LIV’s iOS app is in open beta and offers an easy way to capture mixed reality images with select games with just an iPhone and Oculus Quest headphones.
An initial version of the software was available in March 2020, but it was removed and improved to make it more reliable and accessible. Now, the new open beta version offers anyone with a Quest and an iOS device an accessible way to start capturing mixed reality images.
The app is available in open beta via Apple’s beta testing platform, Testflight. Users can install the app on their iOS device using Testflight, and then they will also need to install the LIV Capture app for Oculus Quest, available for side-loading via SideQuest.
Once everything is installed, Quest’s LIV Capture app runs the user through a quick calibration process to align everything. Once completed, the LIV app can display a mixed reality view of certain Quest games, where the player overlaps with a third-person virtual world perspective view.
The https://t.co/AyPsqsF8Dv for iOS open beta is here.
The following video was created exclusively with an iOS phone and a Quest 2. No PC, no green screen.
It’s still in the initial beta, but we’d love for you to provide it and give us some feedback. https://t.co/xZo7K0Wga2 pic.twitter.com/upSfNluwGm
– LIV (@LIV) June 23, 2021
Mixed reality capture has long been available in different capacities on many virtual reality systems, but the LIV app for iOS makes it much more accessible for Quest users. All you need is a Quest phone and headphones: no extra equipment is required, not even a green screen. The application is able to identify the user in any context and dynamically place him in a third world virtual world perspective, with generally positive results. Users can record the mixed reality view using the built-in iOS screen recorder.
At the moment, only a few Quest games support mixed reality with the LIV app: Beat Saber, Crisis VRigade, Cubism, FitXR, Hyper Dash, OhShape, Real VR Fishing, Smash Drums, Space Pirate Trainer, Superhot, and Synth Riders.
The LIV Beta app for iOS comes at a time when there seems to be an increase in support and interest in capturing mixed reality. Apparently, Facebook is trying to create its own response to LIV’s mixed reality tools, but the features are segmented and still don’t work together. Live Overlay lets you see a clipping of the user playing VR (taken from the phone’s camera) at the top of the first-person VR view broadcast on a phone. However, it lacks the essential third-person perspective needed for mixed reality.
Meanwhile, its viewer camera feature will allow users to send a Quest to a phone and change the camera’s position to third-person positions (offering a different perspective to the VR user’s first-person view) , but has no implementation of mixed reality functions. The building blocks are there, but they all remain separate and don’t come together as cohesively as LIV’s iOS app.
Similarly, Fabio Dela Antonio’s Reality Mixer app is another community project that offers mixed reality capture to Quest, which Mark Zuckerberg apparently used in a recent Facebook video showing him playing Beat Saber actually captured mixed.
The LIV iOS app is now available in open beta via Testflight. You can read more on the LIV blog.