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// Developer Labs

New projects and features, insights on the future of human-computer interaction, and updates on Leap Motion developer communities around the world.

Happy holidays! Today we’re thrilled to announce the top 20 semi-finalists for the Leap Motion 3D Jam: Presented by IndieCade – our six-week global competition for $75,000 in cash and prizes. If you haven’t played them yet, they’re all available for download (along with over 120 others) on the jam site.

Who said Unity developers have all the fun? From building virtual hands in Three.js to browser-based virtual reality, we’re also developing new tools to enable truly 3D interaction on the web. This week, we’re happy to announce LeapJS Widgets – basic UI elements can be used in a wide variety of experiences. It’s a brand new library, simple enough to be used with just a few lines of code, but with near-infinite possibilities for experimentation and customization.

After six weeks of heated competition, the 3D Jam closed with 150+ final submissions from developers in more than 40 countries around the globe. Now the first round of judging is underway – and you can vote for your favorites!

Sci-fi space odysseys and mysterious forests, quirky puzzles and addictive games, action-packed thrills and artistic experiments – there’s an incredible range of beta demos for you to download and play. Virtual reality was enormously popular among the jammers, with over 50% of submissions designed for the Oculus Rift.

With just one week until our 3D Jam submission deadline, we’re hosting another Let’s Play session today! At 2pm PST, join us on Twitch TV to see the latest demos and chat with your fellow game lovers.

While we ran into some technical difficulties with our audio setup and framerate last time (sorry about that, folks!) we’ll be up and running with a much stronger rig. To set a reminder, subscribe here, and we’ll email you five minutes before the session begins. While you wait, here are last week’s 3D Jam Let’s Play highlights!

This weekend, we saw 50+ early submissions to the Leap Motion 3D Jam! To celebrate the milestone, we’re hosting a live Let’s Play tomorrow at 4pm PST on Twitch TV – where you can join developers, gamers, and tech lovers to offer your commentary on these early contenders for jam supremacy.

It’s been a busy month on the Leap Motion Twitch TV channel! With our 3D Jam Let’s Play! coming up on Wednesday, we thought we’d highlight our recent tutorial and Q&A sessions, which are now available on YouTube.

At the top of the post, you can watch as we build a mock application live, incorporating lessons we’ve learned about UX/UI design for 3D space. Topics range from creating slick menu systems, to the art of robust interaction design, to the intricacies of “immersion,” and beyond.

Ever feel like destroying everything around you? As developers push to release their early builds for today’s 3D Jam milestone, we thought we’d spotlight one of our earliest #ScreenshotSaturday submitters. Inspired by the classic arcade game Rampage, LabCoat Studios’ Mega Creature Smash is an over-the-top action game all about destruction and revenge.

The choice of hand design can fundamentally make or break user experience. As a developer, a hyper-realist render in your trippy space shooter might be an intergalactic buzzkill. Conversely, if your user is playing a general in a WWII bunker, you might want to lean more human than cyborg. Hand Viewer, a brand-new release in our Examples Gallery, gives you an arsenal of onscreen hands to experiment with as you build new desktop experiences with Leap Motion.

The average human brain weighs about three pounds. Picture three pounds of bees encased in your skull, buzzing out of your ears. You’re welcome. Thankfully, Select 3D Jam Team Three Pounds of Bees has no intention of inducing gamers into this nightmare scenario. Rather, their goal is to bring the power of pollination to your fingertips.

One of the great appeals of motion control is that it gives us an enormous feeling of power and control over our digital environment. But what if someone took that control away from you? For their Select 3D Jam submission, Chad Toprak and Yang Ho are developing a unique two-player experience for the Oculus Rift – dualcyon, a blind co-op puzzle experience.