Let's Play! - Building your VR Sandbox (Big Android BBQ 2015)

Elevator pitch: When trying to prototype Android VR spaces, long build and debug cycles become a major impediment. Let's build a realtime sandbox toolkit for Android VR App developers! Over the last year or so, the steadily building buzz around Virtual Reality and Augmented Reality has become deafening. Android as a VR platform has been a big part of the conversation, with Google Cardboard on the VR side, and Project Tango bringing motion tracking, area learning and depth perception to the table. However, for Android developers new to 3D and VR, the barrier to entry can be daunting. Unless you have solid experience with OpenGL, the long build-and-debug cycle we have with Android can make it difficult to get up to speed. And while Cardboard brings VR to the general public on the cheap, as a developer you'll quickly be faced with the limitations of the platform. In this talk, our primary focus will be on rapid prototyping and lowering the VR barrier to entry. Using a combination of scripting and live shader updates over Firebase, combined with off the shelf devices such as Project Tango tablets and Android Wear devices, we'll see how to build a toolchain allowing you as a developer to get instant feedback when building VR spaces and experiences in the Android ecosystem.
Etienne's been an active member of the Android developer community in Montreal since 2010, and has been regularly devoting time towards mentoring startups, developers and students in the mobile space. As part of the Montreal Android GDG, he organises meetups, hackathons, and gives regular talks on Android-related subjects. He's now part of the Google Developer Expert program. He is now Android team lead for TrueKey, Intel's digital identity manager. Previously, Etienne worked on projects ranging from high-availability stock trading software platforms, all the way to large scale municipal bike sharing systems (London's cycle Hire amongst others). He lives in Montreal with his wife and daughter, and speaks French and English fluently.
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