Yeah. Gonna play around with Pixel VR first before deciding on whether or not it's worthwhile devving for.
#virtual-reality
clever sky
mighty carbon
w00t! 4.14 preview is out !
clever sky
@mighty carbon let us know how the forward renderer is.
mighty carbon
I usually enjoy reading release notes 😉
plus Gear VR runs with forward renderer already, since like 4.9 or even earlier, but with GLES2 / GLES 3.1
winged shale
@mighty carbon actually Pixel is supported by Google's Project Fi, which I'm switching to from Verizon
mighty carbon
that's not widely available, and I totally don't want to be messing with switching carriers
we'll see who else makes Daydream phones in the future
(hoping for Galaxy S8 to be both Gear VR and Daydream compliant)
mighty carbon
oh wow, multiview for mobile is in 4.14
winged shale
yyyyessssssss
this is the most exciting update I've seen of UE4 since they supported SteamVR
real needle
hey, I am having dificulty reading text in my textures with the Vive.
I've set the screen percentage to 170 and it helps a little bit, Ive set mipmapping off for the textures that are loaded into the brush. the texturesize is twice the amount of the screenspace, making them bigger helped a bit, the same for higher colour contrasts between letters and background. I also tried using sprites instead of texture2D's. nothing realy contributes to better readability. does anybody here have some advice to get better readability in this case?
winged shale
@real needle
a. Use the forward renderer in 4.14 Preview 1 and turn MSAA on
b. Try not to use lots of text in VR experiences (generally thought of as bad practice, but use what's best for your game (also your game should not rely on very high screen percentage when shipped, e.g. Raw Data)). Where you can, use icons and intuitive interfaces, or spoken word
c. Use larger font size
The reason you're getting such issues with readability stem from the fact that the angular ocular resolution of this gen's HMDs is just not there, and also the subpixel arrangement of the Vive makes fine angular details like the lines in letters appear fuzzy. Additionally, temporal antialiasing (TXAA) isn't right for VR, as it uses the difference in frames to account for temporal aliasing. MSAA uses multiple samples for each pixel to blend and attain the best representation of that angular space.
spring pond
Make your text a transparent material then turn un responsive AA as one of the checkboxes in the material
it will help but TXAA isn't very nice to text in VR
winged shale
@spring pond +1
spring pond
alternatively you can make a different stereo layer for text and render it at a higher screen % because its just text
but your whole game at 170% on deferred rendering will definitely get slow on a 970 over time. As @winged shale says the forward render is the best option if you can switch. We will be using it for all VR projects moving foward
is 4.14p1 officially out yet?
winged shale
yessssss
spring pond
oh neat
winged shale
today
wintry escarp
I see 4.14p1 is out
winged shale
er.. last night? It's hard to tell with Epic forums
spring pond
I've been running promoted builds for a while now, the forward render is great
real needle
@winged shale and @spring pond thanks for the tip!
spring pond
yes, my promoted builds are now 4.15
essentially its just one step away from master branch
spring pond
I was away at connect and steam dev days so i haven't really been looking
i just kept watching the fwd render progress. On the latest promoted build our last project is butter smooth and has next to no graphical issues (some shaders look slightly different, and obviously some rendering features don't work)
I can run at "cinematic" quality (a new setting higher than 'epic') using fwd rendering at full 90fps on my machine where before on deferred most stuff was set to medium
winged shale
what GPU setup?
spring pond
and everything is just so sharp and crisp. We actaully noticed a couple of things we forgot to MIP it was so sharp
I think this machine is a 980Ti
winged shale
that's pretty impressive results
spring pond
yeah 980Ti
you can try it if you want, i pushed the build to steam yesterday in our beta tab
the 'main' build on steam is 4.13 deferred
winged shale
I'd be glad to, where can I find this? Also for target hardware testing, do you actually test on a 970 rig, or is there some nice formula for determining what render time you should hit to make your budget from your better card? I've been swapping out 1080 for 970 to test, but that is a royal pain in my ass
spring pond
Search for Thread Studio on steam its free, ~700MB i think
if you right click the app, properties -> Beta tab the "unsupported_experimental" branch is the 4.15 one. It had zero modifications and testing, so it could crash & burn, hence the name
winged shale
nice, just watched the video, looks like there's a lot of AO going on in that scene
and other fancy things, did that nice fabric shader translate well to the forward renderer?
I'm downloading it now to home PC, I'll try it when I get back home
wintry escarp
updates take longer and longer to install
mighty carbon
wintry escarp
not bad for something that's almost mail order only
mighty carbon
hopefully by the end of next year there will be more than 1M of desktop VR units (and I mean end-users who play games an stuff, not business related)
it looks like painfully slow growth though :/
winged shale
indeed, you can bash every company's HMD and business practice, but at least VR is actually becoming a thing this time
it seems to be catching up to the consumer market, I think the slow growth is good for the ecosystem of apps
wintry escarp
it costs a fortune and needs a high end pc....that's a niche market
winged shale
early adopters have enough of an ecosystem to have fun, excited devs get their hands on the first few versions before costs get driven down, and can get a head start developing and creating best practices
wintry escarp
need to wait and see if it does more than 3d tv
winged shale
@wintry escarp have you even tried it?
dusky moon
Guys I get random crashes from ue4 when changing levels in my packaged VR project ( Open Level node) ... Does this happen for any1 else ?
wintry escarp
only cardboard
winged shale
because that comment sounds like it came from someone who hasn't tried it
oh man cardboard is garbaggio, you should find someone with a Vive or really any other HMD
wintry escarp
it doesn't matter how nice it is, a lot of people get motion sickness
winged shale
I think it'll change your opinion
the general response from everyone is, 'not if the apps are doing it right'
wintry escarp
teleporting in games is a shit fix
winged shale
I agree, which is why room-scale and decoupled SLAM are very promising
wintry escarp
epic should add a bob control, so walking on the spot moves you
mighty carbon
just different rules, that's all
winged shale
why would Epic do that, you do it.
mighty carbon
not everything has to be just like on Earth
wintry escarp
cos they know what theyre doing
mighty carbon
I never understood people who want stuff in games and in VR to be just like in real life.. Stay in real life then 😉
mighty carbon
I personally don't have enough space to do room scale VR, but even being able to do 1 step around + teleportation is more than enough for me at this stage.
wintry escarp
some things I just don't get, like using ue4 in vr...its technically clever but much slower than using it normally
winged shale
I don't even understand why you're here, let alone chatting in this channel
wintry escarp
cos vr has potential
mighty carbon
it's like imagine someone discovering rift (not HMD) in space-time and being able to send probe into it. What, you will not be satisfied with exploring another world using probe and its limitations when it comes to movement, @wintry escarp ?
junior prism
it's very hard to judge scale
unless you're in game
which takes time
You have to take the headset off put it side
moving the object 2cm
open the game up again
and get to that point
which is incredibly fucking tedius
having a VR editor allows you to stay in the world and get things perfectly
winged shale
@junior prism I was reading that like some kind of poem
winged shale
ehuheuheheueheuh
spring pond
@winged shale The cloth in our app looks 100x better in fwd. You can get real close to it and see lots of texture on the logo. The shirts do look sorta "wet" tho because of differences in specular
again it was just a 'for funs' test. For future projects we will be doing art in fwd render from the start
clever sky
@wintry escarp I'm working on headbobbin' locomotion. Works great.
Like damn. I totally spoilt myself for everything else!
Actually working on ancillaries right now. General movement functionality is solid.
mighty carbon
it makes no difference whether you walk in place or bob your head to move in VR - there is no acceleration/deceleration of the body (brain) and thus people will still get nauseated
clever sky
But I'll provide alternative movement functionality for mainly people that are hyper sensitive to vection, people without functioning legs and people that are lazy 😛
mighty carbon
putting more strain on your neck? no thank you
clever sky
@mighty carbon I'll let you believe what you want.
winged shale
damn everyone's so spicy on here
mighty carbon
it's all cool 😃
clever sky
140k Vive sold is pretty much in line with the numbers we were talking about yesterday.
spring pond
everyone is really spicy here & it's disappointing
speaking of spicy disappointment: boy ASW doesnt work great with hand models on the touch :/
clever sky
Ocu @ 100-120k, Vive @ 140k... So 240 to 260 is pretty good.
For now.
@spring pond What happens?
spring pond
So 90fps: smooth awesome, 45fps (no asw): juddery trailing ghost, 45fps (ASW) most of the hand moves find but the fingers "bend" at the tips in really obvious not right ways
I'm sure its pretty great for just normal optical flow and things moving around, but with hands...hmmm
I'll try and make a video tomorrow, but i have an all day meeting now
spring pond
yea sausage fingers :
winged shale
I love sausage
clever sky
Sounds kinda amusing. Shame... but sounds like a small compromise in the grand scheme of things.
Unless it's really that distracting.
I guess... it undoes a lot of the presence that you get from finger gestures when your fingers are bending not quite right?
clever sky
So the Multi-Res thing... is that available on Nvidia and AMD cards?
mighty carbon
mobile only afaik
mighty carbon
Mobile SDK 1.0.3 adds multi-view rendering support. Multi-view rendering allows drawing to both eye views simultaneously, significantly reducing driver API overhead. It includes GPU optimizations for geometry processing.
Preliminary testing has shown that multi-view can provide:
25-50% reduction in CPU time consumed by the application
5% reduction in GPU time on the ARM Mali
5%-10% reduction in power draw
wintry escarp
oculus only?
pallid echo
VR Works Graphics for 4.13 has been released.
https://github.com/NvPhysX/UnrealEngine/tree/VRWorks-Graphics-4.13
winged shale
it's beautiful.. but I am conflicted mostly because I would like to include AMD's liquidVR packages as well, rather than either have to merge both branches together, or compile separate versions of my game optimized for one brand of graphics card or another. I don't know how the multiplexing of those packages would work together, or if it would work at all, or if we're just doomed to have to choose sides..
wicked oak
amd liquid vr isnt nearly the level of the nvidia branch
i guess when both are at a similar point, Epic themselves will implement them exchangeably
or something like that
pearl grove
Does anyone know if the screenpercentage setting affects LODs ?
snow raft
reflections dont work in VR? or is it only the lesser platforms that dont support it
pearl grove
Meaning if you have your LOD0 set to 1 but your Screen % is set to 200, does that mean that LOD0 kicks in at 0.5 in reality because the screen % ?
silk lodge
@pearl grove no, it's based on screen percentage, not pixels
@snow raft they work, but it can be a little tricky to work with reflection captures 'cuz players can move their head anywhere
snow raft
yeah thats what I thought, Im having troubles with reflections as it is so Im just trying to work out if I should just write all my own stuff to handle it
I dont even think i can fake area lights based on camera pos because of reflections
wait a second thats odd, in reflections mode it works lol
full junco
the forward renderer is a bit lame without dynamic shadows from movable lights...
wicked oak
thats honestly a huge issue
full junco
also no dynamic AO
full junco
its basically only meant for projects that use fully static lighting
wicked oak
but no shadows?
shadows arent deferred/forward
they should work the same way in both
gona review forward for my VR game
i show it in 10 days in Madrid, so if it does work well, i have that glorious MSAA
i take pride of doing completely flawless VR showings, unlike other indie games near, that do VR and know nothing and it lags and its aliased as hell
ffs sake guys, remove that damn postprocess
full junco
what postprocess?
wicked oak
in the game i was getting real annoyed at becouse they were demoing a spooky game, seated, on gamepad, at 50 fps
they had Screen space AO
and vignette
and ssreflections
those 3 work really bad in VR
screenspace AO normally looks super fake, and its easy to see
ssreflections look fake as hell, and waste a lot of performance
and vignette on vr is just really bad
mighty carbon
DanielW asked everyone with PC VR to test 4.14p1 and report any issues / concerns with forward renderer immediately so Epic could fix it for 4.14 release
full junco
there is no alternative I think, so I'm happy with at least having ssao
wicked oak
portin my game there, ill return with results
mine doesnt have any postprocess other than bloom
and no shadows
becouse performance
mighty carbon
wicked oak
getting those smooth 90 fps when you are pushing nearly 2 million polygons per eye is super damn hard
full junco
bloom is crazy expensive so I had to disable it
wicked oak
takes less than 0.4 milliseconds
at least for me, if i remember correctly
FXAA takes more
full junco
0.4 is a lot, and here it was more than 1
full junco
I set the quality to as low as possible, 0
wicked oak
bokeh is hella expensive
mighty carbon
no dynamic shadows sucks.. Shadows are crazy important to plant dynamic objects in the scene
makes it more believable
full junco
no idea, I can't use those
wicked oak
i think distance field ao is too expensive for vr ...
those 90 fps...
when there is overhead everywhere
full junco
dfao is crazy expensive but looks awesome
wicked oak
like nearly 3 milliseconds for a reflection capture actor
really?
it isnt nearly as strong on desktop
but on vr it is
i need to keep a basepass under 4 ms to get it to work
full junco
4ms on which gpu?
wicked oak
970
full junco
ok
wicked oak
i guess you have seen that to keep 90fps you need to hit 8.5 ms
while 90 fps is actually 11 ms
full junco
no haven't seen that
full junco
oh it does?
wicked oak
it does
full junco
why is it doing that?
wicked oak
oculus just asyncs timewarp everything
giving no fucks
so you can be at 90 fps
or 100
or be at 80
and still be alright
full junco
but what happens in those 2ms at vive?
full junco
that's not good
wicked oak
no its not
what happens, is that valve doesnt have timewarp
at all
well, async timewarp
so if you render under 8.5 ms
you keep your 90 fps
that arent timewarped
if you go over 8.5, it goes into the safeguard and goes into "reprojection" mode
full junco
they should really implement ATW and ASW...
full junco
don't get why valve waits to long with that
wicked oak
becouse its super hard
and not platform agnostic at all
oculus stuff works becouse they have made deals with the GPU makers
full junco
valve can too
wicked oak
but then its vive only
they want steamvr to be more portable
thats why it doesnt use any kind of async timewarp
oculus is focused on oculus
and they have carmack
and Abrash
they give no craps at all about others
they focus on making their headset work as smooth as possible
and they succeeed
full junco
valve wants steamvr to support other headsets than vive, but why is that a problem? if they put ATW in the sdk then it would work everywhere
mighty carbon
damn open source philosophy back fires sometimes
wicked oak
no, becouse atw is a lot more complex than just in the sdk
they are working on it, btw
but then oculus comes with async spacewarp
full junco
they are? sure?
wicked oak
wich lets games run at 45 fps and feel and look smooth
so rift at 45 fps is "smooth"
while vive at 45 is noticeably choppy
if a game is around 10 ms
it means that on the oculus is at 90 fps timewarped with nearly zero perceived latency
while on the vive it has gone to 45 and the controller jitters
wait for the hands to appear, and random people to make tests
when people find that Raw Data works FAR smoother on an oculus than on a vive, ill be there with popcorn
in my game, if you want to get it smooth on vive, you need to lower the resolution 10-20%
becouse im precisely at around 10 ms
9-10 ms
that goes to 45 in the vive
while it stays at perfect 90 on rift
full junco
are you sure valve is working on it?
wicked oak
they have reported it, so i guess yes
but being a dev, with profiling tools, and testing both
the difference is huge
and hey, 2 ms difference is a 25% headroom
full junco
where have they reported it?
wicked oak
in some slides
but they DO
thats what "allways on reprojection" does
if you turn it off, then you do have those 11 ms
but if you drop
then it jitters wildly
like dk2 days wildly
having the headroom lets them switch to the 45 fps mode and have a lot more headroom in the case of a heavy scene
but their position is basically
"just lower graphics"
and then you have people on the oculus side, setting Elite at ultra in 4k downsampled
and going with the 45 fps spacewarp
fresh laurel
full junco
yeah I know their "just lower graphics" position, so I'm not sure if they will move away from that position...
fresh laurel
WHY
fresh laurel
^
wicked oak
and i mean more than vive and oculus combined
in a week
or near that
in japan, they have sold 50k units
in like 2 days
the entire allotment for japan
all japanese psvr sold
i guess that waifu simulator game sells
fresh laurel
Yep
wicked oak
the japanese is going to be a huge psvr market
oculus and vive hasnt sold much there
no body has beefy PC
and even less have space
but quite a few have ps4
and PSVR needs less space
full junco
why do they make a video about why vr is dead, its far from dead, dont understand why they do that
probably I have to watch the video
wicked oak
didnt they basically trashed oculus spacewarp recently?
junior prism
No idea
wicked oak
becouse you go into the forums and reddit and people is quite literally mindblown
junior prism
I remember the moment as well, after the 5 gamers 1 pc
their quality and fact checking just nose dove
mighty carbon
there are always people who despise new stuff
junior prism
they rely on clickbait theories and stupid stuff like "WHICH CHARGER SURVIVES IN WATER"
BECAUSE YOU'RE TOTALLY GOING TO TAKE A CHARGER INTO THE WATER WITH YOU
mighty carbon
and those VR nay sayers are such people
junior prism
It's obvious to anyone with a brain cell the thing limiting VR at the moment is tech and the fact it doesn't have too many games yet and developers are still feeling out the tech
prime iris
yeah, vr isn't dead it's just been born
junior prism
It's not dead, it just hasn't had it's growth spurt yet
prime iris
and it's retarded and shitting everywhere
junior prism
just like any emgering technology
fresh laurel
I am tempted to post something in reply to Linus Tech tips
junior prism
It just hurts us developers talking shit like that
prime iris
in a year or two it will be slightly more optimistic
VR atm is for people who will create content
mighty carbon
it's not the price
prime iris
but don't tell people that because content creators need customers too
junior prism
The price is the factor but not the reason
mighty carbon
people by $3000 big ass TVs on credit
just need to give them a reason to spend $1300 on Rift, PC and Touch bundle
hell, after OC3 I was sold on Rift, but not entirely
junior prism
Yeah I think it's obvious at this point that Oculus is losing this "battle"
prime iris
also, if you use visual studio and get bugged by intellisense indenting after you write a UPROPERTY macro then -> https://forums.unrealengine.com/showthread.php?122981-C-I-wrote-a-visual-studio-extension-to-fix-the-annoying-smart-indenting-issues-around-UE4-macros
mighty carbon
(as a dev though I was totally sold on it)
junior prism
I am suprised how much Palmer actually affected business
Usually it's a slap on the wrist and a sorry
but because it's a CRUICAL moment
where they need every and any developer
they just slipped up and continue to make all the wrong moves
fresh laurel
:\
dry fjord
never mix business and politics
fresh laurel
I am very suprised by palmer luckys donation to the trump foundation
junior prism
I'm not
mighty carbon
why does it matter?
dry fjord
BUT JAEGERBOMBS
prime iris
I think VR will be pretty well established in 5 years. Maybe not desktop or smartphone saturation, but established as not just a gimick. From there on out it will start to grow pretty fast, maybe being parity with montior usage in a decade
junior prism
@mighty carbon because he hurt a platform many developers were relying on
fresh laurel
I guess I am more suprised how he did it.
fresh laurel
Basically dark money
wicked oak
and everyone hates him
mighty carbon
why does it matter who he donated money to? I don't care for example
wicked oak
and hillary gives X.XXX.XXX cash to internet troll to manipulate people, and no one cares
dry fjord
it'll replace traditional forms of computing
it'll get cheaper and better
then apple will release an overpriced version that everyone wants
wicked oak
nah, the real thing is AR
prime iris
palmers donations aren't important. what's important to me is that he's a bit of a snake oil salesman when it comes to hyping VR to people it's not ready for
wicked oak
Magic Leap and stuff
dry fjord
@wicked oak not to get political in here but I doubt that CTR is doing as much as the right wing trolls make out they are. I've been banned from subreddits for being a "CTR shill" when I point out both candidates are insane.
junior prism
Just think how easy it'll be to convert your VR experiences to AR though
prime iris
all the people complaining about the lack of games bought it because of palmer and oculus hype train. but they were never going to meet expectations.
wicked oak
i plan to switch to that, i see some serious business there
junior prism
I think that's the point
prime iris
i full expect there to be healthy growth moving forward, especially with next generation hardware
wicked oak
@dry fjord , i know its policital and not good, but check r/politics
its absolutely insane
dry fjord
/r/politics is hugely clinton biased, yes
full junco
I disliked oculus long before the palmer stuff
dry fjord
pretty much all american news sources and blogs have strong bias
fresh laurel
Why is that @full junco ?
wicked oak
straight out of metal gear or some distopian movie
dry fjord
I hated oculus for their customer service before palmer blew his load
wicked oak
no, its not just clinton biased, its clinton bought
fresh laurel
:\
prime iris
Clinton is the western version of Putin corrupt to the bone. And Trump will sell America for personal profit
wicked oak
nah, oculus is fine
full junco
I dislike oculus for their closed stuff buisiness practices etc, trying to lock their games with DRM etc
junior prism
I didn't like Palmer's comments at the end of the Unreal videos he did
dry fjord
see, that would venture into the realm of 'you might be imagining things' dude
junior prism
So I never liked the asshole
fresh laurel
Can we stot talking about Poltics
junior prism
He had the trust of a platform that MANY people had a stake in
wicked oak
the thing is that he has to be 100% flawless every time
dry fjord
2016 was the year of every-man-for-himself
junior prism
With great power comes great responsibility
wicked oak
or else he will be the focus of something, like with the trump thing
full junco
I liked oculus when it started and I like them for starting this whole VR hype
dry fjord
I think just trying not to lie to customers is a more reasonable goal but he failed at that too
wicked oak
becouse that thing blew out of proportion a ridiculous amount
full junco
and I still respect palmer for doing that
prime iris
Yeah. I don't dislike him. and I can even empathize with his his position, and don't envy his vr posterboy status it's gunna be tough regardless. I'm just one of those VR commies that don't want walled gardens and all that jazz
wicked oak
but they are investing a ton on VR
and want to get it to succeed
look at steam VR games
full junco
without valve you could say desktop VR isn't looking good, but luckily there is valve
wicked oak
thats what happens without external budget
full junco
valve has the sympathy of almost all gamers
junior prism
I applaud Steam for turning SteamVR to OpenVR and open sourcing componants
THAT'S going to lead to interesting innovation
Not DRM and walled gardens
prime iris
I think there are loads of developers interested inVR. they just can't do it for profit yet 😄
dry fjord
VR as it is is almost 100% because of valve.
wicked oak
and oculus
dry fjord
palmer just stole the limelight without doing real R&D
fresh laurel
wicked oak
it would be half life 3 style
dry fjord
but they did
dry fjord
they were in before oculus and ready before oculus
dry fjord
just familiarize yourself with actual recent VR history, it'll help improve your point of view
wicked oak
becouse both companies will try to outinvest and outtech each other
dry fjord
these timelines aren't secret
wicked oak
i know they were doing VR
and helped oculus
then oculus sold out to facebookj
and valve got annoyed from that
and decided to take Vive to market
full junco
a 3rd platform for desktop vr would be nice
wicked oak
and who can do that
junior prism
It hink just the one for now would be fine
full junco
google maybe?
junior prism
No need to Shoculus 😄
prime iris
I want there to be hundreds of desktop vr platforms
full junco
amazon?
wicked oak
google is doing mobile
junior prism
Oh man
wicked oak
and then AR
wicked oak
google is investing a shit ton on AR
wicked oak
well, amazon should fix their recomendation system first
becouse if i look for a specific thing, and buy it
i dont need to be spammed with that constantly
full junco
I think elon musk should do VR 😛
prime iris
I think in 5 years we'll be looking like android/nvidia/amd where certain companies make money from R&D, and then the rest of the show is ran by ACER/ASUS/BenQ/etc
wicked oak
that would be cool
fresh laurel
AMD Launches Open Source Ray Traced VR Audio Tech ‘TrueAudio Next’
wicked oak
but not sure, what has amazon to win from VR?
junior prism
Eh, audio is not so important right now imo
wicked oak
facebook has the whole social vr angle
full junco
AMD has done so much open source stuff in the recent time
fresh laurel
Yep
wicked oak
google has the same thing, but on mobiles
full junco
for some reason UE4 isnt really imntegrating any of those awesome amd open source things
wicked oak
apple is there walking in circles
fresh laurel
prime iris
I don't even want my web browser to be social (haven't logged in to facebook in years). I'm not sold on social VR , but then I guess there are people who are 😄
did you see the audio library for Quake? The one that raytraced sound across geometry and could apply effects based on the material it interacts with?
prime iris
that social i can understand
prime iris
I just played wow with my guild. and played cs 1.6 with irl friends for years
wicked oak
so facebook is doing their own, offical style
prime iris
I'm just not sold on VR as an alternative to IRC
wicked oak
my next game might be a MP dungueon crawler in VR
prime iris
or discord for that matter
wicked oak
where you meet "adventurers" and go fight goblins in a dungueon and stuff
prime iris
sounds cool
wicked oak
when i finish DWVR
prime iris
DWVR?
wicked oak
wich will have spellcasting and stuff
yeah, my action vr game
so then ill bring the spellcasting to the mp dungueon crawler
plus good melee combat
prime iris
do i google dwvr? or is there a name 😄
wicked oak
but the melee is problematic
its called dwvr for now
im still looking for a good name
prime iris
yeah, i'm working on something similar at the moment. I have a neat plan for it
though I wish a company would make motion capture gloves. leap is nice but having to have your hands in front of your headset limits its usefulness
wicked oak
the video in this twit shows some of the gameplay
including spellcasting
throwing fireballs and ice arrows
@prime iris the oculus touch comes close
with the capacitative buttons
full junco
I want valve to be better than oculus regarding everything
prime iris
I'd like to have them, but as a vive owner I don't have that option :<
wicked oak
lol, valve wont
they are already mismanagiing vive
opening the door is BAD
oculus store has a review
prime iris
I dont really care who is better. I just want people to keep making new things
wicked oak
almost console-like
they play your game, they make sure everything runs wel
a consumer, when he buys a game at oculus store
knows he is getting something that works
mean while on valve
everything is valid
doesnt even open?
its fine anyway
prime iris
Until we're taking sedatives to stop our bodies moving and being spun around in gyrscopes for real world sensations in vr while having our nervous impulses measured to move around in VR
full junco
@wicked oak whats the problem with letting the player decide whats good and what not with reviews? you dont need to buy a game thats rated bad at steam. and you can easily return it
prime iris
that's when they can stop innovating!
I disagree. PC gamers have been dealing with shovelware for years
having a corrupt asshole deciding what is allowed doesn't solve that problem either
wicked oak
becouse good games get drowned in trash
prime iris
it just leads to nepotism
dry fjord
@full junco a lot of game devs disagree with refunds or negative reviews. they feel they're unfair and shouldn't exist.
wicked oak
and it ends up being bad for the consumer, becouse then people just get bored of looking the store when 9/10 games are shovelware
full junco
@wicked oak can't you set steam to only show games with excellent rating?
dry fjord
these are the same game devs who can't take critique of their work
wicked oak
but recently released games dont have reviews yet
thats one hell of a avenue for just doing paid reviews
full junco
@dry fjord why unfair? when a game is shit, let people see that its shit 😛
dry fjord
they'll find any justification for this position
wicked oak
get all your friends to buy your game and leave a good review
yes, its more expensive now that keys dont count, but still
you then pay them back
you lose 40%
but get a few of them at release
like 3-4
prime iris
"I don't want to have to do marketing to get people excited about my game"
dry fjord
I see rube-goldbergesque explanations for why reviews are bad all the time, they always hinge on some nefarious behaviour by other game devs, who are all evil. and consumers, who are all evil and dumb. and steam who is evil and dumb.
full junco
good games are easily identified I think
prime iris
I think the problem with reviews at the moment is that there aren't enough VR related reviews
wicked oak
the problem with reviews, is how volatile it is at release
seriously, it almost screams for devs to exploit it
becouse you have very little time at the frontpage
without reviews, people is wary
prime iris
not enough adrevenue for major places to be interested. and i'm never gunna trust the opinion of a youtuber 😄
wicked oak
get 3-4 paid good reviews, people click on it, and see good review
full junco
@wicked oak with an interesting trailer people are interested
wicked oak
then they buy
dry fjord
sounds black and white
wicked oak
reviews are a huge part
dry fjord
your thinking may not represent reality
wicked oak
of course it wont
but this is from my findings on VRMultigames
and Deathwave
specially on VRmultigames
full junco
you mean devs should pay others for reviews? I think thats not good 😛
prime iris
@wicked oak do you have a youtube channel? your tweet is coming up with "The media could not be played"
wicked oak
even on frontpage, on a FREE games, download didnt spike until a couple good reviews
yes, i do, but that is an authored clip from a bigger video
here is the full one
prime iris
ty
full junco
and you can do stuff like ads on facebook to let people know about your game
prime iris
@wicked oak cool. kind of like bioshock meets a wave shooter?
wicked oak
kinda
is more doom/quake than bioshock
but the spellcasting blend is indeed from bioshock inspiration
prime iris
I just meant in terms of gunplay meets magic/psychic powers
wicked oak
its a VR version of Deathwave
wich is much more obvious on that
but im going to put it as a new game
becouse im recoding it
its not just a vr port
prime iris
Well I appreciate there being levels rather than just a generic platform enemies come toward 😄
wicked oak
and movement
prime iris
yeah
how do you balance teleporting? it use an energy bar or something or can you Q all over the place
prime iris
hehe, yeah 😄
prime iris
I've been thinking energy/mana for it maybe tie that to offensive abilities too. so you can run away or explode things. not both
the other is to just put it on a cooldown so that you can't spam it
and throw in onward style walking movement so teleport is used more as an evasive maneuver rather than a staple movement mechanic
mighty carbon
I never read reviews
wicked oak
if you have that, you end up moving allways, and i dont think that fits on an arena style vr shooter
becouse you would need to make it fast
and then you do it allways, and get everyone sick
onward goes with it becouse its slow
also lets you fall off the map easily
mighty carbon
I either take a leap of faith based on non-user reviews and videos, or I play demo first.
wicked oak
and cheese the melee AI
prime iris
No I agree. I just think that teleporting can be a little fast so I'd like to limit it, but at the same time I dont want the player to feel stuck when they're unable to teleport
mighty carbon
User reviews are garbage for the most part
wicked oak
actually, being fast is good
if its fast enough, the time spent teleporting is low
that does good for motion sickness
no one of all the people i showed the game at Barcelona got sick
and 99% of them were vr noobs
i expected more sickness
is a very high intensity game after all
some people just moved little
other people got into it more and were zipping around the map like mad
with the shotguns
or with the sword
wow
MSAA looks incredible
but then...
9.88 ms
dat 3ms prepass and 4ms basepass
this is using instanced stereo
the prepass kills me
prime iris
I haven't even begun looking in to profiling my VR experiments. just been having fun immitating other peoples games 😄
wicked oak
this is 1.2 million polys on 1500 drawcalls
super simple materials
all light baked
very interesting
basepass seems to take 4 ms allways
regardless of resolution
ive been toying with the engine window
check the size of the level preview
and its 4ms
but depth prepass isnt
ima leave, more testing tomorrow
becouse it looks absolutely glorious
prime iris
Why did they have to release the preview now!? Civ 6 comes out soon :<
real needle
I was able to edit the preview window to be fullscreen 😃
It was not implemented as a new feature in 4.14 was it?
still marsh
What is the W on a Vector 4? I ask becuase I upgraded to 4.14 and one of my Saturation things on a Post process broke
My vector3 is no longer compatible with it's new(?) Vector4, not sure what W is
Asking here since you're all using 4.14 now I imagine. 😄
Oh might just be weight
still marsh
How do you adjust the MSAA?
Console commands or something available? What would they be?
real needle
@still marsh Try r.PostProcessAAQuality (0-6)
still marsh
Ok cool, thought that might be it
full junco
@wicked oak don't profile from the editor!
@wicked oak but do you basically say that the forward renderer is slower for you than the deferred one?
prime iris
@still marsh I can't remember exactly but it's something to do with scaling or reprojection. If I recall correctly it's usually set to 0 for points and 1 for vector length
if it's relating to a material then it's probably just the alpha value of an RGBA vec4
full junco
ok I've just tested the forward renderer, it definitely looks awesome with MSAA instead of Temporal AA
with MSAA a screen percentage of 100 is really acceptable
MSAA: http://puu.sh/rQ6a3/c7b9f48965.png
Temporal AA: http://puu.sh/rQ6aR/2b88ba58a1.png
junior prism
Can you merge those posts into one so I can pin it?
full junco
me?
junior prism
Yush
full junco
ok
full junco
I never looked at that pinning stuff and I never saw pinned stuff in discord
clever sky
Save us based MSAA
junior prism
Still two posts lol
full junco
just the "with MSAA a screen percentage of 100 is really acceptable" is a seperate post
clever sky
@wicked oak DWVR = Demon War VR!
clever sky
St.Taiku
full junco
why don't I see St.Taiku then but those other stuff? 😛
full junco
I would prefer to just see a name I can read
clever sky
What's Kitatus?
full junco
you are kitatus?
junior prism
Yeeee it is I
full junco
how should anyone know that?
clever sky
Oh @junior prism is Mathew Wadstein?
full junco
@velvet cave who's that then?
clever sky
Ah 😛
junior prism
My account for posting stuff Epic-related
clever sky
Mathew good people. His youtube tutorials are great.
junior prism
Yeeee
and apparently it's my fault he exists 😛
Well my fault he does what he does lol
clever sky
Hahaha.
junior prism
@full junco If you need verifaction it's me
You used to always bitch about bugs day in, day out on slack 😛
full junco
everyone knows that 😛
junior prism
Good point 😛
clever sky
Anyway. I missed the shit talking party about Palmer.
But I gotta say this - Carmack let Palmer take the VR limelight at the start!
He was helping a kid out! Seemed like a great idea at the time!
Boy wonder helps to reinvent VR!
junior prism
Has Carmack actually done anything legit that's changed the way of VR
clever sky
Reality: Palmer put together crappy lenses with mobile phone LCD
junior prism
All I hear is him shouting at people to make better games
clever sky
Carmack wrote the tracking interface and the lens warp that helped to kick this shit off the ground.
clever sky
Yeah.
junior prism
I meant as part of Oculus
clever sky
Which is also incidentally why Beth wants to sue them so bad.
full junco
is that proven @clever sky ?
sounds strange to me that carmack would let palmer and his company get all the money for that if carmack did more than palmer
clever sky
Yeah, it's documented in the videos where he first talks about VR
Back around quakecon 2012
He worked with Palmer to get the initial duct tape rift together.
but palmer basically supplied the box and he did the software.
junior prism
That makes no sense
clever sky
Because before he found palmer, he was using laser projectors and shooting them into his eye.
junior prism
So all Palmer did is come up with an idea that was already thought up many times before?
clever sky
He was in the right place (MTBS3D) at the right time (when Carmack was messing around with VR stuff)
To be fair, prior to palmer duct taping mobile LCD and crappy lens together VR was expensive custom displays and expensive lens and no fish-eye distortion
junior prism
I bet there was a phone prototype floating around
there has to have been
I mean Metal Gear Ac!d already had Snake Eyes
it was all done before
clever sky
Possibly - but not visible enough for Carmack to find.
junior prism
it's just peopled decided to fund it this time
clever sky
Or less visible such that Carmack found palmer before that stuff.
Well... it's because it 'worked' this time.
Like was sufficiently good at a sufficiently promising price point (remember $300 :P).
full junco
how did palmer get other people to fund oculus with him if he just took a display and lenses, put them together and let carmack do the "real" stuff?
doesn't make sense that carmack wouldnt immediately join that company
or that carmack would pay palmer to get a job at bethesda
that would be the most obvious thing
if carmacks involvement would have been so important then he would have got the lead role in whatever they do, not the guy who just took a lense and a display
junior prism
The only excuse I can think of
Was that Palmer was his "ghost"
because he couldn't do shit at Bethesda
so he'd funnel his work through Palmer
but then why Palmer
clever sky
Because Carmack was still under contract with Bethesda at that point. And was recalled from messing around with VR in his sabbatical time
to go back and work on Idtech
clever sky
So Palmer took the limelight that carmack passed him
and ran with it. Made him a lightning rod for investors
Because of the positive reception at Quakecon
so they put together a team and started the kickstarter
back in 2012
clever sky
Because Oculus was a tiny startup and Bethesda didn't appear to be interested in VR at that point.
Gotta remember Carmack had been with Id as a founder
and he's been through a lot with that company.
So it took facebook money to bring John over - because it appears that it's serious at that point.
junior prism
To be fair, I think no matter what the truth is
Bethesda is totally in their right to sue his ass
clever sky
It'll be interesting to see how it plays out. For a while everyone was like - fucking bethesda, you've got no claim to nothing!
I'm pretty sure they're only doing Doom and Fallout 4 in VR (and exclusive to SteamVR/Vive) to spite/foil Oculus' plans
As in, Vive will be the first PCVR HMD to get a AAA VR game.
Even if they're 'ports' (doesn't really matter too much if they redesign all the mechanics to work well in VR).
full junco
but isnt fallout 4 a super crappy VR port?
clever sky
I'm pretty sure that people would jump all over a well ported Skyrim as well.
prime iris
There was a prototype. Palmer had a law suit with a company the paid him to research the oculus
clever sky
@full junco They've been positively received so far.
full junco
room scale skyrim 😍
clever sky
Actually Doom uses the same teleportation mechanic as Vblanco's stuff. Hahaha
Not just dash teleportation, but dash teleportation with slow down while deciding on where to dash!
prime iris
Can't remember how that turned out but basically the oculus hardware was what they funded but they didn't pay palmers contract in full so he went looking for other funding and found carmack
clever sky
I think the contention was (and to be sure, we don't know the full story, only the half truths that come from both parties) that they paid Palmer for a HMD which he assembled as a contractor.
While they contend that they owned the IP because they paid him to assemble it.
So... basically they're just looking for a pay out, because they don't have the money to win it all.
full junco
ok
clever sky
Hmm. Default glass doesn't really work well in Forward Rendering huh
But that text legibility.
clever sky
Got a door that I can slam shut in VR 😛
full junco
@clever sky "default glass"?
full junco
ok
clever sky
To be fair, the default glass mat isn't particularly great anywhere 😛
But without refractions, it's basically just slightly darker air. Unless you happen to catch speculars at the right angle.
Which is why I guess arch viz uses cube maps for reflections.
On glass
In UE4
pearl tangle
you can do much better looking reflections now for arch viz since you can bump up the reflection capture quality a long way
and the better way is to use a render target with a camera as well, makes for much more realistic reflections
clever sky
But isn't that way heavier on performance?
clever sky
I'd use that for a mirror
But not for general architectural glass.
Just too much of it everywhere.
pearl tangle
yeah most people do that for mirrors just a render texture
clever sky
Especially for VR.
pearl tangle
but the better way is to plug it into another material and put it in there as a layer
give it another 6 months and we will be able to push much better quality stuff to VR than we can to desktops for the same performance hit
clever sky
Ah... so a mirror material
With a render capture material?
Can you do render capture for each eye?
To create a stereo image
pearl tangle
you could yeah, would be pretty heavy though and also you would then need to make sure the camera(s) themselves are moving appropriately to the player perspective
clever sky
Yeah.
Still, would be super neat.
Actually, I had that sort of mirror setup before in an old Unity VR demo I did.
But I didn't code it. Was just an asset I found on the store.
pearl tangle
you can do stereo video on a material too which is kinda cool
clever sky
Ah... that's how you can do lightfield stuff in VR
pearl tangle
I made a little vr cinema in unreal before and the 3D videos always look good
nah lightfield is a different concept
clever sky
Yeah.
pearl tangle
lightfield is about changing the DOF on the fly
clever sky
Hmmm... I remember EverydayVR was doing lightfield objects in Unity. Like diamonds.
Basically a flipbook texture that changed the texture it looked up based on the angle you're looking at it.
So... I guess you just change the look up per eye.
pearl tangle
oh yeah thats more of a virtual representation of lightfield. but thats how you would do proper reflections if you are doing a render target for your reflection. you would move the camera thats capturing relative to the persons head movement
it's the same way CAVE setup's work and how you can do perspective shift with projection mapping and head tracking
clever sky
Yep. Just figuring out the algorithm now.
pearl tangle
but lightfield capture is more based on cameras in the real world capturing different FOV's constantly so that you can adjust the video or photo on the fly
which means you can give 360 video the ability to have positional tracking
to a certain extent anyways
clever sky
Is it different FOVs? I watched the Otoy talk on the subject.
Or was it the Lytro talk
pearl tangle
different focus points not FOV sorry
clever sky
Either one - the idea was to capture every point of light hitting a larger spherical surface.
pearl tangle
so instead of setting your camera to focus 1m away and being stuck there with everything else blurry you capture at 1m,2m,3m,100m all at the same time
clever sky
And then interpolate to find the correct lookups within that volume.
pearl tangle
then you adjust in post where the actual focus point is
thats how you capture HDR not lightfield
although maybe people were experimenting to capture that way too
clever sky
HDR is an EV-stop thing... capture the same scene at multiple light levels
pearl tangle
yeah thats lighting, lightfield is the same thing but for focus
clever sky
Yeah. The tech behind how they actually do it is fascinating as hell though.
pearl tangle
yeah. Jaunt has been doing a lot with lightfield 360 capture. but they got millions in funding so that always comes in handy
clever sky
Oh yeah.
It's a race.
But other tech in the chain needs to catch up... mainly data storage and retrieval.
pearl tangle
well nokia still has the best all in 1 360 camera on the market and thats $45k USD
clever sky
360 lightfield video is insanely massive.
Nokia's isn't lightfield though.
It's stereo
pearl tangle
nope. but nobody has a 360 lightfield rig you can just go and buy
clever sky
Lytro will be the first to market there.
With their big ball camera. They're not even selling it. Just renting it out.
pearl tangle
yeah. i don't see the tech as lasting though anyway. AR will start to take over from VR within the next few years and the capturing from all perspectives will be a bigger deal. the holoportation stuff with hololens is pretty amazing. and porn will drive that industry massively. since you can then walk around a scene and see from any perspective or position the camera wherever you feel like. much more immersive than having a 360 camera with distortion and locked to somebody elses head movement
clever sky
Nah... not that straight forward.
proper 360 lightfield capture is volumetric.
i.e. you can move within the capture volume and have the view update correctly
pearl tangle
yeah but from a single perspective, rather than a room with cameras around it
clever sky
Which is fine for seated.
pearl tangle
the lytro stuff is kinda like filming with a kinect
clever sky
Also a big advantage is that you get accurate reflections.
3D Capture won't give accurate material reflections...
So each will have its own uses.
3D capture probably more versatile for porn though!
pearl tangle
yeah i think it will completely change that industry once AR becomes more mainstream
once that happens im sure the reflection mapping and things will be solved too
clever sky
@dry fjord you said they weren't updating UE4 VR editor anymore? Is that after this new VR landscaping feature?
dry fjord
That's what Victor told me
pearl tangle
they just did a twitch stream on it yesterday
probably mentioned something in there
clever sky
Yeah hopefully! 😛
sly chasm
just wandering, does the rift's dev kit 1 even work at all with ue4?
sly chasm
ah
sly chasm
does the dev kit 2 work either?
clever sky
Doubt it. But I haven't tried. Sold my DK2
sly chasm
yeah, I saw a few on creigslist
man, I sure am torn on which headset to get
The vive has a lot of functionality
but the rift is really comfortable
clever sky
If you've waited this long go for the Rift
sly chasm
how come?
clever sky
Because the main diff between Vive and Rift
is the motion controller
Since Rift will be getting motion controllers in December
it'll bring it up to relative parity.
As far as tracking goes, you can get room scale tracking on the Rift with 2 cameras (1 included with headset 1 included with touch controllers)
As long as the room isn't too big (less than 4 m diagonally I'd say)... and you can put up with some more jittering when you bring your hands close to your body.
Otherwise you can get 1 more camera for full robust roomscale.
So... you get a better headset, you get more functionality in the touch controllers, and most importantly, you can also dev for Oculus store if you want to.
(gotta be mindful of Vive controller limitations if you want them to be compatible between Oculus and Vive though)
At roughly the same price.
Oh... and if you care about accessing consumer content, you also get access to the Oculus store, with all their money-hatted exclusives.
sly chasm
hm
clever sky
Main reason to go Vive now would be if you have no interest in oculus stuff at all and want better Vive compatibility.
Vive/SteamVR
sly chasm
so the rift motion controllers are less accurate than the vive's?
clever sky
No. They're a different shape with different inputs.
But their functionality overlaps Vive functionality while adding some extras
Main difference is the touch controllers use analog sticks while Vive uses track pads.
Easier to select precisely with touch pad (so if you can have many virtual buttons on trackpad)
But more comfortable to push/move around with analog sticks.
Rift controllers also have extra buttons (1 on each controller) and touch sensitive surfaces on their buttons
Which lets the system know when you have finger lift off.
Mainly used for doing hand gestures.
sly chasm
yeah
clever sky
Like a thumbs up, or a finger point.
Like... if you were devving for both, you wouldn't put critical functionality on the stuff that Vive can't do.
But it's possible to do that. Like instead of a button press, you just have touch-on for some sort of menu confirmation (god knows why you'd do this). In which case Vive users would be screwed.
Or have game mechanics rely on finger gestures. Like NPCs recognizing when you're pointing or giving a thumbs up - and that's connected to questing somehow.
sly chasm
I just kind of dont know which will be definatelly more future proofed
or
the most versitle
I mean
clever sky
After touch controllers come out, definetly the Rift. But maybe this changes again once you start getting peripherals that uses the lighthouse system.
But we don't have official confirmation on any of that stuff.
Just that Valve is prototyping some new controllers (doesn't mean they'll release them).
So... I guess... just buy the one you feel is 'better' (whatever that means) and leave the rest up to chance!
Because at the end of the day... this isn't like buying a car or a house or whatever other (financially) life changing purchase 😛
clever sky
Fair enough.
Well, I've given you all the information. Sometimes the choice is only yours to make!
sly chasm
like, I think I've seen more things that use the vive
clever sky
Rift with touch is fully compatible with Vive games.
sly chasm
oh
clever sky
Sorry. Thought you knew that.
clever sky
😛 yeah. So the decision should be easier now.
sly chasm
yeah, prolly
clever sky
Only problem is you'll be holding touch controllers while looking at Vive controllers.
For games that don't explicitly support the Rift/Touch
clever sky
$200 on top of $600
clever sky
2 with the HMD and touch, extra is 80
sly chasm
also, do you know if the rift is going to have better room-scale support than the vive?
eventually?
clever sky
I wouldn't say better, but it'll have relative parity.
Actually, the Vive will still be better there for specialized use cases (like if you add more lighthouses around the house you can extend the size of the tracked environment... at least that's what they said a while ago. Don't think I've seen anyone use this function).
sly chasm
cuz I am most likely going to be using a lot of room-scale stuff
clever sky
Yeah. That's proper VR. Once you get used to it, everything else feels a bit lacklustre
sly chasm
but probably not with multiple rooms
Ive tried like 2 demos of the rift
but none of the vive
clever sky
Oh yeah.
sly chasm
the first was in Best Buy
and it was a substitute for a oculus representative
cuz he was sick or something
so the guy didnt know anything about it; it was pretty funny
the second was a microsoft store
clever sky
Oh yeah. Thought they did Vive demos at MS.
sly chasm
yeah
I went half-way accross town to do the vive, but it was out of order "for the foreseeable future"
but they had the rift, so I was like "meh, why not"
clever sky
Ah fuck. haha... too many sweaty people had way too much fun on it before you did 😛
clever sky
What game did you try?
sly chasm
I played vr-minecraft
clever sky
Ah yeah.
sly chasm
but it was still pretty impressive
clever sky
Yeah, I can imagine.
pearl tangle
be much better with tracked motion controllers