Mixed reality

This Wild Quest 3 Demo Turns Your House into a Flying Helicopter

Navigate the skies from the comfort of your own home.

by Jackson Chen
Updated: 
Originally Published: 
A member of the press tries out a MetaQuest 3 during the Meta Connect Developer Conference at Meta's...
JOSH EDELSON/AFP/Getty Images

The dream of having a flying house is real — well, sort of.

We’ve been consistently impressed with the creative community behind the Quest 3, pumping out incredibly clever designs like this Super Mario 64 demo or a fully immersive movie-watching experience. If you’re more into flying around a city with your house as your personal aircraft, there’s a demo for that too.

This mod takes advantage of the Quest 3’s upgraded color passthrough capabilities and swaps out the real world just beyond your apartment with a virtual one set in the skies.

READY FOR TAKEOFF

No need for any preflight checks since you just have to hit the “take off” button and let the mixed reality propellers do all the work. Once you’re flying through the virtual city, you can even send yourself careening into the ground if you’re really in the mood for an adrenaline rush. The developer doesn’t recommend breaking the propellers, even if they are just mixed reality elements. It’s a nice exercise in not letting our intrusive thoughts win, though.

Going off the post, the demo uses a program called Plateau that’s built on Unity. The design lets you convert cities into 3D models, which you can then fly around to your heart’s content in mixed reality. To take full advantage of this mod, you’ll want at least a couple of windows, or even a balcony or patio. Once you set it up, the result is a truly unique way to explore a city as you’re chilling in the safety of your apartment.

The Plateau program has a lot of applications, whether it’s for mixed-reality entertainment or city planning.

Mlit

NO LICENSE REQUIRED

If you do have a balcony, like seen in the demo, it’s probably best not to lean too far off unless you want a real-life scare. Besides, there are safer ways to feel like you’re plummeting to your doom. The developer hasn’t elaborated on any future plans for this demo, but we could see some fun use cases like being a virtual tourist to new cities or even re-enacting the iconic scene from Up, without that gut-wrenching, devastating prologue, of course.

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