ah good, does the world pull do rotation too (that bit is bad)?
#virtual-reality
heady parrot
clever sky
Also depends on how far you aim from you.
No rotation on world pull
But there is a complementary world rotation function.
heady parrot
ah damn, Im of the opinion that world pull needs to be almost 1:1, but maybe they found a decent way to interpolate the velocity
clever sky
Which... works exactly like my grab turning system.
heady parrot
so if you grab the world with both hands you dont rotate? that is good
clever sky
No, one hand controls locomotion
grab turning is hold grip and you turn the world around you as though you had a magic handle
And it was on a turn table
The last form is the most basic - flying/scaling. Move in the direction of the controller. You can move forward/backwards relative to the controller
But it scales the world up as you move down to ground and scales it down (shrinking it) as you move further up.
So it's a 360 'flying'.
heady parrot
I guesss thats the mode that shrinks your FOV kinda like Eagle Flight does?
golden snow
Universe Sandbox 2 does something like that.
clever sky
The world pull function works surprisingly well. No vection detected, despite significant speed. Speed variation still feels like it's covered under self-caused motion.
golden snow
And The Climb and Climby (2 seperate games) do stuff like the grabbing one you mentioned before.
clever sky
Yep.
All these systems are banking on a self-caused motion illusion (as I call it).
Kinda similar to the idea of grabbing a big piece of cardboard and move it around your head.
Or a curtain. Or something large enough to fill your field of view.
shy merlin
Has anyone tested bleeding in a vignette type effect and altering FOV for comfort?
clever sky
@heady parrot The FOV shrinking occurs with comfort mode. It shrinks scale on height change.
shy merlin
comfort mode auto adjusts fov?
golden snow
ADR1FT does that, Climbey does that.
shy merlin
i thought it did snap rotation
golden snow
ADrift didn't do it as well, Climby does it alright.
clever sky
Adrift doesn't have hand grabbing locomotion from what I recall?
The vive implementation was super bad.
golden snow
Nah.
clever sky
And the game was built around the gamepad for the most part.
Really really terrible VR experience in general Adrift.
Or so I felt in the 5 minutes I tried of it before refunding it 😛
@shy merlin Er, Google Earth comfort mode does FOV reduction yes. No snap rotation anywhere to be found in it.
heady parrot
Has any of you done a velocity-based hand attachment system? Working on one now (planning on OSing), but having some issues with angular velocity drift
clever sky
What do you mean?
heady parrot
instead of turning off physics simulation and parenting an object you grab, you apply velocities directly to the object while grabbed. This allows you to play with mass of grabbed item and it gets "left behind" when hitting heavier objects and such
clever sky
Ah yeah
heady parrot
pretty good blog on why this is neat for VR: http://www.vrinflux.com/newton-vr-physics-based-interaction-on-the-vive/
clever sky
I was thinking of doing something like that, but by faking it.
Hmmm. Check out VRExpansionPlugin if you haven't already.
It has some grip functions that cover that sort of functionality.
I think it's actually deprecated the physics stuff though.
The physics grip; as another version of the grip seemed to do what you'd want with it anyway.
Mordentral talks about it in his vids.
heady parrot
hmm havent heard about that one
clever sky
My feeling is that... objects should stick to the hand. But be able to pivot away from it as it collides against the world.
Hmmm...
that doesn't cover some cases though.
heady parrot
objects need to be solid, and passing through other objects does not give you that 😃
clever sky
So this is what you want: https://fat.gfycat.com/MiserableRareDamselfly.mp4 ?
Anyway, peace.
i'm out
heady parrot
yeah thats from the blog I linked 😃
wicked oak
you can do the thing in that video with a physics handle component
heady parrot
hm? not sure I know what that is 😃 but I got this working fine now just using calculated velocities
the drift was caused by me incorrectly using position and rotation from last frame instead of thinking about current transform and a goal and calculating velocities from that
That basically makes the object try to "home in" on that location and rotation
wicked oak
yeah, main problem of that stuff is lag
ive done tests of attaching the visual hand to the held object
like nvidia funhouse does
this adds a bit of lag to the hand mesh, but then it doesnt desync with what you are holding
heady parrot
actually that is because the motioncontroller component in UE4 is "late latching" and updating the transform at the last possible moment before rendering
right now I just have a problem of jitters because the velocities increase one you try to push "through" another object
You can get around that by writing your own rendering proxy and just doing the same thing 😃 I might do something like that for a base actor
spring pond
Everyone should try google earth VR on the vive, its really well done
silk lodge
I'm downloading it righ tnow!
makes me wonder if I could plan out directions to places and pre-drive them
spring pond
it doesn't have really deep functionality, but they do locomotion really well
and the interface is pretty easy to use for moving around and such
heady parrot
what do you think is lacking?
wintry escarp
goto space and dive down
heady parrot
hehe
spring pond
I mean you can't bring in your custom pins and such
silk lodge
yet
heady parrot
ah, and direction! 😃
spring pond
I'd love streetview as much as 360 spheres aren't as engaging
heady parrot
get a virtual car to drive around in 😃
spring pond
its a super v1 tho
silk lodge
I'm downloading it
and excited to try it out
also, I'm going to take a moment to hype up launch squad
free demo right now. it's really fun
shy merlin
Man, Google Earth VR doesnt work with Oculus
barren rose
Does anyone have any experience with somehow the Vive render chain gets bogged down and the gpu can't recover until SteamVR resets? Bonus points if CUDA is involved
shy merlin
Whyyyy did i get an oculus instead of a vive
winged shale
it will work if you use it through SteamVR but you need Touch
sullen stirrup
how does movement feel @silk lodge
granite jacinth
Vive is the best
heady parrot
really? you go into that kinda discussion here? 😃 this isnt religion
granite jacinth
Just stating the facts
heady parrot
hah, troll
granite jacinth
And why they would support the Vive
heady parrot
#makeVRGreatAgain
heady parrot
sorry Im not biting 😉 I've been deving on both platforms for a very long time now
granite jacinth
Where have you been at?
winged shale
Holy shit it doesn't work through SteamVR??
So they just flat out denied it, rather than let it work
heady parrot
oh nice, seems like Valve just pushed reprojection from beta into release :)
http://www.roadtovr.com/steamvr-update-adds-asynchronous-reprojection/
yeah, lame
winged shale
Methinks Google is becoming political?
granite jacinth
Could be
But, why support a company like that anyway
If more people were like that, then FB would change their ways
Which is what's needed tbh
words come out better please
hard light
"this isn't religion"
I see you haven't been in here long!
winged shale
FB is pretty creepy...
winged shale
And I don't like how I have to log into my goddamn account to use my hardware
sullen stirrup
sorreh wasn't here, Launch Squad @silk lodge
silk lodge
the mechanics and speed and timing are great
sullen stirrup
does it eventually go through objects when sweeping?
also, doesn't camera fading feel weird
uncut galleon
is there anybody around here with some daydream experience?
mighty carbon
I daydream at work from time to time
wintry escarp
nop, only pixel is currently supported
winged shale
If my damn free headset will get here anytime this year then I'll have experience
Well speak of the devil
wintry escarp
im waiting for free gearvr
wintry escarp
I would have got a pixel for the dayfdreamvr but the pixel hardware doesn't justify anywhere close to the price
silk lodge
@sullen stirrup It doesn't go through objects - it follows the path your teleporter ball took, so you don't clip. The camera fading felt weird, but you can use 3 different modes including a total blackout
sullen stirrup
interesting 😄
silk lodge
did you try it yet?
sullen stirrup
nopey, might do
silk lodge
do it, and add me on steam, and we can play it later this week
sullen stirrup
surey, send me a DM with your name and I'll add you asap 😄
uncut galleon
@mighty carbon how are you going about handling the controller? right hand/left hand issue mainly
silk lodge
@sullen stirrup You already know it!
sullen stirrup
o/ 😛
uncut galleon
@mighty carbon and re-centering without always looking down the x-axis, but instead in the general direction the headset is pointing during the re-centering
silk lodge
@sullen stirrup what's your fav vr game?
sullen stirrup
I'm not that much into gaming myself tbh, I like creating games rather than playing them
o/
I enjoyed budget cuts tho
silk lodge
I found out the same thing. My pre vr steam library was about 5 games
my pre steam game library was all the Command & Conquer games
and a lot of freeware
silk lodge
I think I liked budget cuts more than the gallery - possibly because I only played the gallery a month ago
mighty carbon
@uncut galleon from what I heard developing with UE4 for Daydream isn't as smooth as for Gear VR
silk lodge
I'm no longer amazed by throwing objects in vr
uncut galleon
@mighty carbon haha, I should have turned on my sarcasm detectors I guess XD
pallid echo
@dry fjord Did you ever see the game jam entry Sterling and I did called Kitty Bounce? And no, Budget Cuts not available yet.
inland acorn
argh... these blendspaces drive me nuts
(well.. not the BS but they overrule my Montages.. which makes my char behave weird...)
pallid echo
What kind of animations are you using in montages?
inland acorn
root motion sword
works well.. but the idle animation from the blendspace blends into the parry moves... now my char is fighting the drunk monkey style 😃
i will kill this with a 'blend pose by bool'
dry fjord
@pallid echo nope, gimmie!
I had an idea this morning while doing my usual round of watching C-RAM live fire videos
I should take one of those videos and turn it into VR
with all of the hollering and swearing soliders and the mortar warning siren and everything
but just shooting mortars is boring
so then it'll open a portal to hell
etc
you'll end up fighting saddam hussein's giant skeleton as it climbs up from hell
so pretty much an authentic iraq experience
pallid echo
@dry fjord The game was literally about a crazy cat lady who was in a burning building and you had to help her rescue her cats. How do you rescue them though? She throws them out of a window and you as teh player use a trampoline to bounce the cats to their safety nets. I'm expanding this into 'Animal Bounce' so there will be horses, elephants, etc. that should never be able to make it out of a window yet alone be bounced around on trampolines.
dry fjord
nice
it's a natural progression really
you have to ask yourself though, is VR getting too real?
pallid echo
Not real enough
Not till I finish implementing IBM's Watson into UE4 haha
Close...
dry fjord
you should use my fur shader on your animals and do them in The Secret Life Of Pets style
pallid echo
You have it on the marketplace?
pallid echo
I was gonna use NeoFur but the licensing for it is the stupidest thing ever.
dry fjord
yes it is
pallid echo
I hate per project licensing.
dry fjord
it's nice to play with it for cheap but you can't ever use it without incurring accounting bullshit
which means as an indie you're over-committing
wintry escarp
yes their licensing is silly
silk lodge
@dry fjord How well would advanced fur shader work in vr?
hard light
it should work reasonably well so long as your materials are sensible
but yes, their licensing is annoying per-project, but at the same time it's royalty free and inexpensive
silk lodge
I'd really like to have high quality / realistic grass close to the player
hard light
I don't know if you'll get grass out of it that holds up if viewed closely
it's better for things viewed at a reasonable distance
silk lodge
I might try some heavy lod 3D foliage grass
dry fjord
@silk lodge it works fairly good. I need to try it more though
my thing's not for realistic grass really
silk lodge
I want really nice grass in beach ball valley, but I might just go with really trampled grass
dry fjord
it's more anime styled
silk lodge
or astroturf
dry fjord
astroturf I can do 😄
silk lodge
astroturf might just work with a normal map
clever sky
@dry fjord Can you do lara croft style hair with your plugin? 😛
clever sky
Super cute.
dry fjord
is adorabubble
dry fjord
well it's on special on monday 😉
clever sky
Maybe
dry fjord
it requires a lot of work with your characters to get it perfect though
if you want peachfuzz like a muppet, no problem
anything longer and you start needing to think about growth maps
wintry escarp
make it jump up and down so we can see the fur
clever sky
Fair enough.
clever sky
Dayum. The aussies worked on the polymer bank note for 2 decades before it was released 😛
dry fjord
weird, we've had them for two decades
dry fjord
if you've ever seen US money you understand why they want to test them rigorously first
clever sky
Why's that?
clever sky
Don't think green backs will ever go polymer. The US is too proud 😛
clever sky
It's American, therefore defacto better!
dry fjord
hahah
sly chasm
Oculus doesn't send out touch controllers unless you have an official project your working on, right?
dry fjord
nah they send them if you just ask
if they try to ask you anything just say you know palmer and found his conduct deplorable. they will sort you out with all sorts of free stuff.
dry fjord
the guy who gets you free stuff
sly chasm
and did he actually do anything?
dry fjord
long story short, he was the evangelical face of oculus
before long all of his talk turned out to be without merit, his promises vanished and he became combative towards their user base
he'd do an AMA and end up fighting with everyone
then it came out that he took his cut of the money from the facebook deal and funded a really bad pro-trump political troll
they were paid to go and start shitfights and abuse people on the internet for having any left-leanings
basically like they all claimed CTR is, but much more sinister
so it got political
so once that came out palmer disappeared
leaving a trail of destruction and broken promises in his wake
he was easily the worst thing to happen to oculus, they could have had a more professional PR person backing them
sly chasm
sounds bad (0_o)
dry fjord
think Sean Murray but for VR
sly chasm
well
dry fjord
2016 has been a hell of a year
sly chasm
Sean Murray was at least polite-looking
but all jokes aside, would that actually work?
I would kinda feel bad about blackmailing them
dry fjord
I think so
sly chasm
ah
dry fjord
you at least have to demonstrate that you're doing something cool
same as epic, same as valve
you just have to wow them
sly chasm
is the touch even compatible with UE4 right now?
dry fjord
totes
it treats the touch and the vive controllers as generic motion controllers with various capabilities
clever sky
Oculus paid epic to work on VR?
Hopefully Epic makes Robo recall available via learning material 😛
dry fjord
why did they take that deal? it just fragments the community and alienates half of them
clever sky
Then some smart ass just recompiles it for Vive 😛
dry fjord
yeah
clever sky
Not unlike how you can recompile henry and show down for the Vive
dry fjord
yeah
does anyone know if kingspray has any way of getting it now?
like early access?
ah
silver brook
Does anyone know if Simulate PHysics has to be on for Hit Events or Overlap events to work?
dry fjord
nope
silver brook
then I'm not sure why the game Object doesn't trigger it unless it is on?
yea it just isn't. I notice when I turn it off collisions preset switches from PhysicsACtor to BlockAllDynamic is that what is throwing this all off?
winged shale
not sure why this is big news now, it's been working well in beta for a month now
mighty carbon
no idea, just saw it on reddit, decided worth linking here 😃
winged shale
😛
mighty carbon
I'd like to hear from @wicked oak how that compares to ATW on Rift
winged shale
it's just out of beta
dry fjord
excellent
noble swallow
is there a way to push a PIE instance into an HMD that is connected to a networked pc, rather than the one you are developing on?
frontend looks like it could do it
maybe
winged shale
it's all command line executions anyway
noble swallow
oh really?
winged shale
yeah like how VS is hooked up into unreal build tool
I haven't tried or anything but my guess would be there's some kind of exec file that runs when you hit the standalone button
because frontend is command based, or at least it was in previous versions of UE
noble swallow
the build bit is
for sure
just generates UAT commands
but there is some sections on device sharing
im not sure what that generates
the device manager page, I should say
winged shale
it's not gonna just plug n' play, but it should be only a few lines of stringing some commands together to get it to auto-play upon build on a remote device by network transmission
noble swallow
sounds like fun
winged shale
yeah actually it does
noble swallow
give me something to do in the evenings heh
cause im too lazy to shift the kit hahaha
winged shale
my wife said that when she was studying for some exam once 😃
noble swallow
its good for sure
jagged vale
wonder if this would be a good tool for improving at vector math, anyone tried it? http://store.steampowered.com/app/547280/
clever sky
@barren rose Dayum. Great stuff. What do you need for it to work? Just a web cam and green screen?
dry fjord
neat
vector math is just some basic rules to remember though
I have more trouble with quats
hard light
quats are dark, arcane magic and nobody can tell me otherwise
hard light
the biggest advantage is that they don't use Euler angles ergo don't have problems like gimbal lock
clever sky
So... they do full spherical rotation with a single number?
dry fjord
quats are three vectors
you take your normal X, Y and Z vectors of 1,0,0, 0,1,0 and 0,0,1 and redefine them
that gives you a transform that you can use to rotate an object
it's incredible that somebody invented them BEFORE computer graphics were a thing
wicked oak
quats are also mostly encoded as a axis + a angle of rotation
wich makes it far easier to understand than all this "imaginary vector" thing
unity rotators are all quats by default
neon egret
Well, C++ mostly does it with Quats too.
It's mostly only BPs where Epic was like "Na, quats might be too difficult for the users to understand, so let's only expose rotators."
wicked oak
honestly, quats should be the default rotation system i think
they arent really that hard at all
just axis plus angle of rotation
hard light
hmm, the default VR template looks like complete and utter twaddle
the camera is entirely free floating, and the project we've been given has problems where no matter what you do, the floor height seems to be wrong
will have to go through, fix the default pawn, and then fix the teleportation 😐
(because if you fix the height initially, once teleported, it's even worse than before)
broken vine
timber lantern
Hi guys, im on a early stage of a VR game (my first game ever). Can some1 test it and give me some feedback? xD
It a vr physics puzzle adventure
Kind v 0.001 but i really would love some feedback
winged shale
@wicked oak honestly the damn rotators could just be encoded in quats under the hood for every transaction
that's a major failing in Epic's design imo
timber lantern
Its so sad to see u4 with such a core problem.
I understand that fixing this will be a pain because of the constructed things that already use it as it is
But sad 😦
clever sky
Anyone tried to use Widget Interaction components with level triggers?
mighty carbon
@wicked oak have you tried Vive's ATW ?
clever sky
I'm getting an issue where the laser pointer is blocked from picking up a widget if it's within the trigger volume.
Like my menu that normally activates the widget interaction laser pointer thing... and normally finds and intersects with my menu plane
When inside the volume, it'll just pass through my menu.
Like... it's so explicit that if my menu is half way in the volume and halfway out
that the part that's out I can intersect with the pointer, but the part that's in the trigger volume will just pass through.
Ok. On further investigation, it seems to be blocked by query collisions
So if I'm inside any volume that does query collision, my widget interaction component will pass through...
timber lantern
Can you avoid that situation?
clever sky
I'd prefer to retain the ability to use trigger volumes and my widget menu if at all possible...
Without weird conflicts...
wicked oak
add your widget menu to ONE collision channel
and then, in your interaction component, tell it to only test trace against that one collision channel
wicked oak
like this
4.14
you need to create your HudObject collision channel
on project settings
clever sky
Ah.
Ok. I guess I'll need to upgrade this project over to 4.14 D:
4.13 does not have that option :/
wicked oak
clever sky
Will have to wait for Mordentral to update his plugin.
wicked oak
what plugin?
wicked oak
i dont like using plugins for things that i can write mysefl
as then i need to deal with updating them and learning what they do
clever sky
True.
wicked oak
i just code the stuff i need
on some cases, i just take what the plugin is doing and copy it on my project
like ive done with the teleport arc with splines that the 4.13 VR template has
clever sky
Yeah, long term that's definetly what I'll have to do.
heady parrot
You also have the option to participate in OS projects you know 😉 contribute and fix things you dont like
wicked oak
that plugin is opensource?
clever sky
Yeah
heady parrot
I kinda presumed since its on Bitbucket
wicked oak
i cant just drop it as-is
ive thought of packaging stuff for sale on the marketplace
but still not sure
when i wanted to do that, code plugins didnt sell
heady parrot
same 😃 it takes a bit more cleanup and effort
so far I've just given away my stuff for free
wicked oak
and now, some of the stuff i wanted to add to the store as a code plugin is already done on blueprints
so why am i going to upload my C++ weapon system or combat combo system
heady parrot
some people prefer code 😃 myself included
heady parrot
and faster.. if the BPs do any ticks, they are roughly 40x slower
wicked oak
on code you can quickly see it in visual studio
heady parrot
yep
wicked oak
wanted to do an RPG toolkit but there are already stuff for missions and that on the store
some of them quite interesting
heady parrot
my worst nightmare is when people mix them.. base class with logic then a BP inheriting the class with a ton more graph logic 😃
terrible to debug and trace through, and maintain
wicked oak
you mean C++ and blueprints?
heady parrot
yes
wicked oak
i do that constantly, normally i write the complex stuff on C++, and then assemble it inblueprints
clever sky
Bunch of programmers up in here.
winged shale
Yeah. My workflow is:
If I know how to do it already, c++
If I don't know, prototype in BP and then port to c++ immediately
heady parrot
I use that for one thing, to setup a flow.. ie call blocks of code in sequence, like when scripting tutorials etc
wicked oak
i add a shit ton of blueprint events
like a weapon system calling OnFire so i can do the sound+FX in blueprint
clever sky
I'm sorry if I love blueprints! I'm part of the problem! yarrgh 😛
wicked oak
but the actual shooting part on C++
winged shale
Yeah all those editor hooks
wicked oak
you filthy casual
heady parrot
I do the sounds and vfx in code, but expose properties so you can slot in those assets in the BP
wicked oak
i never do that, becouse i dont have proper assets
so i tend to do mix and match, maybe i do 2 fx or a scaled one
and tweak it a lot
so just slotting it its not going to work in my games
winged shale
Once the game is done, I'll hard wire it in, but having BP Hooks for making fx etc is great
heady parrot
might make sense for smaller games and teams, but if you are making a bigger game you need to maintain then yeah.. )
wicked oak
of course
heady parrot
EVE Valkyrie started off using quite a bit of logic in BPs.. in the end we had rewritten most of it into code
wicked oak
this kind of workflow is very nice for a small team
for big teams, all c++
with editor hooks
heady parrot
the one thing I prefer in BPs is the iteration time yeah. Even with hot-reload C++ compilation its not as quick
wicked oak
mostly becouse you cant easily source control blueprints
clever sky
Well... if you can afford the man power, why not get the benefits of faster code?
winged shale
I don't understand why they wouldn't encode BP in some kind of markup language
Instead of blobs
wicked oak
parser overhead?
heady parrot
they are working on that actually
clever sky
I guess they want BP for iteration time
winged shale
Yeah but they "compile"
clever sky
and then use the BP to C++ for actual packaging and production
heady parrot
I mean the persisted asset
wicked oak
but definitely yes, a proper blUEscript would be a good idea
winged shale
So porque no los dos
clever sky
Is that thing effective btw?
wicked oak
well, we already have BP to C++
clever sky
Converting BP to C++
wicked oak
but its not readable code
clever sky
Ah ok
wicked oak
and of course its not as fast as actually well written C++
heady parrot
you tried the new BP compiler in 4.14? I havent yet
wicked oak
my blueprints are high level game logic or FX
winged shale
*nearer to it than BP bytecode
wicked oak
so total cpu time in blueprints is basically 0
yeah, its worth it if you have tons of them
heady parrot
but yeah I think Epic wants to change .uassets in general to something like JSON, saw a discussion on it somewhere
wicked oak
oh god NO
heady parrot
did you know you can copy paste BP graphs into text?
wicked oak
yeah
winged shale
I am always amazed at all the performance I can squeeze out of a modern machine
wicked oak
thats why performance is now on the multicore side, and on memory
heady parrot
if you want to really SQUEEZE you can do amazing things.. but the effort is usually too high
clever sky
What's more amazing is how much early developers had to squeeze out of old machines.
wicked oak
the actual number crunching force on a modern CPU is insane
heady parrot
you been following Handmade Hero? I havent for a while but did in the beginning, great stuff 😃
wicked oak
to the point where most programs are bottlenecked on the memory
winged shale
I am always trying to optimize for caching, write like I'm programming an embedded OS, Then I'm like wtf am I doing I just saved 20 nanoseconds
wicked oak
if you can set a cpu in a math path with no branches and vector operations
clever sky
So when I do ticks in BP
wicked oak
it can do a shit ton of math
heady parrot
now add programming the GPU on top of that.. now you're crunching numbers 😃
wicked oak
it has to get data from RAM and from the caches
yeah
gpus are absolutely insane on CUDA/OpenCL
i learnt to use them for stuff like matrix multiplications
a x20 speedup easly
even if not as well coded, a x4-5 speedup easily
but gpu needs a specialized algorithm
something that can be done in parallel
so a "for 1 to 2000 doThis()" its fine
winged shale
The vector instructions in x86-64 are also extremely potent, good to learn if you're coding for PC
heady parrot
I need to dig more into GPGPU, want to do some fractal/procedural math on it and feed the results into vertex buffers
clever sky
@wicked oak So basically create arrays and have the arrays processed simultaneously?
wicked oak
for Cuda, you have NSight in visual studio
its a ridiculously powerful debugger
it gives you time per instruction
so like "in this instruction you are spending X on memory fetch"
i havent found anything that cool for CPU
@clever sky pretty much exactly that
cuda/opencl work like that
you send an array of stuff to the gpu
process it
get an array of data back
clever sky
Nice...
wicked oak
that is more or less how ue4 gpu particles work
its compute shaders, wich is a simplified version of cuda/opencl, but they work better with the graphics engine
it sends a "ParticleData" array to the gpu, does a calculation(shader) and then renders that
mighty carbon
so, when using Rift on Steam, it works through Steam VR and thus there is no ATW/ASW ? (unlike when using Rift with Oculus Store)
just wondering if there is any difference between experience, if any, when using UE4-based app/game with Rift+Touch support on Steam and on Oculus Store
wicked oak
yes, OpenCL is multiplatform
it can also run on the integrated GPU no problem
but if you are doing games, might be better to use compute shaders
they are better integrated into the graphics stuff
mighty carbon
anyone?
wintry escarp
we all use cardboards, none of your fancy Rift shenanigans for us
heady parrot
@mighty carbon Last I checked SteamVR was a bit behind on Oculus SDK integrations, but it still goes through the Oculus runtime
ATW and ASW is implemented at the runtime level
so yeah you should get a similar experience in both cases
mighty carbon
@heady parrot aye, thanks. I was concerned that Rift games would run without ATW/ASW on Steam.
so that brings up old question about why devs hate Oculus, if one can make a product for Rift+Touch and sell it on Steam without losing any advantages Rift has over Vive 😃
heady parrot
devs dont hate Oculus 😃 dont judge everyone by a vocal minority
mighty carbon
😃
heady parrot
for most devs business is business 😉
winged shale
@heady parrot can confirm, oculus does indeed use asw when invoked through SteamVR
mighty carbon
why does SteamVR have to be used with Rift?
winged shale
...what?
mighty carbon
I have no clue about desktop VR, so I am just wondering
winged shale
ohhh
it doesn't have to be
but for me it's easier to support only one API because I don't care about selling on the Oculus store
not even sure it's required that I use the Oculus plugin in UE4 to be eligible for Oculus store anyway
I like hardware agnostic libraries
heady parrot
what Im not sure about is all the platform options that are opening up soon.. My guess is they wont be supported on SteamVR
mighty carbon
basically I am thinking I could get Rift+Touch, but not go for only Oculus Store and instead start on Steam (since I already have publishing account). So, since experience (as far as performance) is not going to be any different between Oculus Store and Steam, I am wondering what's the difference after all (what will Rift users miss on Steam)
heady parrot
namely the p2p voip and other social features
mighty carbon
hmm.. VoIP kinda critical for MP 😦
heady parrot
then if you want to have friends in your game, and go multiplatform.. and do cross platform, then you end up having to write your own systems
winged shale
p2p voip though, not just voip
heady parrot
Oculus has a neat VOIP solution that is pretty high quality, but Im pretty sure its bound to their platform
winged shale
it is I'm sure
mighty carbon
so in other words, Rift game on Steam will have to be half-assed ?
I guess my game would have to be developed for Steam using Vive and for Oculus Store using Rift, to keep all features offered per platform, and not be cross platform ?
winged shale
pretty much
but SteamVR is trying to rapidly put in hooks to the APIs that it abstracts
heady parrot
supporting Rift on both Steam and Oculus Store you'd have to go with the smallest set of features, ie Steam
winged shale
it just has to have a default behavior when it's not there, like in the case of the p2p voip
imo that's a pretty easy feature though
and really has nothing to do with Oculus hardware
mighty carbon
is there a comparison list between SteamVR features and Oculus SDK features?
like, what Vive users can have that Rift users can't, when using SteamVR ?
winged shale
nothing, that's the point of OpenVR
Valve's idea is that ultimately, isolationism is bad for the ecosystem
and that there's no reason to include p2p voip or extraneous features into an API designed for VR
because there are libraries out there that do it better, and are open source
mighty carbon
so, in other words, if I make VR game for Steam, both Rift and Vive users will have same set of features (with Rift users still enjoying ATW and ASW on top of that, for now at least) ? And the only issue is simply limited cross-platform compatibility ?
winged shale
yes, but the big feature is the p2p bandwidth in VoIP
wicked oak
the point is that you have to add the whole steamworks api there
so its a shit ton of stuff
oculus also has stuffs
you can see them in the docs
they have leaderboards, matchmaking, stats, voip, p2p connection....
winged shale
Valve should just wrap all social API calls in Steamworks lol
wicked oak
good that ue4 abstracts a lot of them
winged shale
^^
wicked oak
with the online subsystems
but still, things like leaderboards or stats are super bad on the subsystem api
mighty carbon
ok, so I am lost.. What's the difference between Steamworks and SteamVR ?!
wicked oak
i had to build them myself in steamworks c++
steamVR is the vr part
steamworks is the stuff steam gives to all devs
mighty carbon
it's f#cking confusing
that's what I like about Gear VR - one platform, nothing to worry about
also Valve has no word about Touch in their SteamVR docs
heady parrot
they have very limited support yet. I think they're probably waiting on the final sdk
a lot of changes have been going on lately 😃
mighty carbon
aye
I just remembered I had a game I was working on for PC, but it didn't pan out. I think it's a good candidate for VR 😃
(and I think I'd rather get with a programmer to work on it)
what's better for performance - single mesh with several materials on it, or several meshes with one material and one texture atlas on it or instanced mesh with several different materials on each of the instances ?
(performance in VR)
clever sky
Kids love the Vive: https://i.reddituploads.com/f457cd7c32a24135bdd3f949d93408e5?fit=max&h=1536&w=1536&s=2802cae45f45ac04236699da4068d9c1
heady parrot
@mighty carbon It depends on the size of your mesh and/or textures. In most cases a single mesh is probably fastest since you only submit one mesh to the GPU. The instances case saves you submitting but will result in multiple drawcalls
probably better to ask in #graphics though, I'm not an expert on this 😃
mighty carbon
@heady parrot apparently 100 instanced meshes with the same material is 1 drawcall
heady parrot
yes but you specified different materials
mighty carbon
ah, true
so basically less meshes (or instanced meshes) and less materials would be a rule of thumb to keep performance up
heady parrot
well yeah 😃 and reusing as much of either as you can
young cliff
Hello all, I have engine scalability working in the editor but it work in a packaged build. The config files of the build look correct in both engine/config and project/config. Does anyone know how to get these settings to override internal defaults?
heady parrot
are you calling any saving on the config? if so that works differently in a packaged game
the values are saved in the user profile folder. And once there you cannot override them by providing new defaults
when running in editor and non-shipping/packaged builds they get saved in the Saved folder, but that folder isnt used in shipping builds
halcyon island
yo
those who have switched to forward shading, things look way more awesome than with the blurry as fuck TAA. however, the specular highlights on metallic objects are now a small nuisance, any advice on improving this (short of going and altering the metallic on every texture map?)
heady parrot
yeah Epic has mentioned the specular being an issue.. I think they put something experimental in this build? where did I see this mentioned..
specifically specular aliasing
halcyon island
hmm
heady parrot
"Specular aliasing is an extremely difficult problem, and without Temporal AA it's definitely way worse. There are some areas for research but they're all unknowns."
or was your problem not aliasing?
halcyon island
i have that problem too. i have a cage that has bars that has a lot of aliasing now, but a bigger issue is on damaged parts of a metallic penguin robot
these parts are round surfces
it could be the aliasing though, turning TAA back on gives me some nightmares tho
its like someone just repaired our vision
heady parrot
TAA is smoothing over a lot of problems yeah.. people were seeing AO artifacts in FW that werent visible in deferred
timber lantern
Is it worth jumping to .14 for forward shading?
heady parrot
if you are doing VR then I'd say yes 😃
mighty carbon
or wait for 4.15 ?
heady parrot
4.15 will have more FW fixes yeah, and is scheduled before end of the year last time I heard. mainly a bugfix release
timber lantern
Im mainly on vr now.
heady parrot
then swap over now 😃 there are some caveats with it you need to get used to
heady parrot
the thread I linked above and the 4.14 release notes are a good place to start. It does come with some limitations, but oh so crisp
heady parrot
good luck, I think you're gonna like it 😃
timber lantern
They improved the cable also xD
silk lodge
TAA has a lot of benefits over msaa right now tbh you can use them both if you want
(just not at the same time!)
young cliff
@heady parrot I have verified in the packaged build logs, that the scalability settings are being set correctly. Now the problem is that the blueprint node "get anti aliasing quality" isn't returning the correct value. Again works in editor. I'm Trying to do the print string after the console command "scalability auto" hopefully this will work
heady parrot
My guess is it is reading an old value saved from a previous run
you can delete the setting file btw
Look under C:\users(your username)\AppData\Local(your game name)
or something like that
I had a problem with Valkyrie where the Oculus SDK was saving a setting out to an .ini file, and then I couldnt override it anymore 😃
young cliff
@heady parrot Yes, the first time I run, the value is incorrect, then 2nd time I run the value is correct
heady parrot
was this after deleting? or what was the difference between runs?
heady parrot
no problem 😃 just remember this will become a problem again once you call Save on the setting, from that point onwards you cannot override it with a new default. Only way I know to get around that is to rename the setting
heady parrot
sure, I'll help if I can 😃 we havent finished migrating our own project yet though
timber lantern
Im getting a few issues with the first compilation.
#include "ArchiveBase.h" is not working for example
heady parrot
whats the error?
timber lantern
Cannot open source file "ArchiveBase.h"
Seems like they removed or merged it with another include
heady parrot
yeah into Archive.h
heady parrot
just search for the symbol
timber lantern
A few GameState changed to GetGameState()
Ok compiled
😄
Lets see how much is broken xD
timber lantern
Thats nice
odd musk
it's quick enough to test out both
odd musk
i prefer TAA with r.ScreenPercentage = 200
very crisp
but obviously it depends on what your card can handle
@timber lantern Yes it will take a while, but should only happen once
heady parrot
Magicson9 yes its one time only
heady parrot
yep 😃
I also hate some of the ghosting artifacts you get from TSAA, so not going to miss it
timber lantern
The text is way clear also, am i crazy?
heady parrot
you're not crazy
wintry escarp
so forward render is nicer?
heady parrot
yes 😃 very
deft badge
G'day all
Anyone know if 'keep simulation changes' is possible in VR?
or simulate (in VR)
granite jacinth
deft badge
Thx @granite jacinth but I can't eject in VR play mode as far as I can tell
granite jacinth
right, no idea if that works in VR, and technically, VR Mode is not simulation mode
I suppose that's why they have VR Editor though
deft badge
yeah, it's a shame. We are enjoying iterating in play mode (as a team) and we are working on VR stuff
Tried that too 😦
kinda
Will dig further
deft badge
Got it working! Can make editor changes and 'keep simulation changes' while VR player is running
- Play in 'VR preview'
- Alt tab back to the editor
- move the editor window, so you can see the VR preview window
- select object in the world outliner (importantly not in the editor viewport)
- make changes in details panel, and see instant changes in VR preview
granite jacinth
Nice
real needle
I think it's shortcut "K"
deft badge
It is (K) but you need to have the item selected in the world outliner.
Again, it's important not to use the in editor viewport, or the vr preview window goes 'out of sync'
I will play around some more with it
Also noted that you can't move objects unless their mobility is set to movable. Mobility can be changed while playing. Obviously changing mobility, and then keeping changes affects performance
deft badge
k, further discoveries made in regards to the 'editor viewport' and 'gameplay viewport' becoming out of sync
granite jacinth
@deft badge you should document these steps and post it on answerhub as bug if you find it buggy
Or on forums/or both, if you feel something is off and should be better implemented
deft badge
yeah, this is not the most permanent medium
granite jacinth
I need at least one VR dev who is willing to stream for 2-hours for an upcoming VR Game Dev battle.
tawdry dragon
Has anyone had any luck with changing the vive mirror to 16:9 1920x1080?
No matter what solution I try, it just plainly ignores it
hard light
editing the default mirror mode in code should do the trick
that's how we did it, and recorded 1080p footage out from it
the section you're looking for is in SteamVRRender.cpp, around line 45
frosty robin
Does anyone have any idea why everything feels so damn small in VR? im using real world measurements for a kitchen.. but it feels like everything is like 20% too small when im in VR
i know i can use the world to meters in worldsettings, but it feels like i shouldn't have to
winged shale
Using Vive?
You can calibrate with a real object
Quickly write up a trace program that lets you measure in unreal units
frosty robin
Hmm how do you mean.
like i measure the distance between the controllers and put them on a real physical lets say 1x1m object and see what it says
winged shale
Sure that could work
Find a way to get a good consistent measurement
Careful to measure from the right place on the controller
A friend of mine recreated the room the vive was in exactly, to the degree where if you touched anything in the game it was there exactly
clever sky
@frosty robin not sure why. Everything feels quite to scale to me.
If your IPD is adjusted correctly
clever sky
Is your world to meters setting at 100?
frosty robin
yep
frosty robin
yep
clever sky
Hmmm. Check your device position
frosty robin
yeah
frosty robin
it is.
frosty robin
im 178 tall and when im measuring it says 178cm
clever sky
😄
plush sky
Has anyone else had problems with opening and collapsing a widget canvas that was a child of a vive controller? Whenever I start PIE and the widget is collapsed onStart the engine crashes. If I start with the opened widget it starts just fine 😄
clever sky
How do you collapse a widget canvas?
I didn't know you could do that... I just hid the bastard.
plush sky
That didn't work for me, I cast to the widget class and then again to the actual canvas. Then you can modify its visibility through a SetVisibilty node
clever sky
What's the difference between hidden and visibility at run time?
mighty carbon
plush sky
Is use the states collapsed and visible. Collapsed means it does take no space at all and can not be interacted with in any way.
Hidden still takes up the space which might be a problem when interacting with other stuff
clever sky
Do you mean collision enabled - no collision?
Because it seems reading on answerhub, visible is primarily an editor thing and hidden is mainly a game state thing.
i.e. so you can see billboards and other such things without having them been visible in game.
If you don't mean collision enabled -> no collision, maybe try using that node in place of 'collapsed'
plush sky
Maybe I should have explained what I want to do 😃
I want to open and close a Menu that is attached to a Vive controller
The menu should react to the right shoulder button
CanvasVisOptions
This are btw the Visibility options for a widget canvas. Using collapsed crashes PIE immediately in my case
clever sky
Oh.
@plush sky Have you tried not on the Vive controller, but simply on the actor itself?
@plush sky I'm doing something similar (i.e. pressing the menu button opens up a menu widget).
But, I've gone about it a different way; setting the widget on the VR actor and gettting it to activate and deactivate in there. Activating is a matter of unhiding it and setting collision to on (as well as turning on the widgetinteraction component).
There's no crashing doing things this method. Although admittedly, I haven't put the menu on the controller itself.
plush sky
@clever sky Mh your way could work just fine. Another thing I'd like to have is that the menu should follow the controller, by parenting the widget directly to the controller no additional logic was required. But getting the worldlocation + rotation from the controller shouldn't be a problem I guess. Thanks a lot, I'll test this right now ^^
clever sky
TBH, I'd recommend not parenting the menu to the controller.
It might seem like a better way to do it initially
but in practice, it forces you to use one hand to position the menu... and more critically you have to make the menu text small enough to fit on a hand held menu.
Where as the readability and visibility of text in VR is such that it favours larger text that doesn't vary as much with head position
i.e. a large menu that is set in the room scale (attached to actor).
Basically, the SteamVR menu and Oculus Home menus behave like I describe for good reasons!
OTOH, it's not a fixed rule.
plush sky
You're absolutely right, but the menu I require does not feature any text for that exact reasons. It's more of a top down map for the present level, enabling the player to teleport to the area that is clicked on.
clever sky
And the application is ultimately the primary determinant of design.
Ah, fair call.
Having said that, you may have misunderstood me earlier when I said I haven't put the menu on the controller itself. I meant in the sense I haven't tried this nor tested it. So it could actually work find doing the hide/collision thing even while parented to the controller.
I simply make no guarantees it will work!
plush sky
Which is very wise I'd say. Often the simple and small things will cause the greats errors 😃
sturdy coral
how is the forward renderer working out for you guys? it is a mix for me, much sharper textures, but a lot of specular aliasing
clever sky
Seems ok. But have only tried it to a limited degree.
I'm getting a dynamic shadow bug though
where shadows from non-static objects appear in front of other moveable objects
even though they should be behind.
Causing the objects in front to appear transparent as a result.
sturdy coral
that sounds bad
clever sky
Yeah. Feels like forward rendering is not ready for prime time (i.e. actual game release).
But still better than previously, where it was rendering shadows a foot away from the object that it belonged to...
winged shale
Wait is contact shadows a fwr only feature?
clever sky
@winged shale I thought the patch notes said it was a deferred only feature?
sturdy coral
I don't think so, does it even work on forward?
winged shale
Yeah
No it wouldn't, I was confused by your phrasing
"But still better than previously, where it was rendering shadows a foot away from the object that it belonged to..."
sturdy coral
I thought it would need some gbuffer info to not apply to already shadowed areas
winged shale
Also no dynamic movable shadow sources
clever sky
@winged shale Ah, I meant in regards to shadow bug from 4.13 forward rendering.
'forward rendering'.
sturdy coral
one good thing about the oculus renderer was you could toggle it at runtime
so for different scenes you could use whatever was more appropriate
winged shale
Mhm
Seems like the new folks at Epic are losing sight of the modularity of their programmer predecessors' architecture in UE4
just a wild extrapolation though
sturdy coral
I think it is partly that the oculus branch didn't have to worry about shader permutations, whereas allowing runtime changes could double compile times for everyone
but I wish they would make runtime changes itself an option
so you only paid the shader permutation cost if you had it set to runtime switchable or something
for a lot of other graphics settings too
winged shale
That would be a nice build flag
clever sky
A toddler learns the fundamental laws of physics: http://imgur.com/6zICnMf.gifv
granite jacinth
@clever sky As someone who's seen something similar in action....serves him right.
Damn kids, too smart for their own good sometimes.
granite jacinth
Yeah, same.
It's even funnier if you have kids, and then think about all the dumb crap they did as a toddler.
clever sky
I live in the same house as my niece. She's not quite as adventurous. But she is accident prone.
granite jacinth
VR + Kids is an interesting combinatino
combination if you haven't tried it already
clever sky
Oh yeah. First time I put my niece in, she promptly fell over trying to lean against a cabinet.
Yeah, sorry honey, but you'll have to wait until you can hold the controllers to go back into VR 😛
clever sky
Ah yeah. My niece is 3.5 😛
wicked oak
too small
clever sky
Yeah
wicked oak
i could only show it to people who could wear it
clever sky
Headset can't even fit on her properly.
clever sky
But she bugs me all the time to try it anyway 😛
wicked oak
but meter and half in height
clever sky
Dayum, that's a small girl.
clever sky
I've found you can tighten the straps further by twisting them.
wicked oak
not in a Rift
sturdy coral
for real 😂
granite jacinth
But anyway, targetting kids isn't a bad idea.
Especially if their parents are loaded
And around the holidays
Just saying.
sturdy coral
is PSVR getting much/any TV advertising time?
sullen stirrup
has anyone here tried that wireless thingy for the vive
halcyon island
anyone using precomputed lighting volumes?
hard light
I wasn't aware they were even a thing?
halcyon island
scenarios rather
hard light
ah, you mean streamed lighting scenarios
halcyon island
yes
go to the same level 5 tiems in our experience
have the environment streaming
basically have to duplicate the environment per level to build lighting when we build
halcyon island
ok so i've set one of these up and it works
just awnt to check my logic here
i've got half the environment in a separate file, this is stuff like landscape
then some stuff like moveable objects are in every version as separate assets
in my 'HIDEOUT' level. so HIDEOUT NIGHT has about half the environment assets in a separate file called HIDEOUT ENVIRONMENT
now i have HIDEOUT DAY
this also imports from hideout environment, but uses a hideout day lighting scenario (in LI_HIDEOUT_DAY)
so when i load up hideout night, it is going to import landscape, improt lighting, then i bake the lights
the point is that now those lightmaps are now saved in LI_HIDEOUT_NIGHT right, not in the main level
meaning that my landscape won't have all the night shit baked on there when i want to use the day level
mighty carbon
I believe lighting scenarios are global and should be in the persistent level
last trail
VictorBurgeos, Just be sure to inform the kids (and parents) that at their age -12 prolonged use of VR is bad for their eyes, in particular the still developing eye muscles
GearVR btw works well with kids
Got my sisters kids hooked on it :p
granite jacinth
How do people mispell a name that's clearly spelled out?
winged shale
oculus + wrong pronounciation of vive
something someone's dad probably said about 'all this VR hoopla'
anyway that new cable is the beez kneez
much improve
also trying on the headset without the cable (to emulate what wireless VR is gonna be like) was pretty magical, even without display on 😛
although I actually feel it needs a little weight on the back of the head in order to be comfortable
too front heavy without a cable
silver brook
Is there a way to add gravity to a VR player?
mighty carbon
people can use @ before name to make sure it's spelled correctly 😃
winged shale
Or if on mobile you can tap their name to add a mention
mighty carbon
that "all inclusive" tip is a turn off.. Not every game/app needs to be designed for everyone to use it :/
halcyon island
hey regarding specular aliasing in 4.14 they suggest using the 'normal to rougness' feature, i'm not familiar with this
winged shale
I like it.
halcyon island
where is it accessed
winged shale
Also, why not include a greater audience for your game? And why is that a turn off?
mighty carbon
because if I want to make a game that isn't suitable for kids, I'd want to make that.. I don't want for kids to play that kind of game
if I want to make a game/app where guys can look at neked ladies, I am sure kids shouldn't be playing it and I am sure a lot of women aren't gonna like it either.
sure, PG/PG13 stuff sells more
but sometimes devs want to make something they want to make, not to cater to everyone
winged shale
That doesn't even make any sense in context
winged shale
What I think she is saying is that she feels like she is not represented as a woman of color in games. If your audience might include women, which perhaps a set much larger than you would think apparently, perhaps you might want to make the ability for your protagonist to be female. Also what stops women from wanting to see naked ladies? And of course if you're making an app designed for men, you'll probably make it designed for men. And if you make it designed for adults, you will not include child bodies as player characters. But if your social app supports just white people or just men for avatars then you are alienating a significant portion of your audience
real needle
@silver brook I think you can set the capsule root to simualte physics, but lock it in X and Y (otherwise you'll have a rather nauseating experience...)
silver brook
Cool I pretty much did something like that
Added a cube with physics I attach vr cam at runtime
Didn't lock it yet but I will
Just have to run manual checks now for turning off/on physcis when in air
and not
clever sky
@mighty carbon The article did phrase that portion poorly. But @winged shale has the right of it; if you're going to make a VR experience where the avatar is represented, provide options or risk alienation. Not everyone wants to identify as 6 foot tall white male shooter man. If you're not designing an experience that shows the avatar, then no sweat. You're just you.
real needle
@clever sky Do you also think that a player would associate with an avatar (negatively) if they can't actually see their own mesh?
clever sky
@real needle If you can't see the mesh, then there's no association to be had?
real needle
Well, if you see everyone else looking the same you probably get the idea of what you look like
clever sky
Well... if you're going to go that way in multiplayer, then generic and unidentifiable is best.
real needle
I currently have a mirror in the lobby before a match. I had it for debug but people really liked it so I kept it
clever sky
Like the Unreal Mannequin body is... too masculine.
But, floating HMD, hands, blob body is generic.
real needle
A genderless robot would fall into the second group id say
clever sky
If most of your userbase are males (and lets be honest, in VR right now, it's going to be), then you're not going to get many complaints about having a male avatar.
real needle
I'm hoping that griefing will be less of a concern if there's no gender
clever sky
But I imagine using a female avatar only would net a few complaints!
Yeah, genderless is good.
real needle
I like how art of fight does it, where one team is male and the other female. It's not perfect but it's pretty good
clever sky
Haha... yeah, but you also can't see your own body
real needle
And you never see your own avatar, which is why I'm assuming I haven't seen any complaints
clever sky
Yeah. So what you just said, didn't actually click with me while playing the game.
It's not bad. If you only see male avatars, I think you'd probably get more complaints.
real needle
Yeah and it is important to make as much effort as possible towards gender neutrality for VR. I know it's near impossible, but we can atleast try to start this new revolution with such ideals
Not impossible from design, but just because of the market
clever sky
It's also a great excuse to not worry about having representational avatars! 😛
clever sky
Hehe 😄
real needle
If you can't do something, just design something better
clever sky
Say again?