Wolvic 1.4 Released

We’re pleased to announce the release of Wolvic 1.4, which brings Wolvic into the real world even as it brings more realistic models into the virtual world. In addition, we’ve added support for three new devices, and also made it easier to send us feedback about Wolvic and your experience using it!

Let’s take that last point first. Until now, we’ve been using Github issues to collect feedback and fixes for Wolvic. That’s fine for programmers and other similarly nerdy types, but it isn’t very welcoming to the casual user. Thus, starting with this release, we’ve added a feedback button right in the main user interface. Look for the question-mark speech bubble just below the main browser window and to the right of the omni-bar.

The new feedback button

Next, let’s ponder the new, more realistic hand models used in hand-tracking situations on Meta and Lynx devices, replacing the skeletal cloud of joint spheres we used previously. Now you can really, like, look at your hands, dude. Or at least a decent virtual representation of them.

Look Ma, two complete hands! (10.6MB MP4, no audio)

We’ve also improved gesture handling in situations where the hand-tracking input is noisy for some reason, fixed a hand-tracking problem that could caused unwanted zooming, and removed some code that was interfering with the recognition of “click” actions. Also, the pointer beam is back when using hand tracking, which makes pointing more accurate and finding the current pointing focus much easier.

On the flip side, Wolvic 1.4 now supports “passthrough” on multiple devices. Passthrough is when the feed from a device’s external cameras are shown on the displays inside, giving the user a real-time view of the space around them, or when the device is transparent in the first place and thus defaults to a view of reality. Windows, models, and other 3D assets can be overlaid on this external view, creating what is usually referred to as augmented reality.

Seeing Wolvic in reality (20.6MB MP4, no audio)

Making this happen in various devices requires a mix of strategies, including support for OpenXR’s alpha blending mode, suppression of the “skybox” (the background environment shown behind VR windows), and more. This isn’t available in all supported devices quite yet, but we’re working toward 100% coverage.

Speaking of supported devices, we’ve added three more: the Lenovo VRX, Lenovo A3, and the Lynx-R1. Welcome to the pack!

As always, this has been a high-level overview, so there are more changes and fixes listed in the notes below. If you’ve found a new problem or have another issue, please send us your feedback or, if you prefer, file an issue on GitHub.

Highlights

Release Notes

New devices supported

Hand tracking

Passthrough support

UI

Rendering

Pico

Infrastructure

Other fixes

Updated Translations

Chromium Backend