well to view it in VR
#virtual-reality
subtle island
Ooh interesting, so is this for just visualisation or is it leading to extra experimenting with stuff to see what you can do with it?
jaunty shell
for now only viz
subtle island
Very cool even still
jaunty shell
its a pain in the ass but I can't wait to try it out with the Vive
subtle island
Yeah I can imagine, if you could get colour data on there somehow from the scans and increase the density you could add some force stuff using the vive controllers and start bending reality around lol
jaunty shell
interesting idea 😃
tired tree
isn't there a few point cloud VR programs out there already? just not released finished tools?
i've seen multiple people play with it
pearl tangle
@fair cairn there is a bunch of stuff designed for use in caves that i know used to work back on the dk1
tired tree
yeah actually......there are a few commerical product for VR point clouds too already.
fair cairn
mighty carbon
does anyone know how to setup project to be DLC-ready and then how to author DLC for it ?
jaunty shell
@tired tree wah ? got any links ?
meager nebula
hey, any1 with vive? 😛
tired tree
@jaunty shell did...you google it? There are a million Unity projects doing it and ran into a couple buy to use too
jaunty shell
Hmm unity
tired tree
the best ones are stand alone, but that is pretty par for the course with point cloud / hermite data
sturdy coral
how are you guys liking the deluxe audio strap?
I'm finally supposed to get an adapter for it today to make it work with vive pre
jaunty shell
@sturdy coral 👌
clever sky
@sturdy coral it's pretty good so far. Best part is probably having built in audio. Don't have to futz around with headphones now.
At least half the time I just went without headphones; too lazy.
Also having them built into the strap means you don't have to worry about it falling off... for the most part. You can still bump them during high activity.
sturdy coral
yeah, the oculus headphones hit my glasses a lot when I put it on
so I ended up using the oculus earbuds there too
saves a little weight too
clever sky
Mostly like the tension knob on the back. It's good to be able to easily control how much tension you want and to release it cleanly.
But it feels like a lot of twisting to get it on and off cleanly.
turning rather
Otherwise if I don't loosen it enough, it'll pull my glasses off when I put it on or take it off.
A bit like the Rift...
But without springs that are quite as robust.
sturdy coral
none of you have had the deteriorating foam have you?
clever sky
Kind of.
The first thing I did was pull it out of the box, spit on my thumb and rub the foam
black stuff on my thumb.
But in actual use, no deterioration noted.
So... I guess it's quite individual
clever sky
I sweat like hell on my forehead, but not on the crown of my head which is where that stuff is.
sturdy coral
I think I saw in japan or something they are already offering replacement foam
clever sky
Yeah, I expect that'll be available to all DAS peeps soon. Or at least hope 😛
It's probably not that big a deal for me given that my hair is already black.
sturdy coral
I think my oculus headphones might have been kind of defective
clever sky
Why's that?
sturdy coral
they are supposed to pop out to the sides and stay locked
and mine just like always pop back in at the slightest touch
that's the main reason they may it a pain with glasses
jaunty shell
hmm I found why performance is so horrendous on the point cloud rendering
shader complexity is going through the roof
for each individual point
sturdy coral
shader complexity or quad complexity?
I bet it would be taxing on MSAA since so much of the screen is edges
sturdy coral
you think a lot are stacking on top of each other and zfighting?
jaunty shell
with msaa off it gains quite a bit of performance though
sturdy coral
sometimes that will show up in shader complexity
jaunty shell
yeah they are
I think the texture lookup isn't high quality enough
and points tend to have the same position
lots of zfighting
sturdy coral
I think each time one pixel peaks through it costs the same as four from the way quad complexity works
tired tree
you are actually generating qquads for those?
sturdy coral
then with msaa it can multiplied even more
tired tree
i thought you were using that one guys setup
sturdy coral
(quad as in four pixels, not as in geometry quads)
tired tree
talking about his image
jaunty shell
hmm its adding a static mesh comp
tired tree
how many of them.....
it was one per slice in his setup right?
part of why I didn't like it
jaunty shell
not sure, probably is that
its weird actually
he adds a whole mesh with 2M+ polygons
sturdy coral
he was encoding position into UVs
tired tree
yeah I thought he was generating slices with static meshes and then partitioning it
sturdy coral
he had some slices too there is one image showing them
I think he was planning on being able to use LOD with it
tired tree
if you were going to go that hacky might as well run isntanced meshes with a color lookup in the material
sturdy coral
he tried color for position and it had a problem with forcing srgb
jaunty shell
what I don't understand is why should we require a 2M mesh for clouds that have nothing in common with his ?
tired tree
he is splitting the mesh up to represent the different locations...coloring it in
meager nebula
I've tried to mess with vive's controllers a bit
I'm following this guide
I can see them in game but their motion doesn't reflect what I do with the controller
glossy agate
Looks like DOOM VFR is only $30. Anyone know if its still the full experience? Fallout 4 VR is charging the full $60
sturdy coral
@meager nebula make sure the camera is attached the same root as the controllers
mighty carbon
Fallout VR will not be as good as Doom VFR
meager nebula
@sturdy coral is getting the controller's position by using the GetWorldLocation on the controller's static mesh a good way?
sturdy coral
should be fine, I would get it from the motion controller component itself and not the mesh but as long as they are the same you will get the same result
meager nebula
thanks
mighty carbon
so, has anyone done DLC packaging / deployment ?
granite jacinth
I am surprised we don't have a channel for that or modding
mighty carbon
indeed :/
glossy agate
I think the modding thread on the forum is pretty active. Not sure about DLC though
digital marlin
Surely you're not buying a Vive unless you know enough about it to know what you need for it?
mighty carbon
?
patent galleon
Excuse me, anybody know VR mode without VR device (e.g. vive...)?
Launch parameters '-vr' don't work on 4.15.3?
pearl tangle
it wont work if you don't have a headset connected
patent galleon
@pearl tangle Thanks, but I have successfully tried in 4.12 🤔 ?!
mighty carbon
@pearl tangle looks like VirZoom Mobile is coming fall 2017
pearl tangle
whens fall? Like october/november?
@patent galleon 4.12 was a long time ago. There is a toggle in the settings to "launch in vr mode" directly so you don't need to include that there anyway
mighty carbon
@pearl tangle well, technically Sep - Nov is fall
deft badge
Its a setting called "Start in VR"
patent galleon
@pearl tangle project setting->project description->Start in VR? I tried. But nothing happen.
It seems that I still have to borrow the vive.
pearl tangle
well if you are developing for VR then yeah you definitely need to borrow a vr headset anyway
patent galleon
mm...ok thanks 🙂
mighty carbon
Developing for VR without having VR equipment is like developing PC games ... without PC
patent galleon
@mighty carbon I think there may be similar to the virtual VR way to facilitate the development, after all, a team is not every one has a headset
mighty carbon
that's what you think Derek.. But reality is different
pearl tangle
yep even if you are just modelling or doing materials or effects you need to be able to actually experience it in the headset to have half an idea what its going to turn out like
digital marlin
yeah it's an expensive dev fitout for now but it'll get cheaper.
pearl tangle
pearl tangle
yeah wasnt sure if they had anything else tying in with the arm swinging since they keep moving while shooting too
clever sky
Will pick it up though. Looks like it could be a fun campaign shooter
Not a fan of multiplayer
In general
They've got sliding locomotion too it seems
So i guess footage altering between either
pearl tangle
yeah bits in between but i did see 1 part where he was using the swinging arms and then shooting while still moving and running again
http://store.steampowered.com/app/542570/RunVR/ this also seems pretty crazy that it's being sold for $6.50
jaunty shell
Good morning !
wintry escarp
good moaning
wicked oak
@pearl tangle 6.5 dollas for a couple greybox level and some moving features probable taken of VRTK
clever sky
RunVR is an armswinger too 😛
wicked oak
its less effort than your freedom locomotion thing
much less effort
and yours is free
the guy just grabbed VRTK and did a couple levels
pearl tangle
about the same effort as that other guy that just grabbed some levels from the marketplace and added in a loading hub and that was it. then you just teleport around the premade levels
clever sky
Which game was that?
jaunty shell
VR laptop is due to arrive in 2 to 3 weeks
goddam alienwares are assembled and shipped from china nowadays T_T
pearl tangle
yuck why alienware?
tired tree
still more effort than that beach ball sim that came out early on...though in his defense he appears to be adding to it after the feedback
clever sky
Haha... Puzzabug's beachball valley? 😛
jaunty shell
@pearl tangle I would have gone for MSI or Asus, but our company works with Dell
so we had to go Alienware 🤢
mighty carbon
Has anyone tried that Dead Effect 2 game? (Kinda like Doom)
wicked oak
wtf "my company works with dell"
how does that work, and how isnt that a bad thing?
why wouldnt a company just buy the best deal, not caring about the company?
jaunty shell
tell that to our IT
pearl tangle
yeah common thing with procurement
mighty carbon
Also, http://store.steampowered.com/app/594490/Deadly_Hunter_VR/ and it's free?!
pearl tangle
thats why I just go around all of our IT and finance and just buy the stuff and then expense it afterwards on a client job 😉
jaunty shell
its a good thing I can get what I want to an extent, so I'm not complaining
pearl tangle
i've gotten about $100k worth of equipment this year doing that hah
jaunty shell
hmm I'm not sure that's gonna work for us :p
pearl tangle
yeah my finance isn't a fan either. but my airline miles definitely are a fan! 😉 haha
jaunty shell
when I get from "VR Designer" to "VR Manager" maybe 😂
tired tree
mmmm, knuckles controllers models in steamVR now.....
if accurate to the end design, they look nice
clever sky
Automatically unlocked?
tired tree
haven't checked location yet, just images being posted, likely in the beta build
clever sky
Not in yet... or if they are looks like you need to do something to unlock them
I'm quite liking where they're taking this Steam Home. It's pretty much what you'd want out of a VR hub
But it'd be nicer if it had built in desktop access and web browser stuff.
I mean it's kinda there, but the screen greys out when you pull up the steam menu 😛
jaunty shell
I love the fact that you don't have to "hold" the knuckle controllers
gonna be interesting for interactions
also one step closer to input like lightweight gloves
clever sky
Probably better I think,
Like gloves, but also with buttons
Gloves are like ODTs. Everyone wants one, until they have one.
tired tree
i don't remember, were they planning on capacitive sensing on them?
clever sky
Then they'll be... oh... this isn't as great as I hoped it would be!
tired tree
its not about the ui
its about buttons being quicker / more intuitive for control operations
menus are a different thing
clever sky
Good UI can't fix bad haptics D:
I know. I've tried!
e.g. setting direction with Vive touchpad. Shouldn't be too hard... I even have a little heading arrow that shows you what direction you're moving in.
Well... apparently it's hard.
Because that smooth touchpad surface really doesn't let you know where your thumb is on the touchpad.
Meanwhile on the Rift... no worries.
Bit of skin pull from the thumbstick trying to torque back to the centre and you know intuitively which direction you're pointing in.
And if you got no haptics... ehhhh, everything will feel unsatisfying and floaty.
Imagine shooting guns in VR finger pistol style.
jaunty shell
pew pew
clever sky
Yeah 😛
clever sky
knockback like haptics?
jaunty shell
like striker VR
clever sky
Ah. Well, that'll be a useful form of haptic feedback.
jaunty shell
recoil/knockback
clever sky
Not sure how much we can minituarize striker though...
jaunty shell
clever sky
the reason it's as good as it is, is because of its size and weight.
jaunty shell
they do have a pistol prototype
clever sky
i.e. its mechanical properties, as opposed to its electronic properties.
clever sky
What'd be cool is if VR controllers had some sort of extension clip in system
clip those rails to the controller. Sweet
clever sky
Anyway... haptics is obscenely complex to do well... given that touch isn't a single sense, but a number of overlapping senses!
clever sky
The worst thing is to make it better, you gotta add more mechanical bulk.
You want more haptic over your body? Gotta have a suit with more coverage.
You wanna limit the motion of your limbs? Well, hope you're prepared to wear this exosuit
You want something like a rifle that feels like a rifle? Let me show you this VR rifle!
jaunty shell
(thats a sim we made two years ago)
clever sky
Cool stuff.
clever sky
I can imagine.
jaunty shell
I wish we had the vive that time. We used a DK2 with the camera strapped to the front pole
clever sky
Well I have to imagine. I can't afford a sim rig! 😛
jaunty shell
DIY can lead to pretty nice stuff :p
clever sky
Well, I can't afford the space for one either!
clever sky
What's a static one do? Let you sit in a chair with a wheel?
clever sky
Hehe. Not a huge improvement over just sitting in my comfy chair with a wheel at a desk 😛
jaunty shell
honestly I can't go back to my old desk xD
clever sky
Fair call. I mean, it's definetly an improvement.
What's interesting to me is skin pull haptics
Much underrated part of haptics, but can contribute a lot to the feeling of something.
clever sky
Not temperature. Just when something pushes against the skin.
e.g. you push an analog stick up, the spring is forcing it back down, thus causing the top of the stick to push against the skin on your thumb.
jaunty shell
ah right
clever sky
Similarly, in racing, when you brake hard, the contact from the chair uses frictional forces and inertia to pull the skin on your thighs and butt backwards
clever sky
Someone's been working on a skin pull haptic controller for VR as well.
Yeah, I remember seeing that. I just can't recall it's name.
Tactical haptics is the name of the VR controllers.
jaunty shell
ye
clever sky
They've got 4 bits on the grip that slide up and down. And the differential feeling can produce a relatively convincing sensation of haptics.
jaunty shell
oh man that's from the hydra + DK1 era of VR
clever sky
Yeah
jaunty shell
I member
clever sky
Shame that no one's picking them up on their tech.
jaunty shell
pretty cool concept, although a bit oversized
I think they demoed a recent prototype with the vive tracker
clever sky
But I guess the technical issues of making it small enough is quite significant.
clever sky
In the same vein of - haptics are difficult because they require mechanical elements to work well.
jaunty shell
clever sky
Yeah. Thing is like a small nail gun!
jaunty shell
oh they made a custom one too with the steamvrdevkit
clever sky
Still... would be nice to give it a shot.
jaunty shell
indeed
clever sky
This thing with the striker rail
would be pretty amazing as far as VR tool/haptics go.
pearl tangle
interresting to tryt that out for sure. still custom vive tracker props will be much better
plain glade
why Im getting red screen? with htc vive
plain glade
I mean when I open project VR preview I got red screen on HMD
jaunty shell
🤷
got more information, what's in your project ? Do you have a VR pawn of some sort ?
plain glade
yes
jaunty shell
any error message on the steamVR window ?
plain glade
It was about compositor
ripe vault
How does one do a launch image with google daydream? The option in project settings for android to select a launch image doesn't appear to work.
mighty carbon
@jaunty shell I wonder if it works fine with Rift
jaunty shell
I don't see why not
mighty carbon
ppl say it's a direct port from mobile, with deferred renderer and it runs like sh#t
btw, this looks interesting https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XN9kDW0sTtA
I wonder if it's UE4-based
mighty carbon
aha, cool. At work, so I can only skim over videos to be undetected 😛
jaunty shell
😃
clever sky
Hope it plays better than their alpha demo!
sturdy coral
@patent galleon I don't think -vr was parsed in 4.12
@clever sky "Because that smooth touchpad surface really doesn't let you know where your thumb is on the touchpad."
^-- you can use relative offset
if you have a steam controller you can try it out, they have an implementation
clever sky
For haptic feedback?
Oh yeah... might have a play with that.
But... I don't have a steam controller.
So if you start your thumb towards the edge (but not on it)... how's it work?
vs starting your thumb in the center?
sturdy coral
it is more for putting your thumb close to center but not being exact
if you start on the edge there is nothing you can do
clever sky
Ah...
sturdy coral
I guess you could move the relative point to somewhere nearby
and treat starting on the edge as pressing in that direction
clever sky
Yeah. I mean, I don't have an issue personally. It's just what I've observed from novice users.
sturdy coral
I'm not sure what steam controller does in that situation
clever sky
That they treat the touchpad as one big button... rather than as a touchpad.
clever sky
Oh well. It's nothing that a 5 minute training session can't rectify.
sturdy coral
so you could drop in little bits of code to drive the axises in different ways
sturdy coral
like for implementing that relative axis
or like drop in bits of code for swipe detection driving events
sturdy coral
or even say "I want oculus to this, vive to do that"
but still get to use named input events
clever sky
Well.. you'd have to manually set it up... record the X/Y on touch and set up a tick to compare change in position
sturdy coral
yeah it is all possible now, just kind of goes outside of the input system
clever sky
Yeah. It's a lot of manual stuff right now.
Just an extra barrier to using Unreal for VR for indy devs I suppose!
sturdy coral
there should also be a cleaner way to deal with events that only go to the object in your hand
clever sky
How can I incorporate rhythm music game mechanics into a FPS? 😛
sturdy coral
without having to manually check left and right and stuff
single player or multiplayer fps?
someone did some game where you absorbed bullets kind of like audio shield to get ammo
clever sky
Oh yeah.
sturdy coral
but I don't think it was rhythm based
wintry escarp
where would a blueprint reading the gearvr controller go? in the gamemode ?
clever sky
gameinput?
mighty carbon
@wintry escarp I have it in the player's BP
I wonder if locomotion is not teleportation and thus comfort rating is moderate :/
looks like it has teleportation
10 hrs of single player is something worth looking into IMO
opal bobcat
being a wizard the teleportation mechanic actualy makes sense
mighty carbon
games don't need to make sense.. 😉
opal bobcat
doesnt hurt to do so though
mighty carbon
making stuff realistic restricts devs' creativity and ability to deliver
wicked oak
man its going to get raided
opal bobcat
who said anything about realism
wicked oak
by the rabid locomotion squad
opal bobcat
i just said, it makes sense to have teleportation in a game about wizards
wicked oak
game doesnt cater to my specific needs REEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE
mighty carbon
I am gonna have to buy it, even though RPG isn't my thing (I can't stand any of the Elder Scrolls games, but I do enjoy Diablo)
opal bobcat
elder scrolls games actualy have decent gameplay mechanics, diablo is just a clickfest
w/a leveling system
mighty carbon
to each their own.. I don't like click-fest per se, but I hate going around an picking up all kind of shit in Oblivion.
Darksiders 2 has a very good balance of action and RPG elements. I'd definitely play FP game in VR with same kind of balance
opal bobcat
only two games im really interested in at the moment, doom vfr, and fallout4
though what ive seen of fallout4 vr so far hasnt been particularly promising
wicked oak
fallout 4 seems exactly what its supposed to be
a VR port of fallout 4
same game, but instead of being controlled with WASD, its all on the VR stuff
and im 100% cool with it, as its what i expected
wicked oak
nah it will have teleport
opal bobcat
hopefuly they put as much effort into the vr aspects of it as i see going into doom VFR
wicked oak
im pretty sure they have had massive issues
Doom engine is new, optimized for framerates up to 200, and turns out its renderer is a perfect use case for VR
opal bobcat
makes sense
wicked oak
Fallout 4 is on a really old engine patched to oblivion
opal bobcat
right
wicked oak
they cant implement ladders
i mean, they really cant
there is not a single ladder in any of their games
ladders just teleport you out of the dungeon or similar
im damn sure that implementing VR was an absolute hell for their tech team
opal bobcat
yeah thats why im wondering if its going to be the same quality as vfr
just didnt seem like that was the case in the e3 videos
mighty carbon
also Doom VFR team fans of VR (and some use Rift 😉 ) and they made sure Doom VFR is as good as it can be. Fallout VR is just an afterthought with every aspect of it.
stiff briar
since there is an ongoing discussion about VR RPGs and this is an Unreal Engine discord server, we would like to share with you fellow devs our latest trailer for The SoulKeeper VR (Early Access coming out this summer, August 15th):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XN9kDW0sTtA&feature=youtu.be
toxic wedge
https://twitter.com/varjodotcom
Have you guys seen this one?
Twitter
stiff briar
oh just saw someone posted our trailer earlier today in here, sorry didn't mean to spam the convo 😃 at least to respond @mighty carbon 's question, yes it sure is Unreal Engine (FTW)
opal bobcat
myron: looks good
i hope theres full teleportation though
myron: do you allow for roomscale combat?
that'd be pretty awesome
i could see doing that fight in w/a roomscale setup
so no teleportation would be neccessary
stiff briar
Thanks AnTi :)
We offer all forms of locomotion, controller-based, room-scale and teleportation, and all are optional/available at all times...ok there is one or two spots that you need to use teleportation to get through, although in theory you could try jumping across (i wouldnt try it lol!)
opal bobcat
nice
stiff briar
fighting is certainly working just as good with roomscale or controller based locomotion (freeform)
lemme share a link to an older vid of ours where we kinda go over some of the melee mechanics
opal bobcat
yeah i cant do controller locomotion, just make sme sick
stiff briar
yeah lots of people have that issue...personally i m all good with controller locomotion but not with rotation
opal bobcat
yeah rotation is the worst
stiff briar
opal bobcat
have you thought about implementing a FOV limiter for controller movement?
opal bobcat
it might help people use it who otherwise couldnt
stiff briar
it is certainly worth looking into, as we want it to be a pleasant and comfortable experience
as for the melee, roomscale i d say probably works the best as it requires a lot of back or side stepping
and we are talking about small steps, so it is perfect
even in a tigh space
tight*
opal bobcat
yeah, thats what it seemed like to me
i'd love to try a really well made swordfighting sim in vr
yours is the best ive seen so far
stiff briar
thanks! we hope we won't disappoint, but being that it is early access we still want to get a lot of feedback towards improving the game for full release
a lot of uncharted territory still in VR
opal bobcat
no doubt
mighty carbon
@stiff briar is it going to be a single-player game? any ranged classes? (while melee is cool, I think I would prefer shooting over melee)
stiff briar
for the first release of the early access we have a hybrid class, mage/fighter, this way the player can cast spells as well as fight in melee mode...with each consecutive update we will be launching more characters with different abilities, some have ranged and stealth in their array of mechanics, others brute melee etc. For the August 15th release, it will be singleplayer only, we are also looking into co-op mode, but again that will come at a later date
silk lodge
@stiff briar I had success using helmets to block out fov and reduce movement related issues
stiff briar
that sounds like an interesting approach puzzabug. You simulated wearing a helmet, thus providing a steady point of visual reference to the user?
opal bobcat
thats a good idea, just draw the helmet model whenever you translate instead of some arbitrary fov blocking
wicked oak
i dont know if you will be able to add coop just as is
you need to recode the whole game for MP
stiff briar
yeah it is certainly one of those things we ll need to look into post early access launch
if we do it, chances are it will be in the form of a separate game mode
glossy agate
Can't you just write all the replication for mp ect, then you can setup the actually server options and game modes later? Use the money from initial sales to pay for the servers maybe
Still probably a pain in the ass cause stuff never seems to work as expected out the gate when you start testing mp
tired tree
ryan its not that quick
silk lodge
@stiff briar yeah, just rendered the inside of a helmet on a character
stiff briar
that sounds super cool @silk lodge , let alone it adds a whole new layer of "realism" 😄
tired tree
multiplayer requires baseline system structure considerations, also developing multiplayer and single player together you have to test back and forth to ensure you aren't breaking multiplayer with each new singleplayer feature.
Its a huge development time hog....of course the alternative of ending up with a totally incompatible singleplayer to multiplayer game is worse.
stiff briar
very true @tired tree but certainly worth exploring, provided it doesn't hinder the rest of the production (not too much anyway)
sturdy coral
@stiff briar looks awesome
tired tree
@stiff briar what kind of wall boundry system are you using? Fade to black?
stiff briar
we had tried the fade to black about a year ago but the feedback we were getting from public demos was that it breaks immersion. So ever since we replaced it with a pushback type of system. It is very subtle and gentle as to not make someone nauseous (unless you keep bumping into the same spot on purpose lol)
tired tree
mmmm, so its not 1:1 pushback?
stiff briar
how would you define 1:1 pushback?
tired tree
pushing into a wall keeps you at the contact point
you said it is smooth a gentle, which wouldn't be that 1:1
stiff briar
well it pushes you back the moment you are crossing the geometry's collision. So to the user it should feel 1:1
sturdy coral
@stiff briar I could definitely see a dynamic FOV restricting helmet that would fit in with the art style, a more fantasy version of this:
(from the new wolfenstein)
tired tree
ah, ok...so its character collision basically. Normal stuff, sorry thought you were working with something new
it is the same direction I took
believe that h3vr went that route as well now.
stiff briar
yeah I think it makes more sense than fading to black, at least that's the feedback we got from users
@sturdy coral yeah something like that would be super cool
tired tree
its the default in my plugin, but I get a few users reporting players not liking it, so I am always curious when people move over to it
stiff briar
one issue i find being quite dominant in VR and not so much in non VR (although it depends on the community lol) is that opinions are often divided into equally large groups of people
take freeform locomotion for example, many people love the idea but just dont feel comfortable with it...another (probably equal number of people) group would almost refuse to play anything not having that feature
tired tree
its entirely possible to mix the two as well, run vision darkening during pushback as an option
stiff briar
we kinda mixed things up in a similar fashion with teleportation. We didn't do anything new, just had a slight fade taking place every time the player teleports. Before we would just instantly teleport them without any fades. To some it didn't make much of a difference, others seem to love it
tired tree
I don't like the fading personally, but it has game advantages, it can help cover LOD transitions and other things
so it in some cases it is likely worth keeping regardless
wicked oak
replication is hell
stiff briar
a lot of users also seem to think it makes the teleportation more comfortable
wicked oak
and in VR is worse
becouse you dont have 2 heads to test
so to develop vr mp, you need to make a Vr simulator mode
that lets you do common actions while not in VR
mine looks like that
ive coded the character to have a few preset hand positions
how do you test it @tired tree ?
stiff briar
looks good @wicked oak
wicked oak
becouse then you have the issue of motherfucking steam systems that wont let you connect on the same pc. so i have to copy the game into another pc, and try to run it through a different steam account
wicked oak
btw both of the characters are broken op in different ways
the guy with pistol and sword can instakill anyone with it
sturdy coral
@wicked oak another tool to look at is demo recording and replay
tired tree
i prototype most of my multiplayer out of VR, and check for technically hard to test things in VR between two computers
wicked oak
and the bow is explosive
tired tree
but you have to realize, I built my plugin around multiplayer from the beginning and its more than a year on now, been able to grind down issues over time
wicked oak
i still have to implement the proper replication system
this one is still using the older Aquila code wich just spams server RPCs with the updated pawn transform
bow is recoded, now it works "lag free" in the fact that is instantly responsive
the damage comes later 😃
replicating the arrow was giving me tons of headaches
so i dont
the client calls a "server create arrow" and "server launch arrow" on the Bow
when the arrow hits, it calls server arrow report hit and does its impact FX
of course, hacking that "server arrow report hit" would be possible. But it only works if the server knows there is an arrow flying there already
tired tree
mmm
sturdy coral
cloning inputs could be a good tool, I haven't done that yet
tired tree
you are doing fully client side, thats fine with non pvp
sturdy coral
have e.g. a mirror link version of yourself
tired tree
you would get a ton of complaints in pvp
wicked oak
yes, becouse i want it to be really responsive
its the server who does the final damages and similar, but if you hit them in your pc server will validate it and do so
its just that lagging in VR feels awful
tired tree
I know, I consider VR much more important for more client sided authority than any other game platform
wicked oak
i make sure to add some basic anticheat checks for now. to avoid stuff like players instakilling everyone in the map
wich is a goddamn headache on so many levels
tired tree
more so since there tends to be a lot more physics interactions as well if not doing a straight shooter
wicked oak
there is a game that did melee combat
but its glitchy as fuck
people still play it.. i couldnt release something in that state
tired tree
there are a lot of them..which one?
sturdy coral
no one has done multiplayer sword fighting yet have they? It basically seems impossible without something like swords simulated to act as if they were really heavy and sluggish
wicked oak
one guy did
its glitchy
i definitely wouldnt release that thing
swords seem to be simulated and replicating the physics
sturdy coral
what I've thought of it a really slow and heavy attack sword
and a fast defense sword in your other hand
the fast one would be all client side
and the heavy one would take advantage of inertia and stuff to do prediction
wicked oak
clunky
for my rpg-ish game (wich is PvE) i went with a 100% clientside sword
and even enemies
they wont damage you unless you get hit in your pc
sharp swan
I've planned to do something with melee in VR and wasn't even thinking about using physics for it at all
sturdy coral
yeah PvE is different
wicked oak
that lets you do stuff like 100% responsive parrying
feels great
too bad its too much competition
i might still use that concept for the scifi game
i just got that dungeon crawler they just released
in oculus
its really high budget
sharp swan
whats it called?
wicked oak
The Mage Tale
its by the same guys from The Bards tale
uses the same assets in fact
one interesting thing they do is that all "menu" options are physical and the like
you press buttons in a table
or you eat a potion to load a savegame
and for aiming the spells
sharp swan
ahh hell yeah its inXile 😄
wicked oak
its half gaze aim and half proper throwing
when you cast a spell, you have a typical gaze aim
your spells will be autoaimed there, but its more of aim assist
you still need to throw the stuff roughly in that direction
its not a bad idea
tired tree
strangely enough, AltspaceVR has multiplayer physics melee combat in their tavern, its server sided movement on the weapons so they are a little unresponsive but it adds weight to how much to can swing them. While not perfect, the concept is serviceable as a start.
sharp swan
i need it. not willing to buy it on oculus store though.
sharp swan
thats a shame
wicked oak
i think i could make a kickass cooperative dungeon crawler, but i just cant do it in a fantasy setting
my game would be unfairly compared to things like that Mages Tale
btw, im going to push a big update to DWVR steam version soon-ish
for the steam sales
would you help me testing it?
i need people to roast it
sharp swan
make one in the Vampire the Masquerade style
wicked oak
thats the issue, style. I was thinking on the scifi style becouse i could do stuff by myself
as i have no artists
lowpoly style and stuff
sturdy coral
@wicked oak is it full oculus studios? those usually have indefinite exclusivity but I thought I heard this one was 12 months
sharp swan
12 months gives me time to get a new GPU and the x299 chipset to sort itself out :p
wicked oak
for my next game i need to make sure i can do the art myself
becouse if a cool artist does cool stuff, and then i cant continue on that, then i cant continue the content
like what happens in DWVR and why i only have 3 maps
sturdy coral
@stiff briar how many artists do you guys have? your stuff looks great
sharp swan
im not touching art in mine. Just gonna prototype, pitch, crowdfund if possible and then put it in the bin when I dont get enough money, realise I've wasted my life, put a VR shotgun in my mouth and blow my polygon head off, before taking off the VR helmet and resigning myself to basic web development ¬_¬
wicked oak
lol pitch and crowdfund
sturdy coral
hah don't count onf crowdfunding
sharp swan
im not
sturdy coral
if you want crowd funding you've got it backwards... have an artist show pretty pictures
and hire the developers 😛
sharp swan
the pitch is for investors. The crowdfund is because it's worth a shot
wicked oak
i got nice profit with DWVR, its near 10.000$ in sales. But remove steam cut, remove taxes, etc
and while its profitable, its not profitable to hire professional artists
sturdy coral
I'm just feeling no shame in using lots of marketplace stuff
wicked oak
lol
look at my guns
SCIFI weapons dark and light
and the maps are built out of infinity blade assets
sturdy coral
robo recall is full of it, player unknown's is full of it, I keep seeing marketplace stuff everywhere now
wicked oak
but the guy who made the maps did a great job building the map from that
sharp swan
I wouldn't have a problem with that either as I plan to sell to people who dont use the marketplace to know :p
wicked oak
i swear i see Top Down Scifi
EVERYWHERE
like literally on every indie game that has scifi stuff on it
tired tree
marketplace assets are more of a problem for VR, where they are likely heavier than what is ideal
sharp swan
sidescroller. it's on all platforms now
I wonder if anyone has finished a game with the RPG Toolkit yet
sturdy coral
I hope someone gets the photogrammetry workflow down really well
and we just get tons of scans of stuff at really cheap prices
stiff briar
@sturdy coral thanks! well about a year ago we had two artists, now we have 4
tired tree
man... LegendreVR talking about the point cloud stuff for VR yesterday made me want to pull out my voxel plugin and start in again on procedural stuff for VR, its way more fun.
wicked oak
procedural is hella fun
for my dungeon crawler im prototyping the worldgen in 2d
in pure C++ with SFML
tired tree
it wouldn't take much for my voxel shader to make those billboards for the cloud data
wicked oak
i want to get the algorithm down
becouse i want the levels to have some flow, like warframe or diablo do
i dont want purely RNG room stitching
becouse that gets boring super fast, and its super confusing
tired tree
there are a lot of different dungeon generation methods out there
wicked oak
the one i want to do is more like the diablo 3 ones
tired tree
branchking weighted tree space partitioning is the cleanest i have seen
tired tree
yeah, like that
wicked oak
the idea would be that each "mission" would have a graph
tired tree
it generates room layouts in a branching tree then then goes back and fills in corridors
wicked oak
like a starter room, then 2-4 rng rooms, then a big boss room, and then 2 paths from there
and so on
tired tree
oh...like Binding of Issac
wicked oak
no, like diablo
tired tree
you know there is a lot of room for a BOI game in VR
its also really indie accessible
wicked oak
BOI is 100% on a grid, and im sure its generation just creates a graph on the grid
a extremelly fancy version of that is what path of exile does
its on a grid
tired tree
BOI is very simplistic yes
wicked oak
it generates rooms
it adds doors on the critical path
and then it adds the geometry
tired tree
oh you want open room generation
sturdy coral
legend of dungeon has a Vr mode
tired tree
i mistook some of what you said
sturdy coral
but it is just third person
wicked oak
no i dont. I want a generation that just has a list of premade sublevels and assembles them
tired tree
legend of dungeon is great in vr
wicked oak
a example would be Strafe, or Ziggurat, or Tower of Guns
its really common on FPS-y games. But i see them allways failing in the same way
of making the levels way too rng
just randomly plopping rooms
i want to give it some flow
becouse one would get hella lost if its rng in vr
sturdy coral
did any of you ever try out doom's snap map?
wicked oak
yeah, thats kind of what the system would do @sturdy coral
sturdy coral
it looked like it would lend itself to procedural
wicked oak
just assemble premade rooms
thats exactly what i want to do @sturdy coral
but damn , ue4 sucks at it
stiff briar
have you guys played around with Dungeon Architect?
wicked oak
and it sucks HARD at it
@stiff briar its cool, but useless
its very neat, but the issue with a procgen system is that it needs to be done per-game
and again, ue4 sucks REALLY hard at procedural levels
becouse you need to use dynamic light
and you know how balls slow ue4 dynamic light and culling is
wicked oak
thats similar to what dungeon architect does
if not the same algorythm
my dungeon prototype was done with dungeon architect
but its "snapmap" style generator is not very good
its really damn dumb
it just rng plops rooms from a list
sturdy coral
did doom's snap map actually support any baking?
wicked oak
doom doesnt need baking
its all dynamic
doom engine is just optimized for it
they have proper light culling (ue4 does not have light culling for what ive tested)
at all
only frustrum culling for lights
sturdy coral
ah I thought they had some
wicked oak
this means that if you are in a FPS generated dungeon
sturdy coral
one good tool they have
wicked oak
and look into the center
sturdy coral
is every light also gets a bounding box
wicked oak
you will render ALL the lights in the dungeon
sturdy coral
in doom, so you can prevent non-shadowed lights from leaking through walls
wicked oak
you can guess how massively slow that is on vr
oh thats neat
obligatory epic plz
so basically rendering a light as a box instead of a sphere?
sturdy coral
@wicked oak in the vanishing of ethan carter VR teardown thing they mention there is light culling
they talk about how a single pixel was getting through in a few cases and preventing it
wicked oak
somehow i could get 10 fps looking into a wall
becouse it tried to render all the lights and all the shadows in that direction
its so bad i was doing prototypes in unity
sturdy coral
doom looked like it had a good shadow caching system too
wicked oak
yes. Doom only rendered the lights that had dynamic objects around them
sturdy coral
similar to what they added in ~4.14 where if nothing is moving it is cached
wicked oak
nah, the 4.14 one is nowhere near as good
sturdy coral
but also they super impose moving things
yeah
they super impose movables so they don't have to rerender static stuff at all ever
unless the light is moving
wicked oak
UE4’s pretty naive light culling (simple frustum test, plus a screen area fraction cap) was simply doing a bad job, and we had no way of even knowing which lights they were.
from ethan carter
exactly what i was saying
no light culling
for my dungeon prototype i had to do "culling" myself
by setting ALL the rooms to hidden by default
and only letting your room + adjacent to be visible
silk lodge
could I hijack this lighting conversation to talk about audio spatialization?
sturdy coral
just doesn't work for shit I guess 😛
wicked oak
frustrum culling doesnt count as any kind of proper culling
its 70s tech
cant they do like the thing they do to cull static geometry?
they do cull that
just check the light as a sphere
sturdy coral
oh I thought they at least attempted that
sturdy coral
ah indeed
wicked oak
also, you cant really load maps into maps dynamically
ue4 breaks itself really hard
unity can do this, but maps wont have a transform
wicked oak
so to do the procedural stuff, you need to set the whole map to "dynamic", and then move it
the cool thing is that it keeps the lightmaps
in unreal, if you have a statically baked thing, and try to move it, it will remove the bake
in unity it keeps it
sturdy coral
I don't know if the grid extends into Z with deferred
wicked oak
so you can just bake it on the sublevels, and load them into the main level, and thne move
sturdy coral
but that would effectively cull out some lights
wicked oak
and you keep your baked light
wicked oak
Forward does much better on the "look at wall" test
i guess becouse pixels dont check the lights as the lights dont affect those pixels
sturdy coral
yeah they are looking up into this grid data structure(in the shader) I think (so the shader won't consider lights outside of their 3d grid cell)
silk lodge
silk lodge
well, it had some of the same words 😃
so I'm trying to make a "big" audio source - basically right now audio is very direct and you can pin point it
wicked oak
close enough
silk lodge
sorta a mix between spatialized and non-spatialized audio
sturdy coral
@silk lodge they just added that in the oculus audio sdk
"Added volumetric rendering to sound sources to support sound emanating from a spherical volume instead of a point-source. Set to 0m to render a point-source"
sturdy coral
may be in their github branch
other than that I'm not sure
and I'm not sure if that new feature is exposed into the UE4 audio attenuation settings or what
silk lodge
I'll check the changelogs
sturdy coral
@wicked oak tiago does say Doom has a mix of baked and dynamic lighting here: http://www.dsogaming.com/interviews/id-software-tech-interview-dx12-vulkan-mega-textures-pbr-global-illumination-more/
wicked oak
Performance was a huge team focus, and I mean all departments, not just code. On code performance side, I could say though that our philosophy was “early optimization is the root of all good”, and the results speak for themselves. For performance, I must also give credit to the consoles’ profiling tools; this is an area where PC has a lot of catch up to do.
he is so right
ps4 performance tools are gold
Tiago: The engine actually supports a fairly generous amount of light sources, conceptually > 100k, but we do clamp to a sane maximum of about 8k, although if you’re using that many light sources you’re likely doing it wrong! The amount of shadow casters is limited by the video memory we have to cache our shadows, so for a single frustum and for performance we do clamp to 256 shadow caster lights – it could be increased, but at performance cost and again, if you’re using that many, you are likely doing it wrong for shadow map based approaches.
try rendering 256 shadowcasters in unreal
sturdy coral
hah yeah
I believe one of the teardowns said the cached shadow maps are going through megatexture too
wicked oak
yup
sturdy coral
I was looking into sparse texture stuff the other day, really wish UE4 would use it
opal bobcat
i was doing 400 shadow casters in my project
4 light sources wtih 100 cubes
took my fps down to a crawl
sturdy coral
apparently for things like shadow maps and material maps you can put the solid areas in lower mips and only keep the edge data in higher mips
sturdy coral
UE4 doesn't even have good way to set resolution on individual spotlights does it?
I think I saw in answerhub every one would get it from global shadow quality settings
opal bobcat
256 lights? i cant even do 4
sturdy coral
@opal bobcat that wouldn't be 256 with movables in view of each one though
lots would just be fully cached
opal bobcat
4 with just 100 movables is too much
needs computers to hurry up and get more powerful
otherwise visualizing thousands/tens of thousands of pieces of data is just not practical
sturdy coral
yeah.. I ran gentoo back in college and wasted so much time compiling
wicked oak
basically, coreeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeees
seems a legit system, butthere is clearly going to be a bunch of latency when going from die to die
not like games are going to use more than 8 cores
opal bobcat
is their usually any performance gain between running in pie vs packaged exe?
opal bobcat
in terms of fps. like 10 average?
opal bobcat
huh
wicked oak
(my game is cpu bound)
wicked oak
release turns on all the optimizations
development has optimizations, but not all of them
not the really aggresive ones
thats why its debugeable
opal bobcat
right,
wicked oak
and well, you dont have the resource hog that is the editor
opal bobcat
yeah i know about that
im curious though
i compile but ddo a hot reload in the editor
does it still compile to the debug that i have set in my VS
wicked oak
no
opal bobcat
or does it automatically make it release?
sturdy coral
what are the main optimizations missing? editor doesn't do link time optimization right?
opal bobcat
release build you mean setting VS to: shipping ?
wicked oak
to start with, all the editor overhead is gone
debugging overhead is gone toce
in my case it was a MASSIVE increase in performance
wicked oak
but, again, my game is cpu bound
opal bobcat
and the fps is generaly dismal
sturdy coral
yeah I get a massive increase too
opal bobcat
well actualy if i turn shadows off
wicked oak
dont worry, if you manage your game to run fine in PIE
wicked oak
you will be sure it will be performant
wicked oak
thats kind of what ive done with DWVR
but still its heavy on the cpu...
damn dx11 driver overhead
using hlods just bloats the memory to 3 times the original size of the game
sturdy coral
yeah, I can't wait to move to vulkan
opal bobcat
still id like it to be nice and 90fps since its vr
wicked oak
and doesnt improve performance that much
i prefer to get better image quality
my pc is below min-spec
opal bobcat
dx12 is win10 only right?
wicked oak
gpu is minspec, but i7 2600k is supposedly below minspec
but i have it overclocked to hell
sturdy coral
yeah, so you can't get on the oculus store with it (if it is a requirement)
sturdy coral
I haven't tried it on stock, but I did try it with vrworks and it doesn't work
it is missing implementation for one of the extensions multi res is using
dx12 has it implemented by ue4 doesn't in the rhi
from some of what I've read they will still have a lot of work to do to get much advantage, all the draw calls can be threaded and stuff but the engine isn't setup for doing it
I think I might have seen somewhere that scene captures get an improvement already though and run in parallel
wicked oak
oh it does
what do you think it does on consoles?
ps4 runs my game faster than pc
at same resolution and same settings
opal bobcat
does ps4 use dx12?
wicked oak
it uses GLM
basically sony version of vulkan/dx12
created far before them
its a sony specific graphics API, to access the exact hardware the ps4 has
opal bobcat
typical sony
wicked oak
looks a lot like a better vulkan
but it does has all this whole queues and command buffers and stuff
they offer GLMX wich is a higher level version of the API, wich is much more like DX11/opengl
inside it it just calls the low level api
so you can just get it running on glmx wich is much more typical, and replace parts with low level glm
then they got some seriously kickass debugging tools
way ahead what pc has
i open the profiler
and, no kidding
i got 20 fucking graphs
on the GPU
i can see all the pipeline stages of the gpu, and how full are them
for example if i have shaders too heavy, the "pixel shader" stage will be at 100% and bottlenecking the rest
while if i have far too many drawcalls, "command processing" will be the one bottlenecking
you cant do that on PC
at all
at least that i know
wicked oak
thats ue4 internal profiler, and its cpu only
wicked oak
but it does have a GPU section wich are gpu stuff. But its not that completely accurate
it can bug out
its not the same as this profiler
thats just the time each render pass takes
the ps4 gpu profiler tells me exactly the % use of each of the parts of the GPU
and also from all the memory busses
and from every core
its like this windows thing
but taken to the absolute extreme
opal bobcat
so do you need a special ps4 dev thing to do all that
wicked oak
yes
opal bobcat
yeah how much does that cost?
wicked oak
it also has a CPU debugger that can capture what happens in one frame of your game
and exactly what happens with your threads
and what code is running on each thread, in a timeline view
its on google, easy to find the price
its not accurate, but its fairly close
NDA-d
opal bobcat
ahh
wicked oak
they also have a renderdoc style gpu debugger
opal bobcat
well im just going to assume the cost is Not Cheap
wicked oak
that stores all the drawcalls and can replay them/check buffers
but its better than renderdoc, more low level
as its designed for exactly 1 gpu
then you get stuff to record gameplay, you get stuff to record input and play it back, you have log viewers, you can access ps4 hdd from the pc, etc
funny shit, the devkit has 2 ethernet ports
it has 1 dev ethernet, wich is used to connect to LAN to connect to the PC
and then it has a normal ethernet connector for normal internet
and well, tons of debug options
opal bobcat
sounds nice
wicked oak
all of that is free
doesnt matter if you are indie or AAA, you get access to sony stuff, you can get it
of course, you need a devkit to use it
opal bobcat
still though i think i'd rather develop for the pc platform, just more capaibilities all around
wicked oak
but its not sold separately (looks at wiiu devkits)
opal bobcat
even if its not as performance efficient
opal bobcat
but then again im not making games
so puting non games on a gaming console would be silly
sturdy coral
so does dx12 and vulkan get similar improvements today?
sturdy coral
@wicked oak this is where I read it wouldn't really speed things up yet, but it looks like it was from 2015:
"D3D12 will allow parallel command list building, which D3D11 did not (efficiently). Ideally the engine will do less and less work on the RHI thread and more work in command list building tasks. This can enable massive parallelization of rendering. However, a huge amount of work has to be done to refactor the renderer to get those gains."
ripe vault
Does anyone know why Launch Image setting in project settings for Google Daydream builds might not be working? I tried loading a blank level and then forcing a quick splash before the level a person would begin playing, but even that is slow. I want something to appear while the game is first loading. Any ideas? Thank you.
mighty carbon
@stiff briar why does your game have "moderate" comfort rating ?
stiff briar
@mighty carbon where did you see that?
mighty carbon
@stiff briar Oculus Home game's page
stiff briar
this is out of date information for the time being, it is from older builds and demos
that one is probably from the very first demo we posted back in...Fall 2015 it wasnt even interactive
mighty carbon
heh
stiff briar
although on a different note, our closed alpha that got released November 2016 was far less optimized than what we have right now and what we will be releasing in August. For a start we were using deferred rendering back then
right now we are on forward, disabled post processing etc
still looks as good but performs much better 😄
mighty carbon
gotcha
@stiff briar btw, by ranged class I meant a character that uses bow, cross bow, throwable weapons, magic projectiles, etc. (kind like Heretic/Hexen, or Darksiders where War used that stake gun and pistol)
stiff briar
in that case then our current character is a hybrid melee/ranged. Player can fight with a sword, staff or cast ranged spells 😃
stiff briar
I can aswer the 1060 part of the question with certainty, we have a 1060 that runs the game fine. The CPU we use on that rig is a 3+ year old i7. Have also tested the game on i5s but didn't get to actually test on any i3s, not yet at least
stiff briar
more like 2x full time but yeah, by dev standards I d assume that's the full time 😃
digital marlin
@stiff briar what game are you working on ?
stiff briar
@digital marlin The SoulKeeper VR
mighty carbon
lol, I just realized I was looking at Mage's Tale while thinking of The SoulKeeper VR 😛
stiff briar
lol np
mighty carbon
you guys don't have the storefront there yet, right ?
stiff briar
not on Oculus, not yet
the Steam storefront is already up, needs a bit of updating too though
screenshots and vids are from the closed alpha so they dont represent the product that accurately anymore
stiff briar
freeform controller based locomotion, as well as teleportation, and roomscale (with the usual limitations the last one usually has), all optional, letting the user play whichever way they feel most comfortable with
digital marlin
ah nice
mighty carbon
@stiff briar any ETA for Early Access hitting Oculus Home ?
stiff briar
@mighty carbon same as Steam, August 15th 😃
clever sky
So how long do you think it'll take to play through Myron?
stiff briar
i d say 6-7 hrs give or take
clever sky
Nice nice.
glossy agate
@stiff briar really cool. Will this be a 3 year dev cycle when your done? How many people on the team?
mighty carbon
if the game is good, there better be DLCs planned 😃
glossy agate
Oh yeah, was gonna ask if he was going EA too.
mighty carbon
yeah, August 15th
glossy agate
I meant, is it full release, or an EA release. Unless that's what you meant I haven't checked on steam
mighty carbon
EA
btw. I think I finally cracked down on Gear VR controller and got it working in my project 😃
mighty carbon
nah, but it's one of the critical ones
plain glade
hi there I got some errors with my vive
when I play in VR mode . I got ue4 unresponsive editor error
Its workin with the other projects but in UE4 I got this problem
plain glade
and also I have one more problem about cross eye..
jaunty shell
@plain glade the compositor is going nuts on my end too, buts that's not really an issue when you put the headset on
plain glade
the other problem seems fixed but now I got cross eye problem 😃
jaunty shell
no idea about the crosseye issue
pearl tangle
are you in direct mode?