 3D graphics application and ready to use in real-world production scenarios. Combined with the Tilt Brush SDK, this is a comprehensive solution for creating, sharing, and distributing frame-by-frame 3D animation.
In this workshop, we’ll explore strategies for creating content with 6DoF controllers, present the LATK and Tilt Brush SDK along with examples of hand-drawn animation in VR, and have fun drawing in space with anything you can connect to Unity.

DESIGNING FOR ROOM-SCALE VR
Sunday, February 26th
2:00 PM | New Museum Sky Room
Room-scale VR is the ability to walk around in a virtual world with the capacity to interact with that world using controllers and peripherals, creating a presence in immersive experiences. Virtual reality is all about presence. In this hands-on workshop, Dario Laverde, HTC’s Senior Developer Evangelist, will show you best practices for designing room-scale VR, and how to identify weak design choices.
The rules are yet to be written, but after a year since the first room-scale experiences were released to the market, we can examine what makes the best experiences so far. Laverde will present a step-by-step tutorial on getting started, and is accessible to those who are both new to Unity and to experienced developers and designers alike. Laverde will also introduce the latest Unity3d plugins that support room-scale VR.
The workshops will be open to Versions Conference Pass Holders first, but those interested may also purchase tickets to attend individual workshops here. (Note: You do not need a conference pass to attend a workshop.) Those interested in purchasing Conference tickets can do so here.