Altspace Redesign Makes VR More Social

Over the last couple of years, Altspace VR has become one of the leading social VR environments, and today the Redwood City, California, company has launched a redesigned UI meant to give users a lot more control over their social interactions.

The new suite of tools was designed to let users make more nuanced decisions about what they do, who they do it with, and what goes on around them. In essence, the UI redesign is geared toward pairing users with things they are most interested in, and making it simple for them to identify things to do and other users they want to join up with for various activities.

“Now, in AltspaceVR, users are presented with a dynamic list of activities happening in real time,” the company wrote in a release. “They can immediately see where their friends are, join an activity, or host one of their own. As a host, they have special moderating privileges and can control apps in the space, set the event to friends-only, mute, or even remove a participant if necessary.”

One of the most important elements of the redesign is a set of controls that lets users define how much space they maintain between themselves and other avatars, as well as the ability to mute others. They can also choose to block others, a step that would remove someone from their Altspace experience.

The new UI is supported on the Oculus Rift, HTC’s Vive, and Samsung Gear VR in full VR mode, as well as PC and Mac in 2D desktop mode.