MusicVR is a virtual reality project created and developed by the musician Mike Oldfield. To date it has produced two standalone simulation games and inspired content for some of Oldfield's albums. As of January 2010 Tubular.net hosts the free downloads of the two games.
MusicVR set out to be a real-time virtual reality experience combining imagery and music, as a non-violent and essentially a non-goal driven game. In the early 1990s when Oldfield first wanted to create this world, the computers required to render the quality of images he wanted were large and vastly expensive. This prevented the early versions of the game from being released to the public, and although Oldfield had toyed with the idea of touring the game with his own powerful computer, this never happened. It was not just the graphical demands that were restrictive, but also the idea that the game should have 'freedom' and not be restricted to one path.
In 1994, Oldfield's album The Songs of Distant Earth, one of the first enhanced CDs, featured a 3D interactive segment, with some ideas similar to MusicVR. This content only works on Apple Mac OS 9 and earlier. Music Virtual Reality (MusicVR) was previously called Sonic Reality and Sonic VR during its development stages. [1]
By the 2000s, as home computers had grown in complexity and capabilities, this earlier problem was mostly erased. Oldfield and his team of programmers set off developing a version of the MusicVR game for release to the public. Because the nature and idea of MusicVR was so different from many of today's games, they felt that they could not use an existing game engine. They developed their own, with Oldfield's creative control of the project deciding its look and feel at each step.
The game was developed on and for Windows based PCs, although Oldfield uses Apple Macintosh computers for recording much of his music.
The first publicly released MusicVR game was called Tres Lunas. It contained specially composed music as well as pieces from the album of the same name.
The second MusicVR game was called Maestro. It contained specially composed music as well as pieces from Tubular Bells 2003 album.
Michael Gordon Oldfield is a British musician, songwriter, and producer best known for his debut studio album Tubular Bells (1973), which became an unexpected critical and commercial success and propelled him to worldwide fame. Though primarily a guitarist, Oldfield plays a range of instruments, which includes keyboards, percussion, and vocals. He has adopted a range of musical styles throughout his career, including progressive rock, world, folk, classical, electronic, ambient, and new age music.
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Tubular Bells is the debut studio album by English musician Mike Oldfield, released on 25 May 1973 as the first album on Virgin Records. Oldfield, who was 19 years old when it was recorded, played almost all the instruments on the mostly instrumental album.
Tubular Bells 2003 is the 22nd studio album by English musician Mike Oldfield, released on 27 May 2003 by Warner Music Spain. It is a digital re-recording of his 1973 album Tubular Bells, released almost 30 years earlier. To date, this is the most recent album in Tubular Bells series.
The Songs of Distant Earth is the sixteenth studio album by English musician, songwriter and producer Mike Oldfield, released on 21 November 1994 by WEA. It is a concept album based on the 1986 science fiction novel The Songs of Distant Earth by Arthur C. Clarke. The album reached No. 24 on the UK Albums Chart.
Tr3s Lunas is the 21st studio album by English musician and songwriter Mike Oldfield, released in June 2002 by Warner Music Spain. After his previous album The Millennium Bell (1999), Oldfield started work on is first release for MusicVR, a musical virtual reality project with simulator video game elements and music. The idea developed to have the Tres Lunas MusicVR feature included as part of an album package, for which Oldfield wrote and recorded new music and signed with Warner Music Spain. Tr3s Lunas saw Oldfield explore electronic and chill-out music.
Light + Shade is the 23rd studio album by the English musician Mike Oldfield. It was the first album to be released by Oldfield following his signing with Mercury Records. The album was released on 26 September 2005. Some of the music on these CDs was originally released, with alternate mixes, on the soundtracks to his virtual reality games, Tres Lunas and Maestro.
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Maestro is a MusicVR video game by British musician Mike Oldfield. It is the second publicly released MusicVR game after 2002's Tres Lunas.
Tres Lunas is a MusicVR video game published in 2002 by British musician Mike Oldfield. The title is Spanish for Three Moons.
XPLORA1: Peter Gabriel's Secret World is a musical computer game designed by musician Peter Gabriel.
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