virtual-reality

[fossil stratus]

ok let me try that.. can it go right after set relative location?

[sturdy coral]

@fossil stratus the camera gets moved according to the HMD

so the relative location will get blown away I'm pretty sure

if you want to move the camera you need to move the parent component it is attached to

[wheat dust]

@sturdy coral thanks, I'll try it 😃

[fossil stratus]

@sturdy coral hey it worked! thx

[full junco]

so much activity here today

I usually try to read through everything here, so that took more than an hour now

https://puu.sh/xyhQO/b29d5829b2.png

there was a dev-vr merge to master 8 hours ago but you guys talk about iphone stuff. wrong priorities 😛

theres the fix for the debug line issues with instanced stereo that some people mentioned here: https://puu.sh/xyhYG/6bc316ebc6.png

[granite jacinth]

Yet no fixes for multiplayer

in VR

😭

[full junco]

some gearvr fixes to make @mighty carbon happy: https://puu.sh/xyi0B/429fa6dcfc.png

[granite jacinth]

I need more support on my forum thread

[mighty carbon]

@full junco is it for 4.17.2 ? Anything there about fix for 3D Widget performance being horrible on Gear VR ?

[full junco]

its 4.18

[mighty carbon]

lol

[granite jacinth]

dude

[full junco]

I said merge to master

[granite jacinth]

4.18 is so fucking big

Especially for BP

[mighty carbon]

I think I'll keep 4.16.2 for Gear VR dev

[granite jacinth]

VR was this release

It's all about that Blueprints next release

[full junco]

4.18 looks super boring at the moment, there no relevant big new feature. I have no idea what you mean @granite jacinth

[granite jacinth]

@full junco really?

[mighty carbon]

@granite jacinth what huge BP stuff is coming to 4.18 ?

[granite jacinth]

Nothing excited you?

[full junco]

yeah, nothing

[granite jacinth]

Okay, now I have to go find them again

one sec

[full junco]

maybe that they fixed the left/right issue for steamvr now, but thats a simple fix that I already have added myself now

[mighty carbon]

roadmap for 4.18 looks boring

[full junco]

the only "big" feature in 4.18 I remember is multiple bounces for skylight with lightmass. but I dont care about baked lighting, so I dont care

[granite jacinth]

BUt

please reply to this if you use BP

https://forums.unrealengine.com/development-discussion/blueprint-visual-scripting/1352483-what-are-the-hardest-things-to-learn-in-blueprints

[mighty carbon]

I love the idea of having better bakes lighting (hopefully it bakes faster too)

[full junco]

it will obviously be way slower

[mighty carbon]

no, it shouldn't

[full junco]

you dont add higher quality and faster baking times at the same time. more bounces = slower

[mighty carbon]

there was a thread on the forums about it and the guy who implemented it went to do internship at Epic and that's how 4.18 got multi-bounce skylight

[granite jacinth]

That's how we got the famous VR Editor too

[mighty carbon]

and afaik it wasn't slower than current single bounce light

[full junco]

the code was written by daniel from epic, maybe he got "inspired" by whatever someone else did, but daniel wrote it

[granite jacinth]

damn, forgot his name already

[mighty carbon]

so, what kind of BP stuff is coming to 4.18 ?

[granite jacinth]

I am looking

[full junco]

nothing relevant

[granite jacinth]

Wait

I did not Bookmark it

[full junco]

and could we maybe not talk about general 4.18 stuff here in #virtual-reality

lets do that in #ue4-general or #blueprint or whatever

[mighty carbon]

😛

[full junco]

here we can talk about all the stuff that was merged to master in todays dev-vr merge

since its a surprisingly big merge

a lot of mixed reality stuff in there

no idea what they mean with that

[mighty carbon]

if it;s a big merge, how come nothing exciting is coming ?

[full junco]

https://puu.sh/xyimj/51be553193.png

do they mean the windows headsets with MR?

https://puu.sh/xyioo/6a783b3e7f.png

this sounds nice, being able to read the console variables and stuff like stat gpu in VR

I guess this makes motion controllers feel a bit better: https://puu.sh/xyiqi/8295cfd760.png

I have no idea what a "garbage matte" is: https://puu.sh/xyirZ/fb714bc3bc.png

updated SteamVR to 1.0.9: https://puu.sh/xyitt/6c0b287055.png

that fix for the visibile mesh area of steamvr: https://puu.sh/xyiuB/acc5bc41eb.png

support for up to 11 vive trackers: https://puu.sh/xyixj/d5d3d3ce19.png

what is "Oculus XR"? https://puu.sh/xyiFP/388b90cbec.png

@tired tree you looked at all the stuff already? you probably like the steamvr improvements

[granite jacinth]

typo

[full junco]

typo?

[granite jacinth]

nvm

Actually

You know how MSFT coined MR ?

This is probably Facebook's take on it

[full junco]

lol, only 124,292 lines of code added to master with this one merge: https://puu.sh/xyiNa/ab5b4f43f7.png

its due to updated SDKs mostly I guess

[granite jacinth]

nah

I just googled that hell out of it

the only thing I see

is the VR Kaleidoscope camera

lol

and these are apps

[mighty carbon]

not much for Oculus / Gear VR 😦

[granite jacinth]

I mean, it could be something like this

https://www.lucidcam.com/

But FB made

[full junco]

@mighty carbon the oculus integration in UE4 was always better than SteamVR, so it only makes sense they improve SteamVR a bit now

[granite jacinth]

What is the best thing they did for SteamVR @full junco ?

[mighty carbon]

I see

[full junco]

well I guess some people are very happy about support for 11 vive trackers

[granite jacinth]

@full junco do you have any trackers?

[full junco]

no

[granite jacinth]

hmm me neither

They are still $99 a pop

[mighty carbon]

looking at @pearl tangle and his 11 trackers

[granite jacinth]

¯_(ツ)_/¯

I mean, is there even a list of games that support it?

Cant be that many anyway, I though they were supposed to be $50/each

Unless it comes bundled with future Vives, I just can't see them doing well

Not just for gamers, but devs as well

Even though, they gave out like 1000 of them to devs

[glossy agate]

Well you know how there is that joke about putting a paper bag on a homely girls head before banging?

11 trackers. All on the important parts of her. Put on HMD, select player 2s character you want to see.....profit.

[full junco]

ok, the mixed reality stuff that was merged isnt related to what microsoft calls mixed reality

[tired tree]

oh, they are fixing up the plugin?

it was half done in 4.17

[full junco]

its for easily capturing mixed reality videos I think, so have a camera with a tracker attached and then capture video with that in front of a greenscreen

[tired tree]

yeah

its automated, with depth planes and everything

looked pretty neat from the beta code

[full junco]

automated in what way?

[tired tree]

it even does the green screen removal

[full junco]

like, it does the greenscreen stuff on the fly?

oh

[tired tree]

supposed to be all in one in engine

yeah there is a color key variable

[full junco]

interesting

too bad I dont have a big studio with a greenscreen

[tired tree]

I mean....who cares, hang a green cloth and half ass it

[full junco]

well, its not that much fun on 1.5x2 meters

for looking awesome in a video something like 3x3 meters is needed at least

[tired tree]

not true

make hula hoop

[granite jacinth]

https://giphy.com/gifs/adventure-time-gif-marceline-7MvDfK7ZmpUe4

[full junco]

both openvr 1.0.9 and 1.0.10 seem to exist in the UE4 third party directory now

https://puu.sh/xyjER/bfdb0f0289.png

not sure why they would have two seperate versions there

[tired tree]

mm

well there are a few things in engine they keep multiple versions around for

maybe halfway through porting?

[glossy agate]

AZ sunshine supports it now too http://imgur.com/gallery/1B4Ya

[full junco]

its not really nice and clean though to use two different versions of the same SDK @tired tree

@glossy agate that gif is at least 1 year old

[tired tree]

yeah i know

[glossy agate]

Dang I just saw it today

[full junco]

I saw it on reddit a looooong time ago

[sturdy coral]

@full junco XR is probably openxr?

[full junco]

was the first VR thing that got more than 10K upvotes I saw @glossy agate 😄

@sturdy coral I would want to think it is, but why "Oculus XR" then?

[sturdy coral]

it is supposed to allow vendor extensions like opengl, so maybe something like that

but, hopefully it wouldn't be full of vendor extensions right at version 0

[full junco]

@sturdy coral there are some XR files that look quite general: https://puu.sh/xyjUk/07671505ba.png

[digital marlin]

Hey do I still need to get AR Kit from the source code build?

Or is it activated via a plugin?

[pearl tangle]

The whole open XR is meant to be the middleware API for all the others to talk to right? Rather than steamvr doing it's on implementation for Oculus

[full junco]

yeah

now: https://www.khronos.org/assets/uploads/apis/2017-openxr-API-1.jpg

[pearl tangle]

And the trackers are definitely good fun, I think once you see more peripherals come out that use them they will start to catch on. A few different glove controllers coming out that they are handy for. And for cheap motion capture

[full junco]

openxr: https://www.khronos.org/assets/uploads/apis/2017-openxr-API-2.jpg

[granite jacinth]

ah openxr

[digital marlin]

that'd be nice.

[tired tree]

we'll see if it happens

[full junco]

@sturdy coral it seems to be openxr stuff, yeah: https://puu.sh/xykJj/d2ec64fee5.png

[pearl tangle]

The green screen mixed reality stuff should be the mode 4 of their recent mirroring changes right?

[sturdy coral]

Garbage matte may refer to background removal without a greenscreen, not sure, never heard the term

Matte is like matte painting in film, sort of proto greenscreen

[pearl tangle]

I suppose you should be able to get the depth from doing something like chaperone to remove the stuff but then you would need to be processing extra depth information through the camera which is costly compared to green screening

[sturdy coral]

Yeah, might just be the kidna hacky thing, subtracting from a known background and then only drawing if there is a difference

Like a lot of twitch streamers use

Just a guess though, garbage in that case would refer to removing a noisy/busy background

[pearl tangle]

Yeah it's not so great with a single camera unless you throw some other open CV stuff in there and do weighted averages across the difference but that's only so good with a moving camera. Like the Kinect stuff those other guys ended up doing. Oh FYI their alternative solution works really well on me when I'm wearing a white shirt. It really really struggles with black objects though and makes it much worse than our solution...and the activation is in Chicago...

[mighty carbon]

@pearl tangle do you think Samsung stopped improving Gear VR for good ? (latest model had no improvements or new features and Note 9 is rumored to be foldable)

[twin pulsar]

is there a way to select which headset the vr preview targets? I have both a rift and a vive hooked up to my machine and so far the only way I've found to do something like this is to manually enable / disable the Oculus plugin from the VR section.

[fossil stratus]

is it normal for a build size of a project to almost double when adding the ability to play on both vive & oculus ?

[full junco]

@twin pulsar I think thats the way to do it

@fossil stratus well double to what? if it doubled from 20MB to 40MB then maybe, but not from 500MB to 1 GB 😄

[weary flame]

I'm making a VR experienced with a car. Whoever tries that says that the car is not the real size.
Could It be related to the penso distorsion of the vive? How can i correct It?

Lens distorsion of the vive*

[full junco]

no, its not related to the lens distortion of the vive. its just related to the size of the car

[twin pulsar]

@full junco thanks!

[full junco]

@twin pulsar actually, there a ini file where you can set the priority of the different SDKs

[twin pulsar]

oh really? do you know which one?

still I guess there is no choice within the editor per se right? maybe I could track down in the source where the file you are talking about is being used and put a little ineditor menu too

[full junco]

you will always need to restart the editor for it

I dont remember any more which ini file it was

try to search in the ini files for "priority"

[twin pulsar]

ok

[dusk vigil]

You can verify that 1 metre should be 1 metre in both reality and VR by placing the controllers 1 metre from each other, with a 1 metre cube in the scene for comparison, for example. it should be 1:1 by default

[weary flame]

@full junco @dusk vigil
I've double checked the dimensions both in unreal and Maya and the are correct. Users see the car with lower length

[full junco]

thats impossible

I never heard about anyone who would have seen anything like that

[dusk vigil]

Well, it is possible if you have messed with the camera scale

Don't trust the user, test it yourself

[weary flame]

Strange....my camera is the default unreal camera with the lock to hmd checked.

[full junco]

why do you say that "whoever tries that" says it would be wrong, do you yourself see it correctly?

[analog topaz]

hey any idea how to fix this issue ?
it only appear when i play in vr mode
https://answers.unrealengine.com/storage/attachments/202170-greenlinea.jpg

[uneven moon]

What are we looking at, exactly? @analog topaz

[analog topaz]

those green rings appear randomly around the scene whenever i play in vr mode

they also appear in static reflection captures

they don't appear in editor

https://answers.unrealengine.com/storage/attachments/202169-greenlineb.jpg

@uneven moon

[uneven moon]

That's very strange, I've never seen that before... It may be some kind of debug tool

Let me see if I can find anything on it

Try removing all of your reflection captures/volumes, rebuild, restart the engine, re-add whatever you deleted and then rebuild and see if it persists.

[analog topaz]

ok i will check it out , thanks for the help

[dusk vigil]

from another chat, sounds like maybe the same issue "I fixed it once by switching my directional light and skylight to static. Might also be related to reflections."

[golden snow]

shakes fist @dusk vigil I asked about that

[dusk vigil]

Hiya Joe

[vocal whale]

thnx @dusk vigil

[willow trail]

I'm trying to figure out the VRExpansion's template. I suck at this. There's no VRPlayerCharacter in the scene, just a playerstart, so I'm a bit confused, where's the code/BP that spawns the player and takes care of the movement & MCs?

[dusk vigil]

Look at MotionControllerPawn, also look at the different Maps EDIT Whoops didnt realize it was the Expansion

[mighty carbon]

@wicked oak when Oculus sets release date, what time do they publish the app in the store on the said release date ?

(I am not seeing mine in the store yet)

[tired tree]

@willow trail its spawned from playercontroller and gamemode

if no hmd is connected it spawns a 2D pawn for testing

also if not running in VR preview

[willow trail]

Alright, got it, thanks, I gotta take a crashcourse in... something

[tired tree]

the template is multiplayer

dragging player characters into the scene isn't going to work for that

[willow trail]

Ok, I don't suppose you got a singleplayer template right 😛

[tired tree]

it works single player too

[willow trail]

I realize, just without having to go through the multiplayer hoops

[tired tree]

its not technically a multiplayer hoop, being able to test out of VR with things and then go to VR only when you want to is useful

[willow trail]

Oh right, didn't realize that was something you needed code with. Yeah i expect that'll come in handy

[tired tree]

the FPS pawn is a subclass to the master VR pawn with the camera and controllers locked into position and WASD movement

so if you change something like how gripping works, the fps pawn can test it roughly

prior to committing to putting on the headset.

[willow trail]

wait do you mean you can test out motion controllers with the "static" camera?

[tired tree]

if you locked the camera on the fps pawn into position and turned on tracking for the controllers, yes

they would follow the hands

but its primarily for testing the gripping code

[dusk vigil]

That's definitely useful, first thing I did when making my first prototype was enable fps testing to cut down on 'put mask on head, take it off again' time

[willow trail]

Sorry I might be thick, but how do you test the gripping code without the MCs? do you also just stick the hands in front of the pawn and have some other keybind for grip?

[tired tree]

ie: the drivable car, I developed it in FPS out of HMD, and tested it in VR after the initial concept worked

yeah, mouse buttons simulate controller buttons on the FPS char

[willow trail]

oooh yeah, and you can move the controllers with the mouse?

or one of them anyway

[tired tree]

i have them attached to the body, so they roate with it, but you could have them moveable outside of that too

[willow trail]

Alright got it, debugging with VR is a real pain in the Editor what from I saw, this is gonna make it much less infuriating

[tired tree]

since the character is just that, and actual character, all of the default turn/move logic works normally with FPS

[willow trail]

https://issues.unrealengine.com/issue/UE-44947 yay

[tired tree]

ug, those late update changes

leave it to epic to stick literally everything they can behind Private:

guess I have to do more overrides

[glad plank]

wait what did they change?

[tired tree]

just encapsulated the late update logic into a class

instead of running it directly in the camera and motion controllers seperatly

[glad plank]

wait, can you still turn it on and off?

[tired tree]

yes?

I just manage it manually on a per component basis

so I have to mess with more

[glad plank]

ahh ok

was worried they might have removed the bool to turn it off and on per controller

[tired tree]

mmm

they are staggering read/write index's out of a 2 deep array

wonder if that would help with the high velocity issue

[glad plank]

did they release 4.18 patch notes or something?

[tired tree]

never considered that being the problem

no this is a push to master branch

[glad plank]

ahh

[mighty carbon]

was that for 4.18 ?

[sturdy coral]

@weary flame there can be a mental/optical illusion when sitting on a chair at a different height than the chair is in game, or sitting when character is standing, that can make things seem the wrong size

[analog topaz]

@dusk vigil thanks i will try that out too

[sturdy coral]

But if the car looks wrong even when the user is standing outside of it and is properly on the ground, then it is 99% likely to be your model

[sturdy coral]

Make sure they adjust their ipd too, with the knob on Vive, slider on the rift

[mighty carbon]

@wintry escarp can you please check Gear VR store and see if my app was published? I don't see it neither through website nor in the Oculus app on my phone.

[sturdy coral]

@mighty carbon what is it titled? I don't have gear but I know someone who does

[mighty carbon]

Phaeton Chronicles

[sturdy coral]

I have a note 4, you think I can install the gear store without a gear?

[mighty carbon]

Phaeton Chronicles: Fallen Titan is the full title actually

nah, you need to plug phone into Gear VR to activate VR software

btw, my app would run on Note 4 surprisingly well

😃

(I didn't expect that to happen)

[sturdy coral]

nice, I didn't even know if UE4 would support it anymore

since it never got anything beyond the innovator's edition I think

[mighty carbon]

I wonder if Oculus manually tick off titles that need to be released and they decided to have lunch before ticking off a checkbox.. It was suppose to be up at 10AM PST

[glossy agate]

Do you have a direct link now?

[sturdy coral]

they have web links for some stuff:

https://www.oculus.com/experiences/gear-vr/827294127398133/

[glossy agate]

The link on your site just points to the gear vr page

[sturdy coral]

I wonder if that number at the end of the url is based on an appid or something

[mighty carbon]

well, how can I have a link if the app isn't on the store, @glossy agate ? 😉

yeah, it's app ID.. But, what good does it do if it's not showing up in the store

[sturdy coral]

well I thought you were thinking it might not show up in your store because of caching or something

[glossy agate]

Well your storefront page. If its like steam you have the store front page only you can see until you click release

[sturdy coral]

(why you wanted others to check)

so I just thought the web might be more up to date

[mighty carbon]

nah, it doesn't show up in the webbrowser, nor in the oculus app, nor in VR

@glossy agate it's different for Oculus... I don't have any control over when it shows up. If it's approved and you approve release date, it will just show up on said date.

I just don't want to raise hell if it shows up for other people

😃

[sturdy coral]

yeah, I'd give it a few hours but get to them a good bit before the end of the business day

[glossy agate]

yeah thats why we were asking for direct link. but I guess you dont get provided with one

[mighty carbon]

I do - it's the app ID after the URL to the Gear VR store..

but

what's the point of using it if it's not publicly available

[glossy agate]

cause you were asking people to check if it was showing up haha

[mighty carbon]

https://www.oculus.com/experiences/gear-vr/1122106037877975

[glossy agate]

It works!

[mighty carbon]

what's the price on it ?

it was $0.00 this morning

now it shows as "Purchased" for me

[glossy agate]

0.99

[mighty carbon]

odd

I wonder why it's not in the Gallery yet

I'll give it another hour and e-mail support after that.. It should't take 2 hrs for a preloaded app to show up in the storefront 😦

[sturdy coral]

I see .99 too

[mighty carbon]

finally, it showed up 😃

\o/

is wiping off cold sweat

now I need to figure out some PR :/

[wintry escarp]

its in gallery apps

[mighty carbon]

yeah, it appeared ~1.5 hrs later

[atomic spire]

hey guys, i spawned a simple actor in my world, and it's supposed to stay still. However, whenever I move my head, it looks like it slightly follow me. Any ideas why this is?

[sturdy coral]

@atomic spire is it a billboard object?

[atomic spire]

its an actor with a static mesh component

the less directly i look at it, the more it seems to be moving

[sturdy coral]

hmm, not sure, post a short video if you can

it isn't attached to anything right, just spawned in the world? and other static meshes look fine?

[atomic spire]

i have another static mesh in the scene, functioning as a skybox, and it remains perfectly still

and its not attached to anything, no

[sturdy coral]

skybox is usually too far away to see any translational movement

my best guess is the camera isn't set up right and it is rotating but not translating or something, but I would need to see a video

[atomic spire]

hmmm

[sturdy coral]

you might try looking at the built in VR template and doing your setup like it

[fossil stratus]

have any of you built an experience for both vive & oculus ? I'm finding in the Vive whenever there is a new level loading .. it cuts to the vive space and i can see the trackers for a second

[sturdy coral]

@fossil stratus that's normal, there is a way to change the background during that but it requires c++

    * Order is Front, Back, Left, Right, Top, Bottom.  If only a single texture is passed, it is assumed in lat-long format.
    * If two are passed, it is assumed a lat-long stereo pair. */
    virtual EVRCompositorError SetSkyboxOverride( VR_ARRAY_COUNT( unTextureCount ) const Texture_t *pTextures, uint32_t unTextureCount ) = 0;

https://github.com/ValveSoftware/openvr/blob/master/headers/openvr.h

[fossil stratus]

cool thx.. good to know.. only problem is I'm not a programmer and don't know where & how to make this change? I'm assuming open a file and alter/add this line somewhere? is it just this small snippet or the whole code you linked?

[wet jasper]

has anyone managed to do proper VR scenecaptures?

I'm trying to make a portal-like thing, and I managed to make it work in 2d

but I can't seem to figure out how to calculate the screen UVs for VR

so everything looks really weird and the eyes don't match up at all

this is my scene setup, the scene captures are in the purple and yellow rooms and they reproduce the same movements the player camera does

and I render that into a plane in the main blue room

[atomic spire]

@sturdy coral thanks for the help! was able to fix it thanks to u. i just made sure my camera settings matched the vr templates.

[wheat dust]

Hey guys! is it possible to fix/update the ARKit plugin? It seems it's trying to use ARSessionConfiguration class while it's removed from the latest ARKit and replaced with ARConfiguration

[mighty carbon]

http://www.dell.com/en-us/shop/accessories/apd/536-bbbr

almost as much as Rift + Touch, but no Steam support and controller tracking is awful

why such price tag then?!

[sturdy coral]

Only benefit I see is you could possibly use it with a laptop or backpack pc in a huge space and have tracking

And be untethered

That and ease of setup for trade show demos and stuff

[sturdy coral]

@fossil stratus you will need a programmer to expose it to blueprint

[tired tree]

aight, good news

them using the double buffering for the late update scene references fixes the high velocity tracking instability

it must have been thrashing the array adding and removing scene references when the render thread and game thread sync'd up access

[mighty carbon]

sooo, I made $5 with my Gear VR app today.. Sounds like I am done with Gear VR..

10 mil users my ass...

[glossy agate]

You advertise anywhere?

[mighty carbon]

no money for that @glossy agate 😦

I tweeted and reddited

but apparently no one except Alex Paschal retweeted

i'll keep hitting twitter

[sturdy coral]

@full junco have you ever noticed this in commit messages:

        Copying //UE4/Partner-Valve@3629179 to Dev-VR (//UE4/Dev-VR)```

looks like valve has their own branch finally

but I guess not public like the oculus one on github

[tired tree]

they've had that for awhile

[sturdy coral]

ah ok, I've never noticed

from what I can tell it looks like for now they are just using XR to mean both VR and AR in the same sense as OpenXR uses it to mean both

and there isn't actually any OpenXR stuff yet

like the ARKit stuff uses the XR naming now, just because the engine interfaces aren't specific to VR

[mighty carbon]

Carmack said he'd do critical review of my app.. Even if he trashes it, it would be a good PR move 😛

[sturdy coral]

and ARKit is never likely to use OpenXR

@mighty carbon nice, g/l with that

hope your text is all readable

aliasing. sampling, etc. always seems to be the main thing he harps on

[tired tree]

they are doing the XR middleware in engine

[mighty carbon]

well, it passed all reviews without a hitch

[tired tree]

pretty sure its so workflow doesn't have to change when it is incorporated eventually

[mighty carbon]

I've heard a lot of people had to resubmit several times

[tired tree]

yeah but your also isn't a "Game" its an experience

there is less to review

[mighty carbon]

true

[sturdy coral]

from what I can tell they just are using XR to mean both vr and ar in the generic interfaces, not openxr specific

[tired tree]

and without a lot of stuff in it, he will have to nitpick what IS there

[sturdy coral]

what do you mean by middleware in engine?

[tired tree]

they are using it as the net interface for all headset stuff

[sturdy coral]

so they are going to wrap ARKit, etc. to expose an OpenXR interface?

[tired tree]

likely

the HeadMountedDisplayInterface got gutted

its all routed through the new classes now

even Gengine->HasHMD is gone

[sturdy coral]

I just dont think those classes are part of OpenXR

[tired tree]

no...but its a class middleware in engine

[sturdy coral]

they use like: GEngine->XRSystem->GetHMDDevice()

but I don't think that is wrapping anything in OpenXR itself or even referring to openxr

since it is so similar to the old apis

[tired tree]

i said getting ready for it eventually

so that workflows don't have to change

[sturdy coral]

maybe so, I just don't think it is going to be a mapping to OpenXR specifically

in the mapping from e.g. PSVR's api to the new XR classes, I don't think it is going to have OpenXR related stuff and naming conventions

[granite jacinth]

@tired tree You're not thinking about exposing the skybox override that @sturdy coral linked right? (or is it already in your plugin)

[sturdy coral]

I'm just thinking now XR means "AR or VR" to the engine

[tired tree]

didn't they already expose the skybox to bp?

pretty sure that was in .15

[granite jacinth]

Did they?

I guess my project was originally in 4.14

So, I never looked afterwards

Let's see

[sturdy coral]

I don't see it in there in 4.16

[granite jacinth]

def not in 4.15

[tired tree]

https://docs.unrealengine.com/latest/INT/BlueprintAPI/VR/SetSplashScreen/index.html

or did you mean just skybox

[sturdy coral]

I think that's a stereo layer

cause I saw a changelog note on that in master

that said it was forced to a 16:9 ratio until their fix

[tired tree]

you meant the 3d room and not a splash?

yeah pretty sure there is no generic function for that

easy enough to add though

[granite jacinth]

@fossil stratus You can always count on @tired tree to help out the little guys

[tired tree]

would have to think of best way to handle up to 4 textures

[granite jacinth]

4?

[tired tree]

likely just 4 inputs and only use 1st if null on others

[granite jacinth]

shoudl be 6?

it's a box no

?

[sturdy coral]

if you pass in one you can use a cubemap

[tired tree]

yeah 6

can be one though

so if not all 6 are valid would have to default to 1st or throw error

[granite jacinth]

But yeah, @sturdy coral had a good idea.

If you do either both options

[sturdy coral]

looks like there is already code for getting the right kind of the texture type enum stuff in the stereolayers implementation

[granite jacinth]

add textures manually OR cubemap

[sturdy coral]

so should be easy to implement

could just do two nodes, one for cubemap, one for 6 texture version

[granite jacinth]

true

[tired tree]

mmmm

come to think of it

they don't have the grid control implemented either

[sturdy coral]

that's less true to the api, but probably less confusing

[granite jacinth]

You can do it

[sturdy coral]

what's grid control?

[granite jacinth]

Show Epic that they need to give you more money

[sturdy coral]

oh opacity and stuff of chaperone?

[tired tree]

yeah

[granite jacinth]

DevGrantx2

[tired tree]

charles got a dev grant?

[granite jacinth]

Seriously though

[tired tree]

didn't know that

[granite jacinth]

what

lol

I was talking about you?

[sturdy coral]

hah nope

[granite jacinth]

I thought you got one

[tired tree]

i didn't get one?

[granite jacinth]

But..maybe not

Okay... they suck

[sturdy coral]

did you apply? (I never have)

[granite jacinth]

Have you even applied?

[tired tree]

yeah i did, just because

[granite jacinth]

I only applied once to get me a Vive when that was a thing

I haven't submitted for money

If I could get something polished enough to, maybe

(on my own)

Because while sharing is caring....

[tired tree]

my stuff is kind of out of their intended ecosystem

[granite jacinth]

Nah man

[tired tree]

not being in the marketplace or part of one of their games

[granite jacinth]

I think it's bullshit

If they don't consider it

You have been doing so much for the community

While Epic's sitting on their booty

[sturdy coral]

yeah you have one of the biggest threads in the VR forum for your stuff

[granite jacinth]

It's not just VR

but yeah

[sturdy coral]

they definitely include community plugins and stuff and not just marketplace

[granite jacinth]

Well, I haven't seen one for community plugins actually

Only skootumscript

and that's commercial

not really community

(unless I missed something)

[tired tree]

meh

[sturdy coral]

mitch got one for his vr content examples stuff and earlier templates, mainly just getting him a vive pre but I think a small grant too

plus his youtube channel and book thing though

[granite jacinth]

Yeah, I got a Vive pre also from Epic

[sturdy coral]

so it wasn't all a plugin I guess

[mighty carbon]

so, with 4.18 if the 4.17 project uses you plugin @tired tree , I'd be screwed or would it be a seamless transition ?

[granite jacinth]

I don't know. I will be honest, without his plugin, my Senior project wouldn't have been a possibility

[mighty carbon]

or any earlier VR project will be screwed ?

[granite jacinth]

You would have to recompile

wait

[tired tree]

motorsep, generally...clean transition, I have to make a lot of backend changes for 4.18 but nothing large on front end

[granite jacinth]

Yeah, and he now is going to include skybox control

[tired tree]

been doing network optimization instead of front end overhauls

[granite jacinth]

rahahah

[sturdy coral]

4.18 is probably going to cause lots of small merging stuff for everyone

[tired tree]

hell VR changes in 4.18 are going to be easier to merge in than the movement component shit recently

already merged the new late updates in

too good to wait on

[mighty carbon]

aye, cool

[sturdy coral]

how all has that movement stuff changed?

[tired tree]

bunch of fixs, probably from ut4 or paragon

but all over the place

[sturdy coral]

to do custom movement modes with good replication you have to basically reimplement some of the functions

[tired tree]

lol

I added some..features...for that to my plugin

to allow it to be easier

[sturdy coral]

I need to make sure I check that the thing I reimplemeted wasn't changed too drastically

[mighty carbon]

Carmack will be talking for 2 hrs from the stage at Oculus Connect next month

[sturdy coral]

it was something in the save/restore move steps, there was no way to just override cleanly because it was a monolithic function that was like save some state, do replay, then restore state

and you couldn't just add to the save and restore steps through overridding

[tired tree]

oh

it was when the character gets server corrected?

it replays un ACK'd movements

[digital marlin]

So ah.. how bad does camera shake make people feel in VR?

[sturdy coral]

@tired tree yeah, it was UShooterCharacterMovement::ClientUpdatePositionAfterServerUpdate()

[tired tree]

yeah

i had to tweak that a bit

to correct a few issues when corrections happened

[sturdy coral]

yeah, for me it was for a jetpack that was replay-correct

[fossil stratus]

im working on a UI set up that has a gaze triggered button. The actual image for the button on screen is small but I want to make the trigger area for it bigger

[sturdy coral]

so it wouldn't consume extra fuel if it was from replay movements

[fossil stratus]

I can't figure out where this option is

[mighty carbon]

@digital marlin depends how violent it shakes and what view angles it affects

in my app I do camera shake, but it only affects location, not rotations of the actor

and it's somewhat subtle and doesn't last long

[sturdy coral]

@mighty carbon I could see Carmack dinging you for that 😃

I think he is immune to motion sickness though so maybe he won't say anything

[mighty carbon]

I am extremely sensitive to motion sickness and I made sure it doesn't affect me

[sturdy coral]

@fossil stratus not sure, try #umg for that one

[tired tree]

ug

skybox override takes a texture handle

[sturdy coral]

@tired tree does that set splash screen help? (takes rhi texture ref, converts to handle in void FSteamVRHMD::UpdateLayerTextures())

[tired tree]

yeah i saw

have to figure out getting that out of blueprint

[sturdy coral]

I guess it has to manage the lifetime?

[tired tree]

texture resource doesn't have a native information

[sturdy coral]

you mean how like it just assumes opengl if it is linux and not vulkan?

[tired tree]

i have to pass in the format and also get the handle

trying to figure out which bluerpint compatible texture variable is easiest to get an RHI lock on

meh i'll go over it tomorrow

[mighty carbon]

https://www.gamedev.net/articles/industry/interviews/challenges-of-a-vr-indie-developer-interview-with-eric-nevala-of-wobbly-duck-studios-r4748/

[full junco]

@tired tree you can look at the set splash screen blueprint function

that takes a utexture and probably sends the same kind of texture to openvr

[mighty carbon]

"As an indie in VR, what business challenges have you faced with Spellbound?" is a very interesting paragraph in the article

[tired tree]

@full junco aye

thus why i was waiting till tomorrow, I should have remembered I was just looking at that function

and you were right

its easy doing what they did

doesn't send the same, but it at least shows the easy method to get the rhi ref

still have to check for if its on vulkan or dx11 though

but thats not terribly hard

[granite jacinth]

@tired tree Give me some of your brain cells please

[mighty carbon]

Btw, Doom is slated to be released on Switch. Crazy level of optimization o.O

[full junco]

@tired tree well yeah I guess that makes those changes a bit more annoying now when 2 APIs need to be supported

[tired tree]

yeah, no super biggie

i emailed notes to myself to remember tomorrow when i'm not half asleep

:p

[full junco]

😄

that stuff is like the loading screen the lab shows?

the custom skybox

[tired tree]

yeah

[full junco]

what's the difference between giving it 1 texture or 6 textures?

[granite jacinth]

Other than it's a cubebox?

Unless I am misunderstanding your question

[full junco]

well I mean I understand how a skybox in 1 texture works, I just don't how it works in 6 textures. in what way would those 6 textures need to be setup to Form a seamless skybox

[tired tree]

its two textures or 6

[mighty carbon]

clamp it to the cube

and make it unlit

[tired tree]

lat / long stereo texture or 6 sides

[mighty carbon]

12 sides (2 cubes)

[granite jacinth]

?

[mighty carbon]

stereo cubemaps for Gear VR are 2 sets of 6 images

in a strip

[full junco]

do you have some examples for how the 2 or 6 textures would look like?

[granite jacinth]

6 images woud be like this

https://docs.unrealengine.com/latest/INT/Engine/Content/Types/Textures/Cubemaps/ExportingCubemaps/index.html

Except, not just one file

[full junco]

what's the visual difference between a skybox created with 2 or with 6 textures?

[granite jacinth]

It will take it in order

and process it according, like the comment says

I don't think you get the issue

If people already have a workflow for how they do their skyboxes

why would you make them change it

which is probably why they allow the choice

[mighty carbon]

depends @full junco

if you use equirecs, you might have warping at the poles

if you use cubemaps, you will have no distortion

[granite jacinth]

http://polycount.com/discussion/108912/convert-lat-long-image-to-cross

http://polycount.com/discussion/108494/brief-tutorial-on-using-the-google-photosphere-camera-to-create-cubemaps

http://www.comp-fu.com/2011/04/cube-map-to-equirectangular-latlong-map/

[mighty carbon]

https://www.outerspace-software.com/bixorama

I bought that a long time ago to convert from one to another

[full junco]

@granite jacinth @mighty carbon @tired tree ah, thanks

[mighty carbon]

lol, I thought I lost registration info for my copy... Good thing we are talking about it! 😛

(found it, updated the app and re-registered)

[full junco]

4.18 should be branched soon I think

will be interesting to see how vulkan performs in 4.18

[mighty carbon]

well, I wish iD Software licensed their id Tech 6 - Epic would have to optimize UE4 really quickly 😉

(hint - Doom 2016 runs on Switch)

[full junco]

people use UE4 because it has "good" doc, it has blueprint, the source is available for anyone , it has a very nice editor interface and so on

even if id Tech 6 would be available for anyone to use and be twice as fast as UE4 most people would still use UE4

[mighty carbon]

yeah, I know.. But there is no excuse to have super slow dynamic lighting

or bogus AI

reading #gameplay-ai makes me wonder why Epic neglects that area of the engine

[full junco]

well, the dynamic lighting isn't "super slow". its average. id tech is just surprisingly good

[mighty carbon]

ha, in 2018 Wolfenstein 2 will be released on Switch.. id Tech 6 is a marvel tech

[full junco]

since I have my gtx 1080 I cant really complain about gpu performance in UE4 any more, it runs great 😄

with dynamic lighting and VR

[mighty carbon]

lol, I played Doom on my old 670 and it ran smooth enough

I am gonna test dynamic lighting on my 1060 in VR, but vblanco said UE4's dynamic lighting isn't suitable for VR

[full junco]

well, not if you need multiple lightsources

if you limit yourself to 1 directional light is acceptable

[mighty carbon]

you should try Doom 3 BFG VR mod (recent one)

lighting is fully dynamic, point lights, spot lights, directional light

lighting/shadows

[tired tree]

its also all indoor and corridor for the vr one isn't it?

[mighty carbon]

I wonder what TimS does at Epic.. I am sure he could have come up and implement faster dynamic lighting for VR in UE4 😄

[tired tree]

thats way easier

also you assume a lot

[mighty carbon]

well, it's Doom 3 BFG - whole game with VR support

it's mostly indoors, yes

which is where you'd use point lights and a lot of them

[tired tree]

it also lets you optimize like mad

since you have occlusion blockers all over

[mighty carbon]

Doom 3 ?

[tired tree]

cooridors

[mighty carbon]

it doesn't work like that

but it clips lights and shadows based on view frustum

[tired tree]

you are telling me they only do view occlusion on lights?

i doubt that

[mighty carbon]

it's portal based

so unless you manually place portals and have sealed level, it won't cull what's behind the walls

[tired tree]

doom3 uses UMBRA

[mighty carbon]

it also has weird culling.. Let's say you stand next to a continuous wall and looking ahead the wall is lit. So it will render entire mesh, even outside of the view frustum

Doom 3 uses no middleware at all

Doom 2016 uses Umbra

(Doom 4)

[tired tree]

sorry meant doom 4

oh you were talking about the mod?

[mighty carbon]

yeah

[tired tree]

thought you were talking about the new one

thats anchient

[mighty carbon]

I worked with idTech 4/5 (Doom 3 BFG has a mix of both engines) for several years..

nah, BFG Edition has rendering from RAGE

id Tech 5

threading, rendering, input, audio and file system

[tired tree]

2012

is still anchient

[mighty carbon]

the rest is old from 2004

aye, but what difference does it make if it looks good 😃

[tired tree]

thats the point

[mighty carbon]

(and runs fast)

[tired tree]

it doesn't look "that" good

by todays standards

[mighty carbon]

well, a lot of modern Unity/UE4 based indie games look worse than Doom 3 BFG

[tired tree]

lol no

[mighty carbon]

hell, worse than Doom 3 from 2004

and I don't mean PUBG

anyhow, I'll test dynamic lighting in UE4 VR myself and then let ya'll know 😉

[tired tree]

its already been tested by most users

no need

[glossy agate]

Planetrism is all dynamic and open world for VR. Runs fine for them. I have ultra dynamic sky running in mine okay, just takes some work.

Not sure if anyone else has tried this but any hdri skylights make everything green in VR for me

[full junco]

one of my HDDs just started to try communicating with me. making a lot of weird noises 🙃 It's dead. Its just one where I mirrored another HDD to, so its not an issue, but let me remind you that HDDs can and will die, the question is just when.

I mirror my HDDs to other HDDs and I use two different cloud backups, so I can't really lose anything. and code is obviously online in source control

[wheat dust]

Does anyone here is working with the UE4+ARKit (iOS) currently?

BTW is this channel ok for AR questions? (not sure since it's titled just a VR)

[full junco]

it was created before anyone used AR with UE4, so its essentially also meant for AR

[karmic kelp]

Hi guys . I am working in a mobile app for daydream and i parented my game gun to the google vr motion controller but its not moving with the Controller

Is there any other way of doing this

[mighty carbon]

I had to attach mine on begin play. It didn't work if I simply patented it in the hierarchy window

But that was for Gear VR

[mighty carbon]

What do you folks think about doing early access for a project?

[full junco]

well I think its the only thing that indies with no funding can do

theres no alternative

[dusk vigil]

'There is only one launch' - so the game damn well better be in pretty good shape even at early access stage

Do softlaunch on Itch or Gamejolt like GORN did

[full junco]

@dusk vigil whats your definition of "softlaunch"?

[mighty carbon]

So called softlaunch is in no way something that helped the game.. I recall that Devolver is behind GORN.

So for indie without funding such move could be very well a suicide move

(Been there, done that)

What amount of content do you expect from early access VR game?

[dusk vigil]

Superhot was a Flash game. Gorn was on Itch. No suicides there...

[wicked oak]

Gorn was memed to death

its an example of a very "streamable" game

funny videos get published so they spread

[echo thorn]

Does anyone knows how to implement Secondary camera within vr For example i have a motioncontroller and to that a camera is stuck and i am recording inside the vr preview like holding a handycam

[dusk vigil]

For example Climbey came out with rudimentary multiplayer and level editing right from the start in Early Access

no youtube but caught fire on reddit

[willow trail]

I'd go with simrak, you only got one launch on steam. If you want feedback and don't need money, release it elsewhere, when it's already a fun experience in EA, release on steam and try to get some momentum

[full junco]

@mighty carbon it should just be better than any existing game in some relevant area

[mighty carbon]

@dusk vigil PUBG started as mod.. Let's not use outliers that had advantages as a norm in indie game dev world

[willow trail]

@mighty carbon Wait did it? What was it a mod for?

[mighty carbon]

Don't recall.. I've read about it somewhere

It wasn't even UE4 based

[willow trail]

the guy behind it started working on battleroyale mods, but it's PUBG for say, just battleroyale mods

[mighty carbon]

And the guy behind PUBG isn't someone unknown, like many indies are

[willow trail]

well his pseudonym is PlayerUnknown ironically, but I reject the notion that his "fame" had any traction, most people don't even know why it's called PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds, it's just a solid battleroyale game

any significant traction anyway, it had some for sure

[ruby ice]

I have literally never heard of the guy

[willow trail]

It's a Sid Meyer situation, sounds silly to me, he could just have called his game Battlegrounds, but w/e, his game is selling better than anything else

[mighty carbon]

Having a name in this business, track record and thus followers has everything to do with success

I've never heard of PUBG or the guy behind it until just recently

[full junco]

at some point people just suddenly started talking about it and I had no idea why

and I still don't know why

[willow trail]

Because people have been wanting real bad for a proper battleroyale game for a long time, and every implementation was subpar and broken

H1Z1 was selling really well before it came out, then PUBG canibalized all of it's sales because it was superior in many ways

if you're not interested in shooters or battleroyale game, follow twitch streamers/youtubers and don't read any video game news, you won't have heard about it

[full junco]

well I scroll through popular content on reddit, and at some point gifs from that game started to show up

and a bit later friends started playing that game

I never even looked at any video or gif of it yet, I try to just ignore those hypy games until they are forgotten again

[tired tree]

Player unknown made the arma battle royal mod

and basically started battle royals

thats why his name had weight to it

[full junco]

ah, well then he deserves it

[dusk vigil]

@mighty carbon I still think a couple of devs I know would have benefited massively from playtesting their product on itch before launching on steam and nosediving straight into the ground

[full junco]

Arma 3 is the only game I need to be happy

[tired tree]

he consulted with H1Z1, and didn't like what they did, much like icefrog and HoN

[full junco]

you can do pretty much everything with Arma

[tired tree]

so made his own game

its also fun....too much fun.....

@echo thorn I did that, made an actor that is basically a cam corder with a button and when the button it on it turns on the new texture mirroring mode in 4.17 and draws a scene capture

pretty simple

[full junco]

@tired tree well I wish I would be able to create fun games too haha. I am much better with programming than with thinking about what's fun in a game. I have no idea how to create games that are fun.

[willow trail]

I still don't think his name is really the root of it's success. Battleroyale games are just the kind of game that is gonna be successful because it's an excellent game to stream, and just as fun to play yourself. Twitch kickstarted the sales and it went exponential

[tired tree]

such is life

[full junco]

I just hope people will tell me what they want for it to be fun

[tired tree]

no, but his name is what got streamers involved

and helped get the word out

the top streamers on twitch all knew him from the Arma mod

and played it early, and consulted

[wicked oak]

yup, that was a important factor

his battle royale was Playerunknown battle royale mod or something like that

[tired tree]

when you get Lirik possibly actually funding you...you have a huge boost right off the bat

[willow trail]

@tired tree , True, especially that one streamer that kept going on about how it was just so much better than H1Z1, can't remember his name. But PUBG got developped really quickly, and I don't think it could possibly have failed

[tired tree]

well it IS better than h1z1

h1z1 has been terrible since launch

which sucks because I had hopes

[full junco]

if he was the one creating the Arma mod then it's a huge thing and the most obvious cause for success. just like dayz standalone sold super well too because it was done by the same guy who did the dayz mod

[echo thorn]

@tired tree well were you able to record videos and the main thing were you able to make a 360 video of what you were capturing nd if yes can you tell me how this is possible . any projects any tutorial??

[willow trail]

his skill and understanding of what makes battleroyale games is yes, I'm just really not convinced his name had much to do in it.

[tired tree]

@echo thorn 360 videos real time while in vr? not going to happen

[willow trail]

either way, it is really fun.

[tired tree]

at least not at any decent quality

[echo thorn]

yeah i know good quality has to go but before this all you said like making an actor , do you have a tutorial for that or a better explanation

[willow trail]

@echo thorn if you really need 360 recording you're probably gonna have to save a replay and possibly render it in video offline. you can't cull any of the geometry, it's gonna be way too hard on your GPU

[tired tree]

......its just an actor you hold and when its activated it changes the desktop mirror mode...

[dusk vigil]

Custom 360 ingame camera could be a cool feature though : )

[echo thorn]

Ohkay guys . 360 has to go

[dusk vigil]

But yeah, most current solutions take a long time to make a still scene of any reasonable quality

[echo thorn]

Ahan @tired tree

[tired tree]

https://youtu.be/kuIgA2n2-dA?t=50s

pretty simple

don't have to have the working view window on it like that, its overkill

[echo thorn]

Cool stuff

[dusk vigil]

Marketplace material...

[echo thorn]

https://youtu.be/WXsA1A7-0aU?t=92

@tired tree well i was thinking about this to make

[tired tree]

@dusk vigil its free, no need

oh....thats pretty much exactly what mine is

its easy

though if I were doing it for something like that, I would make a steadycam system for it

[echo thorn]

i asked them what they did basically they just added screen capture component 2d. and yeah yours same

your' s look way better

[mighty carbon]

@willow trail how long have you been an indie dev? I started in 2008 and I can tell you that name and connection in the industry have everything to do with success of your indie game

sometimes even money doesn't mean as much as name and connections

[willow trail]

@mighty carbon I'm not a game dev. I never said it didn't, if I hear about Supergiant's new game I'm gonna be hyped without even knowing what it's about. I'm saying that in the specific case of PUBG I doubt it had much to do with it. I might be wrong, but I can't see that game fail

[dusk vigil]

@tired tree free on your github? I mean, having this sort of thing on marketplace would make it more easily accessible though, since people wouldnt have to integrate it into engine builds?

[willow trail]

@mighty carbon if you're an indiedev I have no doubt connections are gonna be absolutely primordial

[mighty carbon]

I used PUBG as most recent example.. There are plenty of those indie games that made millions and a lot of folks make mistake of thinking name and connections have nothing to do with their success.

[tired tree]

@dusk vigil its part of the example template for my plugin, I don't want to break it out, uses some of my specific things like a dial for the screen so it rotates, ect. Would be one hell of a hassle keeping the functionality and trying to tie it in to the lax VR template that epic has.

[willow trail]

Well i'm still torn on this issue, because I've never seen a game that I really enjoy being unknown, and I like to try weird obscure stuff. But I suppose that's only when your game is done.

[mighty carbon]

one can make a mediocre game, but if one is someone with following and has connections and voice and name, guess what? It will be all over the media shoving it down your throat as innovation and the greatest game ever build

[tired tree]

its a plugin though, not an engine build

have you tried Pubg? it is a terrible example of a name making a game

the game is actually fun

[mighty carbon]

I haven't - not my type of game

[willow trail]

@mighty carbon Yup, and that sucks. But I'm much more concerned about someone making an awesome game and it being lost amongst the hundreds of daily new steam releases. That seems to not be as much of a problem

[mighty carbon]

I just recently finished Deus Ex MD that bought few years ago o.O

@willow trail that's actually the most common scenario in 2017

[willow trail]

I can't think of a single example though

[mighty carbon]

lol, huh?

[willow trail]

VR being being an exception, since the usebase is so low/innactive

[dusk vigil]

@tired tree ah ok, I check that out.

[willow trail]

@mighty carbon do you mean that good game being burried is the most common example?

[dusk vigil]

I dont know... heaps of Finnish games have made it to the big league without being superbly connected, particularly on mobile. PC games have had a much tougher time

[mighty carbon]

first of all, a good game is a relative definition. A lot of people went crazy for Minecraft and I hated it from the day one, before it because famous and a gold mine.

I just linked an article yesterday about that indie dev who made Spellbound and how it flopped

[dusk vigil]

Maybe we are getting a bit far off topic for the VR channel though

[mighty carbon]

@dusk vigil well, business side is critical unless you don't care about money 😃

[dusk vigil]

hmm no business channels here true

[mighty carbon]

My question was about early access and what you folks expect early access VR game to have in order to be invested in it

[tired tree]

you might have hated minecraft, but you are by far in the minority

you might want to think about how tied in to what the general consumer actually wants....

that game had the broadest appeal of any game made, hardcore FPS and tactical gamers played it...

[willow trail]

@mighty carbon Yup, loved minecraft since the very first alpha posted on TIGsource by Notch. Hating has become a meme because of the community, but Minecraft is special anyway. To get back on topic. I could list a couple of things that have become mostly common in regular 3D games that I think should hit the VR market. If you make an action/fighting/melee games, having good defensive/evasive mechanics that make smart use of the motion controllers, I except your game can be a great success

[tired tree]

Also...the guy that made spellbound is from the forums

there are arguments for why it flopped..

[dusk vigil]

Good article that one yeah...

[wicked oak]

@willow trail like this? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2rQZPix34bI

im working on it

[willow trail]

Also f*ck dual wielding of guns in VR. It's seriously useless, but that's just my opinion 😃

[wicked oak]

already got a killer melee combat

yes, you can do gun kata

[mighty carbon]

Well, I was told I'd be better off making a bite-size experience for Gear VR.. Theoretically, between experiences and yet-another-wave-zombie-shooter, experience sounds like a sound bet. Yet, it's just not selling, despite people saying it's good for what it is and even Oculus noting it's interesting.

[wicked oak]

you might have undersold it @mighty carbon

[mighty carbon]

So, might as well do what I like and do it in early access, than worry about what masses like and have same result (or worse) at the end

[wicked oak]

by making it 1 dollar people will come with the mentality that its a very small thing

[dusk vigil]

I reckon the main thing with the launch is that you have assessed that 1) people can pick it up easily and get right to the meat of the game pretty fast. 2) they have some reason to come back to the game. It's hard to lay down any feature list of what must be there or not...

[tired tree]

if you can't come up with a real idea that you want to do, why are you even going into it in the first place?

[willow trail]

I think people can only go through so many experiences before "getting" VR, and needing more, games don't suffer than problem I think.

[wicked oak]

games are HARD

[tired tree]

there have been a ton of devs doing the "make EA, have customers tell me wat they want in it later" games in VR

they all flop

[wicked oak]

im seriusly bottlenecked by the lack of artist or level designer, plenty of the prototypes i have can be made full games

@tired tree DWVR didnt flop becouse it was done on no budget, but can confirm

players are stupid

[mighty carbon]

@tired tree my "real" idea is A. time consuming to make and B. requires a lot of content

[tired tree]

when you ask the community to make choices for YOUR game, they expect it done quickly, and how they want it, and everyone wants it differently

its a terrible idea

[willow trail]

"but how can you fail when we keep telling you what direction to go with the game?!"

[dusk vigil]

One Finnish company made 'Downward Spiral', I reckon they flopped because they had a puzzle section to start, even though their 'meat' seemed to be a multiplayer battle mode, which likely nobody every made it to

[mighty carbon]

I wouldn't ask people what to make in my EA game.. I just need people to engage, start spreading the word and get cash flowing

[tired tree]

and then what?

you don't promise anything until cash?

how are you supposed to hype that

[mighty carbon]

??

[tired tree]

people are going to judge the END product, by the FIRST offering

[dusk vigil]

Sairento seems to be one of the rare games that had a lackluster start but has managed to keep at it and improve sales

[mighty carbon]

The game will be defined, with bullet points of what's coming.

[uneven moon]

Anyone here a PSN developer?

[willow trail]

Promises are extremely attractive, I don't think they are necessary, but IANAGD

[mighty carbon]

and it will be definitely underpromised, because then it would be easier to overdeliver

[willow trail]

attractive to the dev that is

[mighty carbon]

and if it tanks, it would be just easier to wrap up

[wicked oak]

@uneven moon ME

[tired tree]

and also require you to make a new name if you intend to try again...

[mighty carbon]

and if it succeeds, then it would be even better and more hyped when overdelivered

[tired tree]

because otherwise that will be thrown at you forever

[wicked oak]

the reason for releasing that early

[dusk vigil]

If you want to make an impact, you need to look at your competition and say 'what's the new twist I have that makes this interesting?'

[wicked oak]

is to have an excuse to release early

if it works, nice, you conitnue

if it flops, you cut the losses there and GTFO

[mighty carbon]

well, if my grand VR attempt will fail, then perhaps I should not make games after that 😃

[wicked oak]

thats why survival devs have done that

the moment the game is "shippable", they ship it

even if incomplete

[tired tree]

honestly I don't think EA should be used unless someone has a real innovative idea and a solid core done

[wicked oak]

becouse they know the community is fikle

EA is good for multiplayer games

[dusk vigil]

You want to have your core gameplay, the best you have to offer in place. Maybe you dont need all the achievements and heaps of levels etcetera

[wicked oak]

its pretty much the only place it does work

but you need to have the core gameplay there

[mighty carbon]

nonsense @tired tree

[wicked oak]

a core that people keep playing

[tired tree]

lol

[wicked oak]

then you add stuff on top

[tired tree]

how is it nonsense?

[willow trail]

@tired tree That's why you throw theme, world building, characters and story out the window and focus 100% on game mechanics before fleshing it out 😃

[tired tree]

name an EA game that worked that came out without something special

hint, most EA games don't work

even innovative ones

[mighty carbon]

because if one works on the game behind the curtains, without any feed back, there is a good chance no one will care for the game and may find it flawed. And the game might tank big.

EA allows you to correct direction early on

[dusk vigil]

That's why I recommend Itch/ Gamejolt first to gauge your level of readiness for the real launch

[tired tree]

thats why "solid core" not "nearly complete" is what i said

[dusk vigil]

Steam EA doesnt really mean anything anymore, everybody does it ( almost )

[mighty carbon]

Aren't Sairento and Raw Data EA games ?

[wicked oak]

sairento was 100% a gamble

their worked, mine didnt

[tired tree]

no core = anything is possible to the consumer and they will expect anything an everything, or they will just walk away, either its a heavy disappointment to them, or they just don't stay.

sairento also released with a base game

[dusk vigil]

Yes, but they were pretty damn well polished on launch

[wicked oak]

lol

sairento polished on launch

the bots were hella broken

all of them

[dusk vigil]

Sairento nearly flopped but they stuck to it and are making do

[wicked oak]

nearly flopped what

that did not happen

it was a mayor success from the start

[dusk vigil]

Okay Raw Data was polished : ) I didnt actually play a lot of Sairento early days

[wicked oak]

ah, raw data was

[tired tree]

raw data was a launch title btw

[mighty carbon]

@tired tree the question is, again, how much is enough of core to be in the EA game for people to invest into it

[wicked oak]

and it was a launch title

being the only actual shooter on launch = big money

[tired tree]

enough to play, that depends on the gameplay and what it is

[wicked oak]

even if half baked

they only had like a couple levels

and a very solid core

[tired tree]

you can't go EA as a solo dev with no name with a room with some lore and voiceover talking about what will be

multiplayer IS easier, because as long as you keep people around somewhat, it provides its own content

[dusk vigil]

It's a pity steamspy doesnt show history farther back

[mighty carbon]

why not? (besides it's a lot of work to do that to begin with)

[tired tree]

.....

why the hell would anyone follow a game that starts like that....

[mighty carbon]

multiplayer is easier to make, harder to sustain

[tired tree]

even if prices at $1, its going to be forgotton, and its not going to be hyped

[mighty carbon]

(easier to make from low content perspective that is)

[wicked oak]

multiplayer is volatile

[dusk vigil]

multiplayer is super risky though, if there are no other players, you are sunk again

[wicked oak]

as hell

thats why i will make the game coop

maybe a pvp mode, but not the focus. Coop it is

[dusk vigil]

even big games like Star Trek have not got so great concurrent player counts

[wicked oak]

btw, indie games with multiplayer can grow, indie singleplayer games cant

players that like the game (multiplayer) will nag their friends to get it

[mighty carbon]

back in 2011 when we released Steel Storm, we raked up thousands in the first few days... No PR, no Marketing.. It' snot the same anymore, even though VR is emerging market :/

[willow trail]

I think risky is an understatement. Even on Pavlov and Onwards I've never seen more than 2/3 servers with people. That vast majority there's only a single other dude playing in EU.

[wicked oak]

for a singleplayergame that doesnt happen

@mighty carbon blame steam 😦

ill come back with stats of my PSVR launch

[tired tree]

steam isn't only to blame

freely available easy to use engines and an indie scene just coming out of the golden years shits out a lot of drivel

[mighty carbon]

we released Ep1 before Steam, in 2010, for free.. It got 300k downloads.

[wicked oak]

dang

VRMultigames got 50k or so

to compare

[mighty carbon]

The way I read it, VR gamers want story driven single player games, because there are already too many MP games

[wicked oak]

story driven singleplayer is impossible to do for indies

thats why ill do a looter game with coop and rng maps

currently still prototyping the mechanics, i love that melee combat, but it has its issues

[tired tree]

its not impossible, its just a lot of time investment, and in VR taking a long time investment means the technology passes your game by

[mighty carbon]

Don't take any cream of the crop devs and get MP-only other indie games, contact devs and ask them how it is.. I bet you they don't have good news to share.

like I said, I am not MP person myself, so I doubt I can come up with something awesome for MP game (since I don't care for MP)

the only way I see it is to come up with decent story, make an interesting first level or two, release to EA and see if people bite

[wicked oak]

i do see there are no PvP VR games on PSVR, like sub 10

but damn, i dont want to deal with PSN

[mighty carbon]

if they do, just keep making more content and unfold the story

[tired tree]

better be a puzzle game if its a level or two

[mighty carbon]

(and I think AI and interaction between AI and player would be the key to success in SP game)

[wicked oak]

Onward/Pavlov wont ever work on PSVR, i thought of making my own (but with my own twist of course)

[mighty carbon]

well, it'd have quest/puzzles.. Not just wave combat.

I personally find exploration in VR more rewarding than combat

[wicked oak]

but tracking limitations, + no joysticks + PSN sony stuff...

[tired tree]

honestly, why are you guys even trying games? splat some barely clothed female models into a room, release a new outfit for them a week, and call it a day >,<

[mighty carbon]

well, Steam might ban that, Oculus won't even let it to the store..

[tired tree]

steam does not ban that

and those apps are the most downloaded....sad to say

[mighty carbon]

it seems in this day and age if your fart doesn't smell like fart you will be condemned online

[wicked oak]

it has to be anime tho

XD

[tired tree]

so many anime girlfriend games...so much money rolling in to them, its pretty sad

thats how you run a successful EA

[mighty carbon]

heh

[dusk vigil]

My Finnish friend doing VR porn : ) https://www.patreon.com/femdomination

[willow trail]

MordenTral do you expect to add some soft bodies physics to VRExpansion?

[mighty carbon]

maybe I should add anime sex bot into my VR pet game 😛

[willow trail]

random question

[wicked oak]

i still want a final fantasy style game with turn based combat in VR

might even make a prototype

[mighty carbon]

@dusk vigil why Patreon? I only want to pay once for pr0n games 😛

[dusk vigil]

It seems to be working pretty well for him

[mighty carbon]

I bet.. Subscription based model

[dusk vigil]

He's had a long road to get to this point though

[willow trail]

btw VR killer ap is SS13 VR

just throwing it out there, I wouldn't get out of my headset if someone made that

perfect fit for VR too

[dusk vigil]

Fun talks still, I gotta head out into the rain

[wicked oak]

SS13?

[willow trail]

SpaceStation 13. It's... hard to explain

it's like some sort of competitive/cooperative mafia/werewolf like game, with tons of tools interaction, heavily realiant on communication

[wicked oak]

wasnt it a DF like in spaaaaaace?

oh but that exists

werewolfs within

might be what you mean

btw that game is WAY too volatile

it 100% depends on enough players

[willow trail]

extremely volatile yes

[wicked oak]

and seems niche

[willow trail]

it has to be a good implementation

[wicked oak]

niche + vr..

[willow trail]

I don't think werewolf within is really what I mean

[wicked oak]

not that many people play wereworlf within

and thats even with the crosplay

[willow trail]

SS13 is only niche because people are afraid of the dumb 2D pixel top down graphics

also everything else... It's kind of niche yeah, but I think it'd pull people around

SS13 is extremely niche but there constantly are player on, because if you get hooked, you get hooked, it's really complex

Little question, if someone has any good ideas 😃 If I'm making a procedural action descent game, I only intend to use the dominant hand to fight, non-dom hand buttons will be used to trigger some powers (slow-mo and the like), but I don't want the non dominant hand to just sit idle by your side. What's a good use for non-dom hand motion beyond sign tracing (which I think will get old very fast) and defense/shielding (which I'm afraid will trivialize the gameplay)

[wicked oak]

@willow trail in my prototype

an offhand weapon

[willow trail]

My biggest problem is that if you use two weapons there are only a few possibilities.

1. Same weapon on both hands. I don't like this idea, the player will only end up aiming at the same target with both hands for double DPS, I think it's a poor use of the left hand. Pretty much everyone would prefer double damage on a single hand instead of that.

2. Different (ranged) weapons. Same problem, but even more confusing, reloading will be all over the place, and you rarely use two different types of weapon (shotgun and pistol) at the same time

3. Melee and Ranged. Same problem, enemy comes up close you thwack him with your melee weapon, if he's further you shoot him. You could use a single hand for both action with almost no difference. (@wicked oak I looked at aquila and realize you also use pistols up close, but I'm not really satisfied with that idea)

sorry for the essay, I just don' t like dual wielding very much

This is all after playing a lot of Sairento.

[wicked oak]

another prototype just had a shield

ive thought of using the offhand for abilities

probably shield/ability could do

current enemies are incredibly aggresive so fairly hard to parry with only the sword

[willow trail]

My problem with shield is that they tend to obstruct view, make it weird (you clip your weapon through it or have to reach around it) and can trivialize gameplay. I don't like shields too much. It seems like a more reasonable option but I'm hoping for something better

ability would need you to point at enemies which again I feel could be done with the dominant hand... Reloading of weapons is also an option, but I don't intend to have any reloading, just scarce ammunition

Movement is another, but I don't like teleportation too much, and my experience with Sairento is again that throwing the movement arc with your shooting hand changes practically nothing (especially since it triggers slow motion)

Well anyway my best idea right now is to use it for either crowd control or item collection (some sort of vaccum or another), but I'm still not 100% on it 😛

Heh I'll mess with the grappling hook idea maybe...

[full junco]

interesting talk about early access you had here 😄

@wicked oak don't say growing a singleplayer game is impossible, I need to make that work 😛

[tired tree]

@full junco static vr::Texture_t CreateOpenVRTexture_t(UTexture * Texture)
{
vr::Texture_t VRTexture;

    if (Texture)
        VRTexture.handle = Texture->Resource->TextureRHI->GetNativeResource();
    else
        VRTexture.handle = NULL;

#if PLATFORM_LINUX
#if STEAMVR_USE_VULKAN_RHI
VRTexture.eType = vr::TextureType_Vulkan;
#else
VRTexture.eType = vr::TextureType_OpenGL;
#endif
#else
VRTexture.eType = vr::TextureType_DirectX;
#endif
VRTexture.eColorSpace = vr::ColorSpace_Auto;

    return VRTexture;
}

[mighty carbon]

https://80.lv/articles/mawi-united-wet-lands-landscape-in-the-works/ << I wish it worked in VR 😃

[tired tree]

i pre-checked for valid texture prior to that, should probably do it in the function as well

also...uses the wrong name there

but thats how anyway

[full junco]

ha, I dont check stuff for validity, crashes are easier to debug than "oh nothing happened, why dont I see the correct texture" 😄

[tired tree]

the function isn't exposed anyway

and i don't call it unless all textures are valid

but...adding a check anyway :p