@ripe vault yeah, I understand. Just saying people here mostly make VR stuff for Vive/Rift. I make Gear VR stuff (and another guy here does too), but I don't do Daydream . So your best bet either to ask on UE4 forums (I saw a few people working on Daydream apps, but struggling as well with controller) or ask Google for help directly.
#virtual-reality
mighty carbon
https://forums.oculus.com/developer/discussion/50680/oculusriftsplash-using-deltarotation-causing-crashes-in-ue-v4-15#latest << interesting
tired tree
@sturdy coral oh, the main diff between the two is the complex one isn't strictly capsule to HMD coupled. It supports offsets like Neck position and the like. With full capsule collision that is harder to achieve with the other method.
sturdy coral
yeah I drive it with kind of a threshold distance where you can move your head without moving the capsule
so you can lean over edges and stuff
tired tree
its also technically over engineered, I suggest to most that don't need that to use the simple one
sturdy coral
if you go too far past the threshold it will follow again until it reaches a much closer threshold
I need to incorporate height into that so that the threshold is smaller when you are standing tall
cause then any movement of your head is basically guaranteed to be a movement of your body
tired tree
I don't like the faked lean concept, can't wait for real waist tracking
sturdy coral
yeah waist tracking would solve so much
tired tree
I had fake leaning and people kept just walking slightly through stuff, broke immersion
sturdy coral
the original vive press demos had a belt clip for holding the cords, kinda wish they had kept that and made it tracked
tired tree
no-one bothered to actually lean except for the developers
sturdy coral
yeah mine right now you can just walk through anything and the capsule will get stuck behind you
other problem is if you walked up to like a sharp corner the capsule could go left when you go right or something
haven't had that happen in practice yet
mighty carbon
probably a silly question, but how would you feel playing a game in VR with this kind of visuals https://www.unrealengine.com/marketplace/simple-apocalypse ?
sturdy coral
job sim did pretty well too
tired tree
job sim had great layout and design
the lab too
clutter is bad for how low res the displays are right now
mighty carbon
well, not Minecraft, but yeah.. I'd definitely put accent on animations / effects and lighting, if I use those assets (that's besides story and character of course).
tired tree
didn't know someone ripped out Minecraft story creator assets and put them on the marketplace though....
sturdy coral
That style is probably the way to go if you want characters.. animating faces is hard
mighty carbon
I am still debating whether to make assets from scratch, or use low poly assets, make extra if needed, and focus on gameplay and story, instead of making assets from scratch and then focusing on the rest (which will very well may be the next Duke Nukem Forever o.O )
sturdy coral
could also do dark souls style where the person talks but basically stays motionless
tired tree
how the hell are those assets 5-10k polys each?
mighty carbon
tessellated
mighty carbon
I thought they are just cubes, but even cubes that don't deform have too many tris in it
tired tree
read the comments for that pack
sounds like they made it with a voxel editor that didn't greedy mesh
or something..
mighty carbon
I don't need to read comments. I bough Simple Zombies pack in Unity store and imported it to Blender, then exported to UE4 with anims to test performance on Gear VR.
sturdy coral
turning off smooth shading doubles your poly count too
mighty carbon
eeh, how is that possible @sturdy coral ?
sturdy coral
by smooth shading I mean smoothing on the meshes
tired tree
smoothing groups?
sturdy coral
yeah vert I guess
tired tree
looks like a fun pack though
eternal inlet
i got noob question
on a level i got a pawn that i've set to "Auto possess Player" Player 0
but when i play in vr, the camera flickers
pausing, reveals, that i have a defaultpawn
which i don't have in my level
eternal inlet
havent had that before, but suddenly have
mighty carbon
good thing about that pack is that it performs extremely well on Gear VR, so it would be possible to make cross platform game, where you can play at home and when traveling
also has soooo many assets that the vast world can be crafted using those
eternal inlet
nevermind... i just removed it again, and re-inserted it... for some reason it bugged out
sharp swan
that's what she said
tired tree
@mighty carbon nah, the good thing about that pack is that my son would he head over heels to learn to make a game using it.
mighty carbon
heh
I am just wondering if it worth spending $125 on it and make a game with it
Would hate to spend time making a game with that pack and then not sell it
but if you guys think people would play those kind of games in VR, I guess it worth a shot
sturdy coral
yeah there is a definite niche for that style, job sim and rec room are two of the most popular games
but there is a lot of work to make something as polished as rec room
(and rec room hasn't started earning money yet, just investment)
mighty carbon
my game would have a lot of violence against cubes 😛
sharp swan
my game has a lot of violence IN cubes
deft badge
@pearl tangle " just walk over and pick up an oject rather than using the floppy laser" I agree. I do like the floppy laser thing for long distance, but just being able to grab something and slightly rotate it (with smart snapping) would be amazeballs.
fleet veldt
I just created a short robo recall video tutorial on making a "firemode" pistol mod if anyone is interested. 😃 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sUZQNVanNpI
mighty carbon
I don't know yet how it goes for Rift, but with Gear VR it's horrible f#ckery every new UE4 version released due to FMOD-Oculus-UE4 combination bullshit
fleet veldt
hey any rift users her?
*here
I'm trying to find some video or good screenshot from this oculus rift demo
or if you know the name of it. It's the one with the little minature cityscape.
pearl tangle
thats on the oculus home demo stuff right back at the initial cv1 release right @fleet veldt ?
fleet veldt
yeah oops i should have posted, i finally found it. the demos were called "DreamDeck" i found some youtube videos of them. I wanted to show them to a potential client who wanted me to do a VR marketing thing for them.
mighty carbon
lol, FMOD devs... "I don't know why that issue happens. Update your Android SDK maybe?"
sounds like someone figured that pretty soon a good chunk of UE4 devs will stop using FMOD due to new audio engine and threw in the support towel
and I can't use 4.15.1 for Gear VR without FMOD
sturdy coral
@mighty carbon 4.15 has the new audio engine if you enable it experimentally right? (or not on gear?)
pearl tangle
why do you need to upgrade to 4.15?
real needle
Has anyone seen translucency on instanced static meshes using the forward renderer?
I'm reading about foliage having this bug, scheduled to be fixed in 4.15 (which I'm on)
There's a disparity between left eye/right eye, where right eye renders it fine but left eye renders it as translucent
Very discomforting...
deft badge
Are you talking about the bounds issue that causes flicker in builds?
Doesn't sound like it
I mean flicker in the right eye only.
real needle
I can see stripes on the meshes when I'm looking through the viewport from a distance
But when viewing in Stereo the left eye renders the walls as transparent
Hi guys, can some one help me about VR LAN Multiplayer. I created a widget menu that can host or join a game. Everything works fine, but I am not able to make the vr's motion controller working for the player that will join the game. So, only the host in the game can use it. The second player won't have any hands.
@real needle You need to manually replicate the transform of the clients motioncontroller transforms
Or just use VRExpansionPlugin and you get a new motioncontroller component. However, you should know a little bit about using plugins and knowing how to compile from Visual Studio
You mean something like this ? https://docs.unrealengine.com/latest/INT/Gameplay/HowTo/Networking/ReplicateActor/Blueprints/index.html
Yes and no. You need to make sure that all actors that needs to replicate from server to all other clients are set to "Replicate", but when it comes to VR and motioncontrollers there's a bit of a hack needed to make it work
You should google and read through "exi's network compendium"
For general network related knowledge, it's important to know a thing or two about how Unreal is built to deal with networking
Ok will do, Thanks a lot
fleet veldt
@real needle make sure you set unique "Virtual User Index" and "Pointer Index" for each player's and their motion controller's widgetinteractioncomponent when doing multiplayer and UI. https://answers.unrealengine.com/questions/500895/413-bug-widget-interaction-component-stops-working.html
raven halo
@mighty carbon can confirm, gearvr uses r.screenpercentage
sharp swan
why wouldn't it? Its a core engine setting 😄
mighty carbon
@pearl tangle because 4.15 has monoscopic rendering
pearl tangle
Mono rendering?
mighty carbon
pearl tangle
oh right the far distance stuff
mighty carbon
And mobile GPU profiling afaik too
Also, if they don't fix FMOD in 4.15, it will be broken in 4.16, which should be a major upgrade for Gear VR
Monoscopic + multiview and both should be out of experimental
@raven halo but it's not the same as eye buffers
pearl tangle
you are running the Oculus branches anyway right?
mighty carbon
No, Epic's
But FMOD issue is either core engine issue or FMOD issue
Not related to Oculus in any way
pearl tangle
id say FMOD not updating would be the issue, was a lot of engine changes in 4.15 so if they haven't updated specifically for it then a good chance it wouldn't run, can't really rely on them updating so quickly
mighty carbon
Well, the download page says for UE 4.15. I assume they wouldn't just change the text and leave old download :P
pearl tangle
hah wouldn't surprise me
pearl tangle
@mighty carbon what's you apk size come out at from your current build?
mighty carbon
~127Mb
mighty carbon
It's not a landscape, it a static mesh
ETC2
ASTC comes up to ~157Mb
And since visually it looks the same as ETC2, but takes longer to be built and produces larger apk, I stick with ETC2
pearl tangle
yeah im just trying to shrink 1 at the moment as small as can go. got it down to 41mb but I feel like there is a few things that could strip back more. I have a bunch of things that aren't in as power of 2 as well so that should save me an extra 5mb or so
mighty carbon
Why so small? It seems nowadays even 1Gb is ok for mobile :)
cobalt relic
The UE executable itself is going to weigh quite a lot
If you're aiming to < 100Mb it's probably the biggest offender
tawdry dragon
@mighty carbon You know a thing or two about Gear VR dev right? Do you know if its possible to get an app signed with an unlocked OSIG for enterprise destribution, without store submission?
mighty carbon
Not really. You'd have to sideload using Sideload VR
Or submit and keep it private
No other ways around that
tawdry dragon
I tried using ConstructVR, but for some reason, it doesnt work with the APK that UE4 creates
pearl tangle
yeah getting stuff onto gear vr devices is really annoying. thats why I have shifted to daydream for all those types of 1s, much easier to just let the clients install the stuff
and this 1 is not a VR app, just a regular mobile app but looking at stripping back as much as possible. Need to blacklist some extra engine content it includes in there. Aim for 30mb
tawdry dragon
I just find it hard to believe that Oculus is not offering up some kind of enterprise signing
Guess I will have to try and email them about it
mighty carbon
there is nothing easier than dealing with Gear VR as end-user 😃
but when you are a developer, it's a bit frustrating
however, Gear VR is not an enterprise or some DIY kit. It's a mass market device and Samsung has no reason to make it hacky. It needs to be rock solid when it comes to security and DRM, and that's what they have.
why can't you submit to Oculus for review, @tawdry dragon ?
tawdry dragon
its an internal sales tool with trade secrets, the client dont want that public 😉
mighty carbon
it's not going public with Oculus. All releases are private, until you reach "Release" stage and even then you can ask them to go "keys only", so it never shows up in the store
tawdry dragon
but does that open up the OSIG and allow every phone to install it?
mighty carbon
you don't need OSIG
tawdry dragon
because then you are descriping what we need 😄
mighty carbon
once it's in the system, you will generate keys and clients would activate it with keys
kinda like Steam
mighty carbon
Oculus doesn't bite, so you might as well just e-mail them and explain your deal and what you need 😃
tawdry dragon
already done it 😉
mighty carbon
once you register with them on their dev portal, there will be a submission form. When I submitted a bug, they replied next day.
tawdry dragon
I am waiting for them to bite back at me!
mighty carbon
ah, ok
raven halo
nop
haven't switched to 4.15.1 yet
and you have to pay for fmod right?
we are avoiding middleware for the moment
mighty carbon
no, it's free for the first project under $100k budget (annually)
the license is pretty clear on their website
zinc violet
it's free for one project and platform I think
prices ramp up really quickly if you need something more
unless you really need to use fmod, you could just wait for unreals new audio engine to get fully featured
oh
they've changed their system
they used to have really complex scheme before this GDC
@raven halo ^
that's way better than the old thing
it had so many hidden costs
raven halo
oh shit
this is good news!
although... on the other hand... the new sound engine is about to drop, right?
raven halo
oh!
zinc violet
it's just not enabled by default on 4.15
raven halo
how do you enable it out of curiosity?
zinc violet
either by using additional param on editor launch or changing ini-file
I can't remember that out of my head, the guy said the param on GDC talk
you know, the talk that people keep pasting in #audio 😃
mighty carbon
new sound engine still might not work for Gear VR (Epic said they'll use plugins for that, meaning either Oculus will have to provide a new Audio SDK plugin to work without FMOD; or it will be good ol' FMOD)
also, FMOD is really awesome. I can manipulate my sound in FMOD Studio, add effects and whatnot, build banks, go back to UE4, and bam! I have all the effects and they work on Gear VR too
where with new audio engine you'd have to do all the magic in a 3rd party audio authoring tool, export as WAV (or whatever format will be supported), bring it back to UE4.
that's why FMOD is so valuable - non-destructive realtime editing of audio
zinc violet
yeah, I could reconsider FMOD with this new pricing model
I really disliked the prior one
zinc violet
they basically charged for each platform separately
wicked oak
2: i do multiple games a year
zinc violet
yeah, I can see 2. being issue if you release a lot of games :p
doesn't fmod support ps4?
new license says that pricing includes all platforms
wicked oak
i think it does
zinc violet
so if you release the same title on pc and ps4, it's still one game
at least, that's how I'd interpret that
should read the official terms though
If you are developing a software application and the total cost of development (including all content and platforms) is under $500,000, and you haven’t published under an Indie license in the last 12 months, you can use FMOD for free. Otherwise, the license fee is $2,000 per game.
wicked oak
its more than my whole game budget and all the profits ive got
zinc violet
but still, I can see how that doesn't work out for you
zinc violet
I know, it's not meant for people who make games that quickly :p
wicked oak
with ps4, maybe 3k
mighty carbon
how can releasing several games per year can be an issue? If they generate money, well, pay for the tool. If they don't - might want to reconsider making crappy games that don't sell and make 1 game per year that does. And if it's a free game - you pay nothing even if you make 1000 games per year 😄
wicked oak
they do, but they are asking for a several thousand dollars license
mighty carbon
it used to be $500 per each new indie license after you used up a free one
now it's $2000
WTF?!
I really hope new audio engine does HRTF on Gear VR
wicked oak
for context, Deathwave was made on 700 dollars of freelancer and website costs
DWVR was made on 1000 dollars on top of deathwave ones
at 2k for game i really cant afford it
zinc violet
yeah. bottom line is, make fewer games :p
zinc violet
you could actually get bigger profits for more polished title
instead of doing many quick projects and try to get some profits from them
mighty carbon
yeah, @zinc violet speaks the truth
wicked oak
not really @zinc violet
basically a one man team
i cant do much better even if i had dtime, what i need is manpower
zinc violet
there are lots of one man teams around here 😃
zinc violet
what you are saying doesn't even make sense either, if you have limited manpower, it doesn't explain why you publish more games than studios that have more manpower
wicked oak
becouse my biggest skill is getting games done quick
mighty carbon
lol, if only getting games done quick amounted to the amount of returns
wicked oak
sure, but what im saying, is that i actually cant really improve over DWVR current state
for example
becouse i would need artists and stuff
also, fast games are MUCH less risky
and the way i see it, each game i release makes me better
lets me know what the fuck failed, and what went right
ive seen many, maaaaaany indies spending years on a game, and then releasing, and getting nothing
by doing small games in a short timeframe, i avoid that
and i think longer games on Vr is a huge, HUUUUUUGe risk
becouse it has a extremelly fast evolution time
look at DWVR. When i started making it, there were no wave survival games
by the time i released it 3 months later, the people hated wave survival games
also blew up the marketing with a bad trailer, well, not bad, but meh
now im doing the PSVR version with more time, and im using the profits frm the pc version to fund proper marketing and a few other things for the ps4 version
zinc violet
well, people seem to like Robo Recall
although game had 10m budget, was 1 year in development and had what, 15 people working on it? 😄
wicked oak
robo recall is AAA tier
zinc violet
yeah, just saying it being a wave shooter didn't seem to keep people from liking it
mighty carbon
well, you need to develop the concept regardless. You need time for pre-production, then production, then testing. Deus Ex HR took 2 years for pre-production and then 1.something years for actual production and then QA after that.
you can't just throw stuff together and expect people to like it
wicked oak
a important thing with DWVR is the fact that somehow Sairento VR has much more sales and is more liked, while its gameplay, while very similar to mine, is inferior
becouse they have much better marketing side with better trailer, and mission/unlocks that keep players playing
i really reaaaaaally understimated that
mighty carbon
who cares if your game is like game X. Game X has some kind of lore, consistency and good execution. It doesn't have to be AAA tier to be well done.
wicked oak
its about the comparaison of 2 very similar games, released a week within each other
wicked oak
and if you played both mine and theirs, i do better
the only difference on the gameplay, is that they jump
mighty carbon
Presentation matters
wicked oak
thats exactly what i was saying
mighty carbon
and while gameplay is important, it's not a standalone part of the game.
"Sairento VR is a mission-driven, VR action role-playing game set in a reimagined Japan in the near future."
Do you have missions? Do you have RPG elements ?
mighty carbon
but they already had that stuff to begin with
wicked oak
yes, but i didnt, becouse i understimated that
instead, i have bosses and better gunplay
and better AI even if my AI isnt really that good
mighty carbon
so, looking at both games (and putting presentation aside), from the description SVR sounds a way more interesting than DWVR
wicked oak
but turns out people really damn like progression systems
mighty carbon
people like lore, story, characters and yes, progression
wicked oak
sairento has very little to no lore/story/characters
mighty carbon
if you can't come up with stuff like that, just find a designer, an artist and let them roll, while contributing to gameplay mechanics.
wicked oak
it does have a progression system
mighty carbon
it has more lore/story than DWVR
wicked oak
true
anyway. i have the opportunity of launching a second time with the PSVR release. Wich is why im taking care of this stuff
to make a much better version of the game for final release and PSVR
PC will get the same stuff the psvr final version gets
native cedar
anyone managed to get the vr editor working properly? I'm experiencing low fps on a 1080 with 4.14
zinc violet
I'm curious
does UE4 already support those extra Vive trackers?
I mean these things https://d1zh1o4u345orr.cloudfront.net/media/catalog/product/import/EC-listing-VIVE-01-tracker.png
wicked oak
yes it does
look at the motion controller "EControllerHand"
it has Right, Left, Pad, and a bunch of extras
zinc violet
I'm basically curious about implementing something like this: https://ikinema.com/orion
that's basically a fancy IK solver around this gear
but I don't get the $500/year pricetag
it's clearly targeted at studios
well, it's not absurdly high, but still, they don't even need to solve the tracking themselves
they just solve IK
wicked oak
ikinema has some quite advanced features
it does really neat stuff
that is more than just run of the mill IK like the one ue4 has
zinc violet
yeah, but you could even get their IK solver cheaper 😄
zinc violet
hmmm, is there some limit for the tracker amount?
you'd think the accessory trackers would be better for hands too from mocap perspective, unless you hold some prop in hand
I mean, from actors/ability to move perspective here, not the visiblity
tired tree
IK also has the issue of not working with late updates
tired tree
obviously for remote representations its fine
zinc violet
would be fun to experiment with a setup like that still
I've always had interest on mocap even I don't really have a game that would benefit from it 😄
mighty carbon
I guess I'll have to wait and see whether FMOD shit gets fixed or 4.16 will have HRTF on Gear VR and work without FMOD.
No mobile VR rendering goodies for me 😦
real needle
What type of vr headset should I get?
mighty carbon
rift
light hull
Vive
tired tree
vive or rift
glossy agate
Either one is good. Rift just got a little cheaper for the whole room scale setup.
Buuut you can finance the vive now. If money is a deciding issue. If not, either one will be fine but audiences for each platform expect slightly different mechanics in game if you want to develop.
Is rift users want snap turns, vive users don't bring it up. Controller angles in game are different too
@wicked oak did you put dwvr on vive port or the oculus store?
I'm thinking of submitting to viveport too for the Chinese market.
wicked oak
@glossy agate steam and oculus store
i gain nothing from releasing on viveport so i havent done it
tawdry dragon
I have both at work. I prefer the Oculus - I like the headset, its ligther, build in headphones and better build quality(?). I also prefer the touch controllers to the Vive's. I do however like the Vive's roomscale setup better... Using 3 cameras are a hassle!
sturdy coral
stream going on on the new VR editor features: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=20kzY5axUOM
(supposedly lets you eject/simulate during play now)
zinc violet
sturdy coral
what was their answer on whether the beach scene project would be released? my stream glitched out
zinc violet
they said they will not release it
I think they mentioned they used some marketplace content for it
so it could be difficult for them to release it with those assets in it
sturdy coral
yeah I heard them say the tiki stuff was marketplace
that ocean material is really nice
would like to see how they did the surfing too
real needle
any way to display the navigation overlay in vr?
wicked oak
i added bots to my multiplayer prototype, and its kind of weird
now i have this phantom "players" running around aimlessly
glossy agate
That vr stream earlier makes me want to set up a big map for a "dead island" type prototype. Anyone else try making big maps for vr yet?
real needle
How big are you talkin?
glossy agate
Like half the size of kite demo maybe? I have never tried making any large maps so I would pretty much have to learn it all from scratch.
real needle
I have a 1.5km by 1.5km map right now
glossy agate
Just big enough to make some fun fetch/kill missions in different settings.
Nice, that would be a good size.
real needle
Though I don't have much in it, since players build the map in mine, so I'm not positive on performance
I could build a really complicated one later and tell you how well it handles if you want
glossy agate
That would be great. Seems like with a lot of streaming levels to break it up performance won't be hit too hard.
But then again I have no idea how it will go haha, just a guess.
zenith charm
Ok what the heck, anyone else having issues with lighthouses shutting off randomly while in UE
tawdry dragon
https://gfycat.com/LateInformalEskimodog slowly moving forward with my Step-by-step system for VR!
final seal
Anyone know a good way to interact with actors using the widget interaction, as if its a line trace
eternal inlet
@zinc violet IKinema for indie is 100$ as a one time fee, with this you can get quite a bit of the way. I talked abit with their CEO a while ago about Orion, and he said that there's some additiional logic in the solving that can't be done to same quality with the normal solver. While i think that's correct, i still think the pricetag of 500$/year is a bit steep and a way of getting $$$
@sturdy coral the water was frigging cool yes... and would also love to see how they did the surfing, was looking really awsome
zinc violet
@eternal inlet yeah, I don't believe for a second that there will not be more competition in this sector
I mean, you get so good source data already it simplifies the app a lot
eternal inlet
indeed
zinc violet
and people have done pretty crazy mocap things with worse data already
eternal inlet
i compared some data from an optitrack system
and the quality of the vive trackers was actually much better
i guess the vive trackers have so many sensors that they allow getting such fine detailed, steady tracking, that it won't need cleanup in the same way
wicked oak
vive sensors are highly accurate, and they have rotation
other trackers are position only
mighty carbon
to put it simply, HTC might collapse one day and Facebook has super deep pockets
@real needle plus, for enterprise it's definitely Vive. For everything else it's Rift.
(you can use Rift for enterprise, but Vive is just more convenient and has larger tracking area)
mighty carbon
oh yeah, and of course Rift is a way less expensive than Vive and Oculus customer service seems to be a tad better than HTC/Valve
pearl tangle
I don't think a $200 price difference is much of a decision making factor for the majority of early adopters with VR considering that most of us are already running computers worth several thousand
also every chance that facebook will go the way of myspace. Twitter only has a couple of years left in it before it's dead
mighty carbon
HTC just sold its last manufacturing facility and keep having negative financial outlook
quartz bay
thats for their phones division. I think HTC is pivoting hard onto VR and going all in.
mighty carbon
Well, let's face it - all early adopters with deep pockets already got VR systems
whoever is getting VR now is not quite early adopters and most likely $$$ is a deciding factor for them
for me it is, for sure
and my PC cost less than $1000
quartz bay
The next phase for VR is to get it into the mass consumer market. We need a high end HMD on every desktop.
I think, that's going to be a 5-10 year horizon, so we need to temper our expectations accordingly.
mighty carbon
lol, VR division doesn't bring as much as phone business.. So they go negative to pivot into unprofitable business ?
(as a matter of fact, VR hardware business is outright unprofitable right now )
quartz bay
HTC's VR division is one of the only profitable divisions in the company...
pearl tangle
htc still has another 3 manufacturing facilities, they sold 2
and you keep forgetting about China. HTC is making a profit on the hardware and completely owns the software market with zero competition. Oculus is losing out to Valve big time with software sales, daydream will start chipping away more and more at the mobile side of it and HTC also has a mobile app in the china market and will be rolling out globally with another mobile focussed headset too
quartz bay
I'm very interested in the chinese VR market. They're my third largest market, after North America and western europe.
out of curiosity, how are you guys planning to enter into and support the chinese VR market?
wise thunder
Might be a risky move, but it will be interesting to see how it turns out. They had to do something, their phones haven't exactly been going up since the M7 D:
mighty carbon
@pearl tangle I don't work at HTC, so I go by the news. Where do you get your stats about software? The only assumption about it can come from the fact that Oculus sold less hardware, so naturally less people would buy software. However, the quality of the software is far superior to what's on Steam. Daydream is a burst bubble.. There was soooo much noise around it and what happened? I know folks who swore by Daydream can't really release anything because of numerous issues with software.
All standalone mobile headsets will fail for mass market if they cost as much as PC + Rift (and they will cost more, considering Project Allow will be over $1000)
pearl tangle
I get my numbers by talking directly to HTC, I'm presenting at unreal open day in Shanghai in a few weeks. China is a bigger market than the rest of the world combined and they are essentially the apple of VR in China because they control the entire ecosystem
quartz bay
I personally don't think mobile phone based headsets can really deliver VR.
mighty carbon
well, and HTC doesn't lie, does it ?
If customer asks us (at my day job) how we are doing, we tell them we are doing fantastic, even during slow months.
pearl tangle
Oculus store games are definitely better quality but they can only fund exclusives for so long. It will Kickstart the industry and then they will start to get booted out. I find it highly unlikely that HTC or Oculus will be around much in 10 years time
I'm not talking to customer support and I'm not releasing consumer stuff so I get different information
mighty carbon
in 10 years I won't care for all this nonsense 😛
hopefully by then I can retire and enjoy real life
(if the world is still around)
pearl tangle
Hah well that's what these companies care about. Getting their foot in on a multi billion dollar industry. Enterprise is always a better first step than consumer to kick start tech. Intel, Microsoft and HTC are getting that side of it. Oculus is just missing out on 90% of the market by having nothing in China and no enterprise
mighty carbon
you can do enterprise with Rift
quartz bay
I don't think enterprise is the right place to be in VR right now. There is zero market for it. Anyone doing enterprise today is going to go out of business waiting for the market to materialize.
mighty carbon
I think you are onto something here @quartz bay 😉
but there is money in enterprise
pearl tangle
There is already a huge market for it. Entire reason epic and HTC and Google have dedicated teams focussing on it
mighty carbon
What does GOogle have to do with it ?
pearl tangle
And I can get 7 figure government investments for no equity to keep doing it
Google has enterprise VR and AR teams
mighty carbon
you can, because of your work.. 99% of devs can't
pearl tangle
Tango is 100% targeting enterprise
mighty carbon
Tango is p00p - it can't track objects and there is only 1 crappy device with Tango on the market
pearl tangle
Because you don't build enterprise stuff, try it. Lots of interest around in it
mighty carbon
(it's not p00p, but it could track damn objects)
quartz bay
I disagree. We had a local VR company in our area called "EnvelopVR" which was targeting the enterprise desktop. They had a staff size of 20-30 people and created cool VR tech, got funded by VC's, and after VR hit the mainstream markets for consumers, there was no enterprise market. No surprise there, really. They just couldn't sell enough units to sustain their business, so they had to close their doors. Enterprise will be big in the distant future, but I'd give it about 4-6 years from now once VR becomes more ubiquitous throughout the market and there is a clear ROI for enterprise customers.
pearl tangle
Tango isn't designed to track objects and there are already companies like sap putting millions into Hololens and tango
mighty carbon
did you see that car rig being tracked and had digital body superimposed over it in UE4 ?
how did they do it ?
not with Tango for sure
(for Chevy)
quartz bay
I imagine a lot of that info would be considered a trade secret...
tired tree
it was pretty obvious how that was done...
they had tracking markers splattered all over the rige
the more impressive part was animating it to the body correctly
mighty carbon
yes, but what was tracking those markers?
It had to be UE4 with some special code or a plugin
AR plugins for UE4 can't do that, I already asked the authors
tired tree
well its obviously a fiducial marker tracking system yes, and one specifically built for tracking multiple trackers on single bodies.
its not magic or anything though
and they plan on porting it back into engine acording to them
you can't expect random AR single marker systems to be capable of something like that out of the ox
mighty carbon
well, if they port it into launcher version of UE4, it would be great
tired tree
doubt it would be something game capable
would be better off with the single tracking systems for gameplay
sturdy coral
in the GDC talk they say it is with OpenCV
but that some company provided some proprietary tech to do the calibration
pearl tangle
yeah its just done with open CV. pretty easy to do that sort of thing with unreal
all that range of markers was doing is providing redundancy, it all technically works off a single marker but its designed so it handles it at different angles properly
also @mighty carbon you can do exactly that already with the AR 4 Unreal plugin. Just don't change the camera angle of the object and it works, it's just not designed to handle multiple markers for redundancy like what they did with open CV. Also it took them weeks to actually train the system to handle all the different camera angles and focus and everything else with it. not a plug and play solution to use for games
mighty carbon
hmm
oh well, right now I am f@#ked because UE4 doesn't work with Android-25 and Google are dicks and force Android-25 with every version of Android Studio
pearl tangle
just download the older version?
mighty carbon
Just did
it comes without SDK and SDK is downloaded
but before I can downloaded, it tells me I have to get Android-25 API
and when I do, well, android.bat is screwed there
pearl tangle
the sdk you should just be able to download each different version all the way back to 15 if you want?
mighty carbon
nope
it used to be that way
now it's not possible to get SDK as standalone package
pearl tangle
did you try the sdk manager?
mighty carbon
it's a cmd line tool
and yes, it was missing some file so it couldn't download packages
pearl tangle
there is the gui for the sdk manager
pearl tangle
just install NVPack and it will give you everything
i updated android studio the other day and i still have this
mighty carbon
yeah, NVpack doesn't support API-25 yet
and I installed it, but UE4 doesn't even let me build for Android saying I am missing something
and I don't miss anything as I installed the whole thing
bunch of bullshit tbh, tired of Android crap
I hope setting up environment for Rift is not as painful
pearl tangle
android is still a lot easier than iOS. and unless you are using a specific feature in android 25 then you don't really need it straight away anyway. Rift still has annoyances but building for windows is always easier than mobile
mighty carbon
so, I downloaded Studio 1.5.. Let's see if it will force update to API-25
yep, it sure does 😦
aha, this version allowed me to cancel and then I was able to use local SDK without API-25
let's see if UE4 will eat it
mighty carbon
yeah, it worked
still building
aha, built it successfully
😂
well, a week wasted on this shit.. FMOD could just have said that Clang 3.8 is minimum required for latest FMOD (UE4 was fine with Clang 3.6)
anyhow, gotta hit the sack, cya
hard light
getting android projects set up in UE4 for anything other than the default codeworks setup can be an absolute fucking nightmare
I refuse to touch Daydream in UE4 for that very reason, it's just not worth the hassle
pearl tangle
daydream is really easy to setup in unreal. didn't have to do anything different with it
hard light
I had to manually configure stuff in code works and play the guessing game as to what modules needed to be installed, some of which didn't install properly because they clashed with other installed modules
fleet veldt
@motosep was it you that had the android compiler issue? Perhaps this fixes it. https://github.com/EpicGames/UnrealEngine/commit/72a10a9b44d4b4d6af49181dfd0663e062b2ebfd
pearl tangle
hmm i haven't had any issues building for daydream at all on a few computers
real needle
Well I will try again. I have an issue and don't know how to resolve it. Basicly it is the same issue this guy has, but he got no answers and so do I https://answers.unrealengine.com/questions/528340/414-lighting-scenarios-vr-lag.html Do you have any idea on how to fix this?
mighty carbon
@fleet veldt nah, that's not it
@pearl tangle whether it's Daydream or Gear VR, you still do the same Android setup
And I didn't have any issues before 4.15 and new FMOD
It's when I updated Android Studio, I got issues
pearl tangle
@mighty carbon it was @hard light saying daydream was a problem
hard light
Daydream and GearVR do not use the same setup
They also use completely different plugins
mighty carbon
They both rely on Android being setup properly first
I can't say anything about Daydream, but for Gear VR you'd simply enable plugin, copy your OSIG file per Epic's docs and you are pretty much done with the setup.
I am sure Daydream is not more complicated than that
mighty carbon
dusky moon
guys, Can I store user's head/hand transforms to make a delay effect for my pawn ?
just thinking how it should be made in blueprints effiecently
real needle
Hmm you could send it to the player controller, store it there, add a retriggerable delay, and then use the stored informations for transformation or else i guess
Or you could store it in the pawn as a separate variable maybe
mighty carbon
@pearl tangle btw, I think that AR plugin for UE4 requires for tracker marker to be still, but camera can move. Also, it has to be only 1 tracking marker in the view.
pearl tangle
You can have multiple markers on it without any issues. Moving the image is the same as moving the camera. It will do both tracking glyphs and image recognition
Daydream doesn't have a sit file or anything.most complicated part is the distribution keystore when you want to publish
dusky moon
@real needle Thanks I'll give it a go
surreal hearth
Something I just discovered (working in mobile for my first time) is UE4 CustomUVs. Damn, I wish someone had slapped that into my noggin some time ago. This is a huge performance gain in some instances and I plan on using it even on desktop.
mighty carbon
@surreal hearth it was always in the UE4 docs
what do you use custom UVs for, primarily ?
eternal inlet
did someone already do an implementation as shown on the last vr stream with this? http://cristal.univ-lille.fr/~casiez/1euro/
i mean for a bp teleporter beam
surreal hearth
@mighty carbon Of course it was. Have you read every page of docs? 😉 Wish I had read it some time ago though! I tend to do a LOT of work in materials and material functions to make things look as good as they can. While I'm always conscious of instruction count and performance, I think a lot of things I've done could have been better optimized with this by evaluating per vertex instead of per pixel. I've been around forums and places like this and have never really come across anyone mentioning using it. That just surprises me, I suppose.
jaunty torrent
Anyone know the best practice to trigger an animation (morph target movement) from a UMG Button hit?
mighty carbon
@surreal hearth I actually do 😃 Since I started making stuff for Gear VR, I read all respective docs, including best mobile practices and whatnot
I only use custom UVs to pan/scale textures. Not really sure where else I can use them (I am not shader/material wizard as you probably guessed by now)
zinc violet
mighty carbon
nice find @zinc violet !
zinc violet
I'm just going through gdcvault for new content, they added few pages worth of content lately
surreal hearth
Any time you are modifying the UVs of textures (even tiling) can get a boost from customUVs. But yes, mostly panning, animation and FX. I do a lot of that kind of stuff. It's new to me, as I've never really hit the wall on desktop VR quite like I'm hitting on mobile. So doing mobile dev (which I've been avoiding) has probably become a great thing for me. Finding optimizations that I never used before is a great thing.
@zinc violet Thanks for posting that! Great timing for my first mobile project 😉
mighty carbon
got some videos of cool mobile material effects you made using custom UVs ?
surreal hearth
what? 😉 I thought this was a vr channel!
Pretty much everything in that project is animated or FX materials.
mighty carbon
yeah, I have and dev for Gear VR
surreal hearth
sorry, just kidding around.
I've never developed for mobile before, so it's been eye-opening to say the least.
tawdry dragon
Quick question, anyone here done any hud elements that lays on top of the world in VR? Last time I tried adding a widget the viewport, it didnt work
wicked oak
i have done them
in different ways
you can make them as 3d widgets
you can turn the 3d widget into a stereo layer and lock that layer into the face, this gives you perfect resolution and its inmune to the depth and to post fx
i also got a review must-fix becouse i was doing exactly that in ps4 😦
they dont like people messing with the depth
you cant do a add widget to viewport in vr. VR goes by different rules
i would still love to be able to use Canvas properly, to add stuff like damage text without the overhead of 3d widgets
mighty carbon
3D widgets have bigger overhead than 2D ones ?
wicked oak
of course they do
the need to render in textures and stuff like that
much more expensive than simple Canvas
vagrant mantle
While creating a pointer for gear vr like reticle, the hit point and the cursor is different even though I get the same location from camera, how to fix this
mighty carbon
@raven halo do you happen to know if 4.15.1 has Gear VR BP nodes that were missing from 4.1.4.x ?
mighty carbon
I see
raven halo
but because we are doing it through code anyway, we don't care much for them anymore
we worked around the problem :/
vagrant mantle
Can you help me guys?
mighty carbon
sorry mate, but like more than half of your issues either not related to VR at all, or you could have tried Google-sensei to get answers (because Gear VR has been around for several years, a lot of issues you stumble upon were solved and posted on the Internets)
also, sorry to say that, but your English isn't great and you don't post any screenshots to clarify what you mean. So half of the times I am sure people here go "WTF did he mean by that?!"
vagrant mantle
@mighty carbon I'm not good in english and I'm just learning things
raven halo
@wicked oak Maybe if there is a new version of the switch down the line? But with a 720p screen.... I can't see VR happening
mighty carbon
@vagrant mantle we understand, but you need to provide more details and to reduce language barrier you should show screenshots and videos of the issues
smaller Pixel phone has 720p screen, I think.. Or was it 1080p ?
mighty carbon
you need to work with player character BP if you want to have crosshair
not with level BP
vagrant mantle
Have tried it in player Bp also, I have did a line trace by channel from the same point as the debug point but when the line trace hits any thing far from the debug point it deviates
mighty carbon
maybe you should mess around with non-VR project first, get the idea of how raycasting works, then get back to VR
for crosshair in VR you need to trace from the camera, forward, so many units and then place an actor (your crosshair) to the end of the trace line
tawdry dragon
Hmm, I might be missing something real simple, but anyone here having some experience with making objects that you can grab with both hands?
surreal hearth
i have an oculus touch experiment where I can grab with both hands, tho not at the same time.
tawdry dragon
I am working on an object that can only be lifted with both hands, having trouble with calculating orientation from hand 1 to hand 2
its easy to get the angle, but having trouble figuring out how to rotate the object around hand 1s location
surreal hearth
I've been using sockets and snapping objects to them, so I'm not sure I understand what you're trying to do.
tawdry dragon
ill draw up something in a bit to explain it 😛
surreal hearth
Do you want something like an aimAt constraint from Maya?
glossy agate
@tawdry dragon maybe look at that open vr plugin to see how he did it for guns. I tried it a while back but gave up after getting wild results.
real needle
@tawdry dragon Just do a look at from Main hand to Off hand
tawdry dragon
@real needle got that, but problem is that rotating the grabed object around the hands location 😃 Their pivots are not the same
An easy fix would be to have a emtpy component in my hand that the object attaches to on grab, and then rotate that component instead
a bit hacky 😛
real needle
Whatever works man 😉 There are no wrongs if something works
lament bay
Hey guys- I'm starting a gearVR project and am reading through Unreal's quickstart resource... they reccomend starting with the first person template- but the doc was written before the release of the VR template- does anyone know if the VR template is actually the better starting project now or is it still the first person template for some reason?
tired tree
@ryan#9503 what wild results might I ask?
Also Panzer, the VR editor has all of the code for that already for you in their VR gizmo component
where thye do the two handed rotation / scaling
there is a singularity in it, but its what you are looking for
fleet veldt
With Oculus Touch there are capacitive sensors on all the buttons including thumbstick (for their finger position sensing). I realize the Vive controllers don't have this on the buttons/triggers but the trackpad should have something that lets me know if the user is touching it or not. Anyone know how to determine this?
fleet veldt
I think I found my answer in this pinned graphic. It says thumbstick poll returns 0,0 when untouched. However it seems to me (although unlikely) sometimes the user would be touching the thumb pad at 0,0 and that would register as not a touch. 🤔 http://i.imgur.com/jgdRuzt.png
clever sky
You can always do a thing where it needs a few frames of 0,0 to register as not touching.
If you're worried about that.
As far as I can tell, it's a non-issue though.
sturdy coral
Is the steam audio stuff slates for 4.16, or 4.17?
real needle
@fleet veldt yeah I just check 2 frames. never misfires for me
fleet veldt
thanks 😃
lament bay
anyone know if the forward rendering works for gearvr?
dusky moon
I just wrote an article on Medium. check it out :
https://medium.com/@alless91/methods-of-analyzing-your-vr-experience-dbdfe0ea2edd#.tsdq66xno
raven halo
@mighty carbon here is first sneak peek of the gearvr game I've been working on :P
https://twitter.com/Vertical_Robot/status/845662576541388800
raven halo
it's a regular cubemap
can you actually render stereo cubemaps in Unreal? 😮
the lens flair is just painted on the skybox lol
oh wait, you mean the dynamic lens flare?
mighty carbon
Yeah, I followed link from the twitter post and saw that cubemap. So when I "looked" across the sky, there was dynamic lens flare
There was a plugin for rendering stereo cubemap for UE4
Someone updated it for 4.15
sturdy coral
@lament bay I think forward is your only option on mobile; it is different from the new forward renderer on desktop
fleet veldt
anyone know a way to make oculus touch controllers inputs work without having to trigger the proximity sensor on the hmd? (other than sticking a post it on it or something)
real needle
@fleet veldt I never found a solution :/ I also occasionally don't get haptic feedback if one of the controllers is "off" or occluded when I PIE
fleet veldt
@real needle I hear them talk about a lot on Epic's twitch stream that they are thinking of trying to include motion controller support to manipulate things in the UE4 editor without having to put headset on. I guess it's just something they either have to work out with oculus or if oculus supports it they just have made it so it works like it does not in ue4. 😦 I just want to be able to test a basic controller feature without having to put the headset on each time (as you seem to have run into as well).
real needle
@fleet veldt The VRExpansionPlugin allows you to use controllers without HMD but I've never tried it with the rift
It requires you to use the GripMotionController-components that it comes with though
fleet veldt
i'll probably just find something i can place in front of the proximity sensor for the time being
@real needle ha, i found a ghetto solution posting a pic in a sec..
real needle
Sweet
tired tree
Pretty sure the interface for the oculus touch controllers denies tracking if the proximity sensor is inactive
my plugin shouldn't be circumventing that
although I could, didn't know it was an issue
real needle
@tired tree Yeah just like they deny you to use the HMD if no cameras are connected... I get why there's a block for that (to accidentally not make people sick), but I was hoping for a developer override
tired tree
You sure its not in UE4's interface that it checks for that?
that would be really dumb if it was on the SDK side
real needle
No you can't run Oculus Home without it
It just says "No cameras detected" or similar
tired tree
pffft
well
thats to be expected though for hmd
talking about the controllers and proximity detector
real needle
Btw don't use "enable VR Mode Auto-Entry", it occasionally forces you to alt+f4 the editor because it won't turn off stereo even after you've taken it off
fleet veldt
I ran into that too @real needle. The keyboard short cut is alt+` to get in and out of VR Mode.
real needle
Ah nice. I still prefer keeping it off though, when I use it I use it during longer sessions so not a hassle to hit that little button
fleet veldt
yeah me too espcially since like what we were talking about above if you wnat to test your motion controllers you have to trip the prox sensor (which in automode would launch vr editor)
clever sky
oh man.... you guys are right. There's good potential for motion controller usage (as a supplement to KB/M) in general computing. At least as far as 3D stuff goes.
tired tree
3d modeling
for sure
artists are already using rough tracked input for 3d modeling on screen
clever sky
Is that the puck looking thing? 😃
tired tree
no
dedicated "pens"
look like tattoo guns
tracked in space in front of the monitor
don't think they are very big currently
something cheap and effective like touch controllers would likely kill them
mighty carbon
Lol, wut?
Have you modeled in 3D?
Motion controllers are only good for 3D sculpting and even then results look worse than what can be sculpted with Wacom tablet.
tribal citrus
Does anyone here have any experience with attaching additional motion controllers to a character?
Trying to attach 2 controllers to the characters feet, but while spawning it needs an enum selection (The hand enum) which has the options for left/right/pad/External camera and special 1-9. Seem to be having trouble finding said enum class and/or where attachment is based on the enum.
https://gyazo.com/e90ea73cc0535a824f3b946b5abe07c8
clever sky
@mighty carbon Yes, I'm a 3D modeller.
Having a supplementary 3D input device would be great in some situations.
3D splines, multi axial rotation and positioning of many objects, etc.
Could even help position the camera
mighty carbon
Plus wrist motion is more precise and accurate than hand motion
clever sky
On a 2D plane maybe.
mighty carbon
3D models use 1000ppi or higher mice
clever sky
What kinda bull shit is that?
You move 3D points around either by zooming in for accuracy or typing a number for precision. Why do you need ridiculous PPI on mice?
As long as you can hit every pixel on your monitor, what's the benefit?
mighty carbon
Well man, I don't know your level of expertise in 3D modeling, but I can tell you that a lot them, including myself, don't see VR as medium for modeling
Sculpting, most likely
clever sky
I can tell you that a lot of 3D modellers do see positive potential for 3D input/VR for 3D modelling too.
mighty carbon
Modeling, especially for engineering, not any time soon
clever sky
It's a subject matter without broad consensus. Not dissimilar to gamers and VR with regards to gaming TBH.
Anyway buddy. I won't argue about it too much. It sounds like you still have minimal experience with motion controllers.
wicked oak
the thing is that you cant be as precise with a 3d controller compared to a mouse
not about the controllers
its about the human
we are drawing on air, having no contact point or reference means we have to keep the hand floating
precision is worsened due to that
now, VR modelling for sculpts/kitbashing?
of course
hell yes
clever sky
You'll definetly get jitters from motion controllers due to not having a bracing surface. But that sort of thing can be overcome through a number of techniques - smoothing, snapping, button you push to 'magnify or zoom in' motion (e.g. you move 5 units to 1 virtual unit moved).
Pretending as though 3D modelling with a 3D input is some intractable problem is just a failure of imagination.
But that's ok - it just means if you do have imagination you can see the opportunities in how this new tech can improve things.
And maybe even act on them 😃
But more to the point, I'm not even arguing for exclusive motion control use right now. Just saying it'd be a great supplementary device - because there are plenty of use cases now in which 2D 3D modelling would benefit from 3D input.
tired tree
@mighty carbon specifically sculpting is the primary useage yes......i'll be sure to state the obvious next time so you don't get riled up
mighty carbon
;)
candid viper
@tribal citrus Assuming you're using SteamVR, that won't work quite like that - at least not yet. A left/right hand pair of motion controller is asigned per player. So you can't use 4 motion controller components on one player as it stands. You can query the available tracking devices from Steam with GetValidTrackedDeviceIds and then query them manually with GetTrackedDevicePositionAndOrientation. That is fine provided you don't need late updates - for that you need to go to C++.
tribal citrus
I use a second Vive to use the second pair of controllers hooked into the same PC, I just wanna assign them as "player two" but use them to track my feet instead for a fullbody rigg setup
@candid viper
real needle
@tribal citrus You'll need two Steam controller dongles instead of that second vive
Do you properly have the two extra controllers showing up in SteamVR?
raven halo
@mighty carbon have you played around with anisotropic filtering in gearvr?
tribal citrus
@real needle Oh you mean the splitbox? But I read somewhere that the chip letting you wirelessly connect the controllers was inside the HMD. Yeah all 4 controllers shows up in SteamVR, I just can't assign them to hand/feet sockets like the picture I showed earlier
real needle
@tribal citrus Do what @candid viper said earlier, that's how I do it and it works
Funny that you use two hmds though, I didn't know that worked
The pucks comes with dongles but they're the same as steam controller dongles
dongles dongles
tribal citrus
Even though I managed to connect them corrently as it shows up in SteamVR?`
real needle
Yeah unreal doesn't care, they're just on and off
tribal citrus
oh ok, I'll tell our programmer about it tomorrow, hopefully he can fix it.
mighty carbon
nope, haven't @raven halo
raven halo
ok, I'm going to ask in the forums, I can't find any info anywhere on the internet about it
deft badge
@clever sky VR modelling is gonna be a thing for sure. Mice and keyboard are sucky abstractions compared to giving an artist hands to work with. Smoothing and smart snapping will help with the shakiness. Tiltbrush and medium suck at producing good models (the software is not there yet) and they are both super compelling experiences.
raven halo
except S7 should be capable of doing anisotropic filtering and S6 isn't capable
deft badge
@raven halo How do you actually pronounce anisotrophy? I have rehearsed that bad boy for some time
raven halo
lol, good question
mighty carbon
👍
mighty carbon
Finally tested UE4.15.1 + FMOD (latest) + Oculus Audio 1.1.3 - seems to build and run
clever sky
@deft badge Absolutely. I mean, I've seen experiencd 3D modellers go into tilt brush just for spline modelling... like it's easier for them to go back and forth between multiple packages and take on and off the headset to access the 3D input function to get smooth multi-dimensional 3D lines, then it is to do it in 2D. As the tools evolve, there'll be an even more potent pipeline between the advantages and benefits of both... right until VR becomes good enough to fully capture the benefits of 2D computing (high enough res, AR functionality to do finger tracking and KB/M recognition, etc).
prepping my first steam build
@deft badge If it makes you feel better, Oculus is worse then Steam in this regard 😛
clever sky
Hehe 😛
fleet veldt
fleet veldt
no, just saw it on r/vive heh
tawdry dragon
That is some trippy fluid simulation 😄
flint pasture
Just give me a VR modelling app that lets me make blendshapes with ease. The ability to push , pull etc. rather than just add/subtract. I love Zbrush but, I'd also love to do more in VR.
carmine gulch
@fleet veldt That really looks like fun! 😮
clever sky
@flint pasture What are blend shapes? Like actual clay style modelling?
Like we're seeing in that gif above, using volumetric particles that interact with each other as a way of modelling 3D objects?
Because dammit, that'd be aweomse 😄
native cedar
found this
hope someone could use it!
also, is there any .ini input file for vive already setup that I can import so I don't have to configure every single input?
flint pasture
@clever sky Heh, afraid not. Though I do think that could be turned into a modelling method too. Blend shapes are also sometimes called Morph Targets. Changing the shape of geometry without adding or removing verts, doesn't destroy UV mapping, etc. Lots of facial animation systems use them too. A skill forgotten by Bioware recently perhaps. But what would be better even yet is setting up Pose Space Deformations in VR. 🤖
clever sky
What's pose space deformation?
flint pasture
@clever sky It's an advanced use of blendshapes for creatures or humanoids which can trigger a blendshape to fire based on the rotation of a joint, such as muscles flexing. It should be possible in UE4 thanks to the recent addition of the RBF Pose Driver.. This will give you a general idea: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oyc2dUir6mg
flint pasture
lol, I'd be surprised if there isn't already.
clever sky
Well, gaming porn budgets are pretty small in general 😛
The most impressive stuff tech wise comes from Japan... and it's really not actually that impressive.
Compared to actual game tech!
But this... yeah, amazing potential for proper body deformations.
Mostly unrelated - but goddamn hilarious when animation tech fails:
https://i.redd.it/q5jbi1ab0xny.gif
flint pasture
It could get expensive though, for a complex full body setup. Though you'd think if they can support good facial animation, like that Hellblade(not perfect), the rest is possible as well. Anyhow.. Yeah, normally you have author all those shapes in a sculpting program, unless you have the photogrammetry budget to scan real humans for everything. Would be so nice to do it in VR instead.
lol
clever sky
But once you've done it for a master mesh, you can procedurally distort that mesh right? Or does the quality degrade significantly with variances in proportions?
flint pasture
Yeah, in theory it should translate well to different characters unless you have some extreme proportional differences that wipe out your poly budget.
clever sky
But in that case, the solution would probably be to have a few target meshes for proportions
And shift the weights as you move from one target to another?
flint pasture
Well, you can design corrective shapes for different combinations, so sure.
clever sky
Nice. Well... the way I figure it is, at some point we'll be able to get CG porn past the far side of the uncanny valley...
And if you couple it with something like source film maker... you'd be able to generate limitless VR porn!
Make a truckload of money selling virtual wigs and stuff. 😄
flint pasture
Well, I wouldn't call that my primary motivation 😉 If my dream game didn't do so well I might reconsider.
clever sky
Hehehe
flint pasture
@clever sky So what's next for Freedom Locomotion?
clever sky
Going through some features update.
To incorporate the feedback I've gotten from users
Did you say something about directionality been an issue at some point?
Because I've been working on that.
Still aiming on making it the most robust VR locomotion around.
flint pasture
I was remarking about the stutter stepping I was getting while walking on the forums, didn't have any other major issues.
clever sky
Ah ok. Hmmm... when you say stutter stepping, is that occurring mainly on foot fall?
I think I tweaked that one back.
I keep tweaking stuff based off user feedback 😛 and I'm finding that there's a wide variance of preference!
arghhh
flint pasture
Nope, you said it might be caused by looking down too much while walking.
clever sky
Ah yeah. I modified that too.
It's better in that regard. Not sure if it's completely gone though D:
flint pasture
I can imagine it's very hard to please everyone, but I suppose that's what multiple modes to select from are for 😉
clever sky
Yeah that's right. But even with multiple modes...
I find some people just don't care to tweak 😛
And will complain if defaults aren't to their taste!
Oh well. I'll do what I can!
At this point, locomotion is probably the most divisive thing in VR!
So throwing myself into the thick of that, I'm going to cop some flak for it! hahah
Anyway, thanks for the support! Greatly appreciated - if you ever have any more feedback/suggestions let me know, I'll see what I can do to incorporate it 😃
flint pasture
Will do! I was going to suggest using free modkit labor, but that wouldn't apply easily to a plugin.
clever sky
free modkit labor?
flint pasture
I was just thinking in general of how with some games it feels like modders are the ones finishing it, or adding massive amounts of content and not being paid to do it.
Bad joke I guess, though if I was being serious..
clever sky
Ah ok 😛 Wasn't parsing that right 😃
flint pasture
I would wonder if the settings you're tweaking could be opened up to users to tweak.
clever sky
Hmmm... I can probably make the plugin more exposed than the menu.
I'm a bit wary of having it just be a toolkit that devs kinda just pick and choose the bits they like from though. Because that'd diminish what I'm trying to do (offer a system of continuous movement that provides complete user coverage).
flint pasture
nod
clever sky
Like... if people just use CAOTS - I'm going to get tons of complaints from their users about not catering to them!
But yeah, you get it 😃
flint pasture
Does that mean you're not going to cater to Monty Python Horseback riding?
clever sky
Once someone sends me a tracker mounted to a stick horse, I may well consider it!
Until then, I'll assume the demand is insufficient for horseplay!
clever sky
I got no stick horse!
tired tree
sock + broom
clever sky
Got one from a HTC rep... but need 2 for foot tracking. And tracker orders aren't open to Australia yet D:
clever sky
Haha. Why do you say that?
tired tree
thats how you actually get real lean
clever sky
Why's everyone trying to do lean locomotion now?
tired tree
talking about enviroments
and collision
its also a perfect center base
feet are not
clever sky
So you're interested in the hip tracking mainly for collision capsule?
That's fair enough. Would help me too with waist high object collision.
tired tree
collision capsule + orientation, its a far better movement base that head / foot
foot has too many potential positions relative to center of body
without a waist tracker as well it isn't "that" useful
clever sky
Well... I was mainly planning on measuring degree of foot motion and translating that into speed.
tired tree
i mean, people aren't using actual gaits running in place
its more effective than waist, and far more than head, but waist is still > head for that motion translation
clever sky
You mean direction of motion?
tired tree
no
speed of pace
even with foot tracking you are still running generally up/down unless you want to promote flailing in circles
clever sky
Oh... so you want to derive speed based on head X/Y away from waist X/Y?
tired tree
thats another thing the waist gives you, is a pretty decent direction without hands / head input
clever sky
Yeah. Only problem is you can strafe independently of waist direction IRL.
clever sky
Also backstepping might be difficult with just hip based.
tired tree
without omni directional treadmills you aren't going to get a real vector
clever sky
ODTs are fraught with their own issues. Unless you're talking about the really big roller based ones... in which case, those are just big economic issues! 😛
tired tree
yeah but they allow actual motion in the direction
something you can't really simulate with foot tracking and moving in place
clever sky
Yeah. Well, if you're going for the ultimate, then that's probably the way to go.
tired tree
I jsut don't see how foot trackers really help with anything except for IK and step up in the long term
while waist tracking is immediately useful.
clever sky
It helps with people that exaggerate foot motions and minimize hip/head motion 😛
tired tree
i wouldn't promote it
clever sky
Haha... well, I gotta experiment you know?
clever sky
Anyway... at least I have a hip tracker now.
I just got it yesterday.
Haven't even found a way to mount it yet!
clever sky
Ah yeah. I was actually going to mount it to my back.
Which I guess you can still do with the cowboy belt.
tired tree
yup, turn it around
can velcro strap it in, I will be 3d printing a bracket for mine though
clever sky
Actually, I have most of the parts... just need the screw! haha....
But here's the other thing I'm wondering about...
even if I include support for this stuff in my system...
clever sky
how's the end user going to use it? Will they have to jury rig up their own stuff?
clever sky
Hehe.
Sudden turn into the hardware business.
I saw what the cloudgate dudes were doing with their foot tracking.
Pieces of lead!
clever sky
Or some soft grey metal that they bent around the shoes 😛
tired tree
3d printers are king for this sort of thing
I guess I have it easy when it comes time to mount
clever sky
Why's that?
tired tree
brackets for every object I want to test
clever sky
Ah yeah.
What kinda things? Guns and swords?
Oh yeah... I can mount a tracker to my bokken 😮
tired tree
first thing i'm doing it attaching it to the harness for my corgies
tired tree
new locomotion
mush dog
also attached to the back of a chair
wouldn't be the hardest thing every to make an object - tracker /location system for ue4
with importable models
clever sky
Oh yeah. So you can sit down while in VR?
tired tree
would be really nice for open world with cars
clever sky
Yeah. I was thinking of some way of doing that kind of thing too.
But it was more along the lines of - pause game, lift up headset and sit - then resume.
tired tree
procedural chair generation where the user inputs the size and the general tracker location
could at least make it possible without manual labor
the pause view method is probably the best solution currently, but would be best with a camera overlay, sadly out of oculus's reach currently
clever sky
Yeah. Just a bunch of boxes where you can specify chair seat, chair back height, depth/width/armrests/armrest height/etc
Oh... can you force the Vive camera overlay open in software?
tired tree
not through the API as far as I am aware, but it registers as a camera
clever sky
Ah ok.
tired tree
actually, looks like it IS in
but don't think ue4 is up to date enough
oh, nope, its in
not exposed in engine yet, but I can expose it for myself
interesting
clever sky
Nice.
clever sky
Enjoy!
mighty carbon
eternal inlet
@tired tree You can do leaning without a hip tracker, but agree, hip tracking is a nice use of an extra tracking point. The way i did it was to allow disconnection between capsule and camera to a certain extend.
tired tree
I don't like leaning without a hip tracker, its faked and the user can just walk instead of obeying the "lean" intent
I understand how most have been doing it currently
digital marlin
Is leaning just used for FPS sort of things?
mighty carbon
ha, just noticed water stream sound in Oculus Home on Gear VR
subtle, but really nice
mighty carbon
well, monoscoping renderer doesn't work - crashes UE4.
pallid echo
fleet veldt
whew that is an anoying one! can you temp work around it just by intercepting the backspace key event on your player controller/pawn and sending that keystroke to the widget manually?
Oculus Touch not having built in recharable batteries is turning me into an eco villan. I'm going through multiple AAs a week.
clever sky
@fleet veldt Why are you not using rechargeables? 😛
fleet veldt
Yeah i need to get some rechargables.
mighty carbon
I wonder if there are li-ion rechargeable batteries.
alpine torrent
there is lipo
mighty carbon
Nice.. too bad I couldn't find any known brand names on Amazon :/
Not even for li-ion
alpine torrent
not even jst connectors?
cobalt relic
Li-Ion is a tech of rechargeable battery
So yeah sure
Most laptop batteries have been li-ion for years
Li-po is more recent tech that has better power density in weight
Obviously those batteries are usually not in a end-user form-factor
Li-po especially requires precise end-of-charge detection, else it explodes and burns violently
TL;DR : yes and no 😃
end hardware engineer rant
mighty carbon
Well, I am sure there are proper charging stations for AA li-ion batteries. Just need to know what to buy.
And I have no idea what to buy
cobalt relic
AA is a no go
mighty carbon
Why not?
cobalt relic
Well I'm sure it can exist but it's wildly inefficient
Lithium tech is 3.7V
AA is 1.5V
You'd need lots of circuitry to make that work
it would be more expensive than the battery itself
mighty carbon
Well, you can't put laptop battery into Touch controllers :P
cobalt relic
If you're looking for AA rechargeable batteries, the best option is still the old fashion one that takes 15 hours to charge
Part of the reason AA is completely wrong in modern products
cobalt relic
"Lithium-ion Polymer"
So it does exist 😃 If you're okay with the price, I guess it's cool
It's actually really cool, because they need some non-trivial electronics to make that work
mighty carbon
In a long run it should be cheaper than constantly buying non-rechargeable batteries
cobalt relic
Yeah
alpine torrent
alpine torrent
hey lithiium ion batteries and a holder hehe
mighty carbon
Yeah, need to use it in Touch and whatnot.
cobalt relic
I'm so happy I own a single product that uses AA batteries, and that's a clock
alpine torrent
soon @mighty carbon do a custom wearable projects for VR gamers what touch ue4
wicked oak
there are rechargeable AA batteries
people have used them for the touch controllers
at least touch controller life is absurdly high
clever sky
mighty carbon
Li-Poly are better than Li-Ion, aren't they ?
@wicked oak NiMH or NiCd rechargeables have "memory" effect. Li-Ion and Li-Poly do not.
wicked oak
memory?