At South by Southwest 2024 in Austin, Texas, Valeo, a world leader in mobility technology, will present a world first: Valeo Racer, a new extended reality in-car gaming experience for passengers developed using Unity. With Valeo Racer, every ride becomes a special and fun experience, be it for a short commute or a longer journey. The game integrates the vehicle’s real surroundings, including buildings, roads and traffic, offering unique experiences and challenges every time.
Valeo Racer is the first extended reality video game to combine live video and world perception of the real environment with digital gaming elements. The “infinite runner” game is generated by a software stack developed by Valeo. It uses the vehicle’s existing Advanced Driving Assistance Systems (ADAS), including cameras, radar and ultrasonic sensors, and artificial intelligence perception algorithms to insert the car’s real-time environment data into Unity’s Runtime to generate game elements. The Runtime is a proprietary component of the game engine that handles various critical components of the game, rendering high-performance graphics, managing user input and interactions, coordinating game components, supporting real-time physics simulation, animation, scripting languages, asset management, and networking – all on the end device. The result allows passengers to play on their phone or tablet connected with in-vehicle wifi and even compete with each other during trips.
Geoffrey Bouquot, EVP Strategy and CTO at Valeo says, “Valeo strives to offer car manufacturers new solutions and technologies to meet fast-evolving needs and expectations of drivers and passengers. As vehicles are equipped with more sensors and software to support driving assistance and autonomous driving systems, we see opportunities to reuse sensors and computing power already onboard to support new entertainment experiences. Working with Unity teams and relying on their amazing expertise in gaming to insert digital elements into our live feed of the vehicle environment has been a great journey of partnership and innovation, and we look forward to blazing new trails together.”
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Unity, which has long been a cornerstone of game development, has gained a lot of traction within the Automotive industry. The Unity Engine is used throughout the sector from pre production design concepts and ADAS simulation tools through to production infotainment systems deployed in vehicles.
Marc Whitten, Chief Product and Technology Officer, Unity says, “The Valeo Racer experience highlights how Unity can be used in the end-to-end production cycle within the automotive industry by uniting real-time technologies. We hope the unique experience developed with Valeo serves as a template for engineers and creators to think beyond the use of our technology for just safety, to ultimate passenger satisfaction – front seat and back.”
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