i did that already for a few things
#virtual-reality
full junco
epic is also doing that with stuff like BP nodes that first become deprecated and then a few engine versions later they remove them
tired tree
IE: At the start I tried to make it really easy to set movement and rotational limits on gripped objects and made a setting struct, but since then I made prefabs for all of that in c++ with more and better logic
but a bunch of games were made using the inferior method and would have to be overhauled if I killed it
I may set a kill date for some features for my eventual github move
full junco
at some point people just have to update stuff, you cant expect to always continue to update the engine version with minimal work
tired tree
yeah I agree, its just trying to find a good time to do it
I put a poll up for the major wishlist of changes and literally everything I got asked not to change yet
I'll get back to it later
full junco
I am using the RMC, and koderz is doing it quite good I think. he released 1.0, then 2.0 and 3.0 will be a major overhaul that will be incompatible with a lot of how its done with 2.0
its the only plugin I use
tired tree
i'll be totally honest here....he has 1/10th the code in that that I do in my plugin
tired tree
it does a lot
full junco
well you said you have to duplicate quite some stuff from the engine?
tired tree
only for character movement, to overide logic
but there is a lot of auxillary components and classes
like all of the openVR logic
and the one offs, like the console / command line render to texture component
full junco
well, the rmc also wasn't really updated for almost a year now
so he worked on 3.0 for a long time, its probably no longer 1/10 of your code size if you would compare it now
tired tree
maybe not, but I have to sleep and we kind of spammed this channel enough already :p gnight
little nacelle
Hello, if I want to show the character's forearms in VR, I'll sure have to deal with IK skeletons? Do you guys have a good example of a game that's using that?
weak tide
Has anyone tried NVidia's VRWorks branch with the SLI support?
wintry escarp
anyone using 4.18? I get a crash as soon as I try to implement a touch controller.
am I doing something wrong or is 4.18 still broken for that
mighty carbon
@wintry escarp why don't you use @tired tree 's plugin/template ?
wintry escarp
its overkill for what I want to do
mighty carbon
@wintry escarp it works out of the box.. just use basic functionality
@eternal inlet the rumor has it that dynamic shadows don't work well in VR
eternal inlet
Oh i see.. rumors seem to be true then
wicked oak
@eternal inlet yup
dynamic lights are mostly ok, but shadowcasters?
fuck no
and dynamic lights depend on their size and amount
as its mostly costly depending on their area
mighty carbon
what about using stencil shadows ?
eternal inlet
What is stencil shadows?
wicked oak
personally i think stencil shadows would be good for static geometry
essentially you keep them "saved"
that would work great for my game
maybe i even do stencil shadows manually for my modules
mighty carbon
my bad, modulated shadows, not stencil https://docs.unrealengine.com/latest/INT/Platforms/Mobile/Lighting/HowTo/ModulatedShadows/index.html
eternal inlet
@wicked oak so u say i can maybe lower attenuation of lights?
mighty carbon
UE4 doesn't have stencil shadows, but Doom 3 BFG VR has a ton of them and runs at solid 90 fps
wicked oak
doom 3 is very close quarters, so culling is a thing
the amount of stuff doom3 renders per frame is nearly null
very few drawcalls and very few polygons
thats why stencil shadows work
mighty carbon
eeh? You have no idea what you are talking about vblanco
wicked oak
they excel if you have very few polygons
Doom3 is incredibly close quarters, and they have special interior culling so it renders exactly what is in view
wich is not that much
mighty carbon
yes, it's not as high poly as modern games, but it has pixel shader cost and literally crap load of geometry "thanks" to stencil shadows
wicked oak
pixel shader cost? not really
its pixel formulas are dirt simple
keep in mind they were created for basically the first generation of shader gpus
so the shaders are suuuper simple
and i think the light is in fact vertex lighting
mighty carbon
I think culling is what makes it so performant
wicked oak
yup
mighty carbon
clipping of lights and shadows, rather
wicked oak
its very close quarters, there is never a lot of geometry at the same time
doom 3 has a forward renderer
mighty carbon
yeah
wicked oak
actually only the lights render
its a fancy technique (the way they do it)
essentially they do
mighty carbon
it's not fancy at all
wicked oak
for each (light: visible lights)
{
for each(mesh: light.getNearMeshes())
{
render(mesh, light)
}
}```you can see the passes
eternal inlet
Anyway.. so im looking for what options i have to get better performance. So i hear i can turn off shadow casting for meshes as one
wicked oak
each mesh gets rendered each time per light
mighty carbon
yeah, but it's not fancy
wicked oak
but each light only renders the meshes it affects
eternal inlet
And lowee length of lights
mighty carbon
@eternal inlet I'd try capsule shadows and modulated shadows in VR.. Might perform better.
eternal inlet
It will kinda kill the visuals though
Ok will try that when im home.. thx @mighty carbon
wicked oak
that article also explains the culling
what i said, it has specialized interior culling that is very accurate and very cheap
mighty carbon
not culling vblanco, clipping
mighty carbon
(for shadows anyway)
wicked oak
becouse ue4 culling SUCKS
so ill have to implement some kind of similar thing to that
mighty carbon
I am surprised UE4 doesn't cull lights based on visibility :/
wicked oak
ohhhh, the renderer is actually doing a prepass
thats something i did not know
its doing a depth prepass to not overdraw pixels
mighty carbon
so, I asked TimS about lights/shadows culling (on Twitter)
we'll see if I get lucky
full junco
can't remember tim sweeney ever saying something UE4-feature related on twitter
alpine torrent
this is mixed reality https://www.instagram.com/p/BaZODzPAw66/?taken-by=janisku7
using my laptop camera
tired tree
cool
mighty carbon
@full junco TPCast isn't even available for Vive anywhere according to the comments
mighty carbon
aye, we'll see if they deliver
tired tree
did they ever fix direct mode for that thing?
glossy agate
@eternal inlet Can you not bake out static lighting for some reason on it?
wintry escarp
no wires would be nice but not worth £300
full junco
yeah its only worth it if you have a really big room
if I would have like 5x5 meters for my roomscale setup, I would probably buy it
then having no wires would be super awesome
glossy agate
From what I heard people said it was cool because it removed the extra bit of planning your movement in VR so it feels more free. Not having to plan turning to the right to make a left turn for untangling ect
Apparently that makes a huge difference
For me I want one so I dont keep rolling over my chord when rolling back to test my game
full junco
I always think about that gif 😄
you cant do that with a wire attached
and it also really shows how good the lighthouse tracking is
wintry escarp
I cant do that anyway
full junco
well then you have to learn it I guess
wintry escarp
id stab him while he's doing his poser backflips
eternal inlet
@glossy agate i did bake a bunch of lights (stationary) but have 5-6 additional spotlights that have to be movable (frontlights of a train and a flash light and some physics lamps)
glossy agate
Oh, probably won't be able to cast shadows with those
eternal inlet
It really suxx to loose shadows too
glossy agate
Yeah haha. The cost of VR
eternal inlet
Thats what i figured out too @tired tree
glossy agate
You can use tricks though, like make all the train lights emissive, then only cast shadow from 1 instead of all of them
eternal inlet
Yeah will do something similar
glossy agate
I mean use one spotlight to cast shadow for all the lights
If it moves fast you won't be able to tell as much
eternal inlet
I'll have to do a looot of tweaking for sure
Can hardly see the cost of my own logic and other stuff on the perf graphs
Because the light and shadows are so expensive
mighty carbon
well, unless Epic start a new VR project, I don't think we'll see performant dynamic lights/shadows in VR
eternal inlet
You're probably right about that.. sadly
tired tree
its not the VR part really motorsep
shadow casting is slow in the engine period for dynamic lights
the lights themselves aren't the issue
mighty carbon
even in non-VR games ?
tired tree
yes?
mighty carbon
ouch
tired tree
its a shadow issue, not a light issue
eternal inlet
Hmm yeah i see it on the graphs as shadow issues too
Will experiment with turning all shadow casting off for all static meshes at run time as an option
See how it affects performance
mighty carbon
btw, Doom 3 BFG modded engines with shadowmapping still have faster shadows than UE4 @wicked oak
(I haven't tried it in VR, but it was fast in non-VR)
tired tree
don't turn off static shadow casting....
mighty carbon
@eternal inlet have you tried modulated shadows ?
full junco
epic essentially hopes that everyone can use distance field shadows I think
and those are pretty optimized now
@eternal inlet can you use distance field shadows?
wicked oak
i dont think distance fields work on mobile
eternal inlet
Mordentral just suggested that too
full junco
did he? didn't see that
eternal inlet
i don't know about those yet, since i've never used them, but will look into it
no, it was on a private msg
reef wharf
Hello people, I am using the VR bp in a project. In the editor if you play VR preview all works well. But in the packaged version it doesn't seem to work.
full junco
on mobile almost everyone uses static lighting
mighty carbon
you can use directional light and modulated shadows on mobile VR
but why would anyone want to make mobile VR app? (unless it's a sponsored development)
wicked oak
i might try to make my next game work on gearVR so i can run it on the Go
as a downscaled "build" of the main game
i want that sweet, sweet Go and Santa cruz prototypes
so ill just make a demo build
my game might be a best case scenario becouse due to procgen, i have stupid low amount of drawcalls
mighty carbon
@full junco I figured with VR being a new market visibility won't be an issue 🤔 And I thought that 5M end-users actually use Gear VR (surprise - they don't).
wicked oak
essentially the level would be one HUGE module mesh with smaller detail meshes on it, ill find a way of culling those
well, its one module after another, like warframe
except my modules are essentially 1 mesh
you were far too late @mighty carbon
small "experiences" were novel at the start
now, you are competing against every single other "experience" in the market
mighty carbon
well, statistically Gear VR users don't use it for games
wicked oak
happened to me with DWVR and wave shooters...
mighty carbon
most Gear VR users consume media
and experiences
it's just nowadays they want more elaborate experiences and they want it for free
uneven moon
When the Mobile version of Oculus comes out and Zuckberberg actually manages to reach 1 billion people in VR worldwide (most on mobile, presumably), it would be easier in that market
full junco
it would be harder, not easier
tired tree
@full junco let me know if you get a good response on that dynamic SteamAudio question will you?
full junco
for 1 billion people you would have a huge amount of AAA content
mighty carbon
they can sponsor development and have a ton of apps for free. It's really hard to compete against that.
full junco
@tired tree the one I asked in the forums you mean? sure
tired tree
I've been trying to stay out of it for now, because I know it will suck a ton o time playing
uneven moon
indie devs, even solo devs can and have made successful products on far more saturated platforms so I mean it's not impossible, it depends on the project
flappy bird as an example
full junco
thats one of the worst examples
mighty carbon
lol, so let's assume that most indies can make Minecraft.. No, let's not
full junco
exactly
mighty carbon
those are the outliers
uneven moon
no, but flappy bird was a really basic thing
almost everyone in this server could probably do something close to flappy if not better
mighty carbon
can't really say "Oh, that guy who made Flappy Bird made it big. We can do it too!"
full junco
the chance that flappy bird would interest anyone was 0.0001%. the guy had luck that for some reason some youtuber or whatever showed the game to a relevant amount of people
mighty carbon
so, no one made anything like that after Flappy Bird
it's an anomaly.. Right thing in the right time..
uneven moon
I know, but there's a reason flappy bird blew up, I just mean that it's possible. if you make average content, it'll get lost like all the others around it
mighty carbon
hell, flying to Mars is possible too
uneven moon
2020s
uneven moon
flappy bird and cuphead blew up as much as they did for similar reasons
full junco
I never even heard of cuphead
uneven moon
;o
full junco
is that a game too?
uneven moon
I've never played but it's a big thing rn
yeah it's designed like oldschool cartoons
very well made
uneven moon
damn
nah yeah, cuphead is a huge game. If you look at most of the exposure it's getting, it revolves around its difficulty rather than its visual theme
flappy bird got exposure only for that reason, too
and I'm not saying make hard games to stand out
just that when indie games do blow up, there's always something about them that does help them stand out
sturdy coral
I think flappy bird and cuphead are very different.. cuphead is tens of thousands of frames of animation inked by hand in a style that has never been done before. no one would care about the difficulty without the theme and polished art drawing them in.
there are plenty of difficult bullet hells and boss rushes out there
mighty carbon
@uneven moon not saying they don't, but nowadays they do so less and less often
sturdy coral
cuphead has been hyped since the first 10 second sneak peak of the art and animation when xbox launched, before anyone knew how difficult it was
tired tree
cuphead had a ton of momentum
just do to hand drawn graphics
and the art style
you can't argue that it "blew up for no reason"
people have been waiting for that game for years
sturdy coral
yeah, difficulty is an aspect of how it is giong viral but wouldn't get it anywhere without the art
sturdy coral
it is extremely time consuming to do that kind of animation, they had people who worked on animated shows working on it whereas flappy bird was just one guy almost stealing mario assets
mighty carbon
so, do you mean this type of shadows https://docs.unrealengine.com/latest/INT/Engine/Rendering/LightingAndShadows/RayTracedDistanceFieldShadowing/ works in VR and is fast ?
sturdy coral
fast but doesn't work for landscapes
mighty carbon
well, wouldn't you use capsule shadows outdoors ?
(I kinda assumed that was fast and worked with direct light)
sturdy coral
I mean the landscape components themselves won't cast those type of shadows
mighty carbon
oh
mighty carbon
is cascaded shadow map shadow slow in VR ?
sturdy coral
it adds draw calls
I think we've already had this discussion several times here though 😛
mighty carbon
ha, indeed
tired tree
distance field is intended to compliment cascaded
you can run cascaded up close on static meshes and distance field out far
since you don't get self shadowing with the latter
mighty carbon
I see
sturdy coral
it can also let you have destructibility, like fortnite
which you can't get with baking stuff for the distance
tired tree
fortnight uses both
they actually implemented distance field channels for the engine because fortnight was causing issues with dynamic objects and distance fields
sturdy coral
what do you mean both? baked and distance field, or csm and distance field?
tired tree
distance field and csm
sturdy coral
yeah, for character shadows they need that
and the landscape
capsule shadows don't look great up close
tired tree
you can also set csm draw limits, and past those the distance field shadows are uses instead
sturdy coral
which is the only other option I guess, and they have to have a high shadow bias to not over-self shadow
tired tree
assuming you lower the 20k unit default setting on csm
sturdy coral
but yeah fortnite is basically the same setup as kite demo
but not landscape GI probably
mighty carbon
VR industry moving ahead fast
btw, I am contemplating to skip Home and Steam entirely (at least initially) with my new project
tired tree
you are trying to kill it?
wicked oak
definitely dead on arrival
tell me how you gonna do an oculus release outside of Home, and a SteamVR release without steamVr
wintry escarp
rift? just release it online and ask people to send you money if they like it
tired tree
free with patreon is goal maybe? but that generally only works for ......short gratification games.....
full junco
patreon can work for any game where people want someone to work on I think
when you have a few people that want something a lot, those people know that patreon is an easy way how 200 people can make sure that 1 dev can work on something fulltime
so you "just" need something that a few people really like and want to see improved
mighty carbon
well, how do people release VR apps that are standalone ?! (VR Kanojo for example)
full junco
make your own website and release it there
a lot of work
any exe can run with steamvr
mighty carbon
That's not the question.. I mean, when I run VR Kanojo .exe it opens Oculus Home and runs
and it's a Unity based game
full junco
any exe can run with any stuff I think
mighty carbon
@tired tree would I have any issues using your plugin for a standalone game (when not releasing on Steam / Home) ?
mighty carbon
I am making a SP game
full junco
then I dont see why you think his plugin would care about where you release your game
mighty carbon
well, maybe it uses some SDk calls.. I don't know.. Just asking 😃
full junco
it definitely uses the SDK calls
but the SDK doesnt care where you released your game
people need to have steamvr installed of course, or oculus stuff
mighty carbon
@wicked oak my Gear VR game was DOA on Home..
@wintry escarp that's a pretty good idea ... not :/
sturdy coral
people won't be able to launch your game on Oculus unless they enable outside apps, that's the only limitation
I'm not sure that still applies after they started integrating steam games into your oculus library
I guess that's a second limitation, unless it is a steam game or oculus game I don't think it can be launched from home
it has to be launched from the desktop
maybe if your user buys it off steam, then manually adds it to the steam library, it will show up in Home
mighty carbon
yeah, that's that - gotta enable 3rd party apps in Home to run non-store apps
I don't see how releasing standalone would kill the game
sturdy coral
it won't if it is an initial rough release
mighty carbon
especially it's for initial releases
tired tree
its harder to access for one, it would only be good if you don't want many downloads at the start
since it could ramp up
but then eventually you are going to have to deal with patching
and downloads
mighty carbon
yeah.. Amazon S3 storage is cheap (or maybe there is an alternative, haven't looked into that). UE4 has undocumented (yet) patching system (to patch from within the game), so that should solve a lot of issues
sturdy coral
I wouldn't count on UE4's patching system for the type of release iteration you need for an early rough release of a game
mighty carbon
there are definitely challenges when releasing standalone
sturdy coral
it is more for hotfixes and appending content for DLC
mighty carbon
oh, I see :/
tired tree
they have a patch generator...
you would still have to create a launcher
to apply it
or expect them to manually do it
mighty carbon
hmm.. didn't see that coming
tired tree
and yeah..its a .pak
mighty carbon
because I need to have access to users' db
unless itch.io provides that via API, it's a no-go
clear spruce
this may be a silly question, but can a firstperson game that has been built with realistic sizing of assets etc, have the option of being played either with or without VR?
mighty carbon
yeah.. User comes to the store, registers, buys the game, logins into the game, the game check's the purchase and so on.
sturdy coral
you said it was single player though right?
tired tree
he wants IAP
sturdy coral
whether itch provides that though
mighty carbon
nah, it's more about direct contact with the customer
sturdy coral
doesn't matter if the alternative is making it yourself anyway
mighty carbon
if I can't have that, there is no point going standalone
oh and then there is direct control over douchebags in the community when you release standalone
tired tree
its singleplayer
sturdy coral
if you take direct control of people's single player game
for their forum behavior
good luck with that
mighty carbon
so I don't have to deal with people who say "no WASD locomotion - shitty game, don't buy it!!"
sturdy coral
I think that is still in your head
tired tree
then they will go do it on reddit
sturdy coral
no one asks for WASD locomotion
mighty carbon
I actually had that with Steel Storm.. It's was really nice on the forums until I went to Steam
the idea is to build community who is invested into the game.. Not some random folks who has free money lying around and they want to just try new games\
sturdy coral
is steel storm this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steel_Storm
mighty carbon
yeh
mighty carbon
I recall there are a few standalone indie games that did well and had really tight community that did self-policing and kicked out all dickheads
ha, I wish
400k is due to giveaways, bundles and all that crap that built userbase for almost free
and on top of that I can't do anything about that 400k users since I can't get in touch with them
ebon scaffold
A singleplayer game with a sort of DRM that's also policed by other users to ensure reviews are all positive?
sturdy coral
is @mighty carbon really @ Dereksmart? 😃
sturdy coral
@mighty carbon look at what happened to the launch of sim city with a similar system
they claimed they needed the cloud to compute the intense simulation and that was why you had to be online
but it wasn't really true
if you have any kind of server outages etc. and affect single player you will piss people off bad
mighty carbon
@ebon scaffold there is a big difference between negative reviews due to actual issues with games and negatives reviews like "I don't like this game cuz devs didn't make the way I, entitled users, envisioned it. Thumbs down and don't buy it. Ask for refund right now. And I am gonna make sure I will spam this all over the Net."
nah, I am not going to have people to be connected to the Net for a single player game
sturdy coral
@mighty carbon steam removes reviews from refunded users if I remember correctly
or it gets tagged or something and doesn't count towards the score I think
mighty carbon
took only 7 years to get there 🙄
sturdy coral
they didn't have nearly the same refund system 7 years ago
mighty carbon
that's another issue - they do things that harm most small indies, and then when damage is done, they switch things around.. I don't like that and thus, I'd like to try going standalone.
sturdy coral
if you had a huge number of refunds back then something was probably unintentionally misleading or something
mighty carbon
I mean, if it blows up big like Minecraft (here I go again and dream like @uneven moon )- lucky me.. If it doesn't go that awesome - I can go to Steam and Home.
@sturdy coral I didn't have too many refund with Steel Storm.. It still sells one copy per month or so 😃 But I gave out keys to Gear VR game and one f#cker who got a free key posted on Reddit for everyone who got the app to ask Oculus for refund.
tired tree
didn't steam pretty much not even have a refund system unless a game was taken down until like 3 years ago?
sturdy coral
what's the name of your gear title again?
mighty carbon
Phaeton Chronicles
sturdy coral
they had kind of a manual request thing that would sometimes cover technical issues I think
mighty carbon
that's not the point.. The point that people nowadays feel like they are entitled to mix devs with dirt for whatever crazy reasons they have in their heads..
and that escalates when individuals merge into a mob
sturdy coral
@mighty carbon mandatory online for single player is broadly unpopular, you will get bad reviews for that alone unless it is maybe free to play
trying to control reviews will also get you bad reviews, the internet isn't stupid
mighty carbon
in a tight community that's usually isn't a thing and when outsiders see some crap like that on Reddit, then come to see forums, they understand the difference between SJW raging on Reddit and normal folks who arfe actually interested in the game.. Maybe I am totally living in a different dimension, but that's how I see it..
I am not doing mandatory online @sturdy coral
ebon scaffold
Those shitty reviews just get drowned out anyway? When I'm buying games, especially VR, I'll watch the trailers and read through both good or bad reviews... the bogus ones are pretty obvious like how GlassDoor reviews by disgruntled employees are.
If someone is going to not buy your game because they believed an entitled person, would you even want that new person part of your community since they exhibit similar qualities of thought as the reviewer?
mighty carbon
and I won't have any reviews.. I am not planning on making a storefront like Steam/Home
@ebon scaffold exactly.. Except when I release on Steam/Home, I am at mercy of the corporate..
nowadays everything moves so fast that it's so easy to drown in bad reviews or be SJW'ed
glossy agate
What game got SJWd?
mighty carbon
I am sure many did
glossy agate
Usually that increases sales though if they pull in that kind of attention
mighty carbon
eeh, nowadays you can say something and SJWs don't like it - you are f#cked..
I doubt that @glossy agate
glossy agate
Like GTA, Hatred, Manhunt ect
sturdy coral
would you consider people talking about the kind of locomotion they want to be SJWs? I'm just trying to understand how loosely you are using the term
glossy agate
That other one where you shoot up crowds in a riot, cant remember the name
mighty carbon
pretty loosely I guess
glossy agate
I mean it would go bad if you released something like that right now cause of Vegas probably
sturdy coral
also, doesn't steam give you pretty broad moderation capabilities over the game's forum?
I thought it is just reviews you can't touch (as it should be)
tired tree
yup, though people will complain if it is overmoderated (as they should honestly)
glossy agate
Yeah it will get waaay worse if people find out you are doing it. Like opening the floodgates
ebon scaffold
Did ARK technicaly get SJW'd but failed, the whole controversy about them releasing paid DLC while the base game was still early access
sturdy coral
I'm sure even they knew that was probably a bad move
they had a big lawsuit to pay off
glossy agate
Thats not SJWed though. Thats cause the dev lied. Same with PUBG and loot boxes after they just promised no paid lootboxes
mighty carbon
@tired tree I am against reviews in the storefronts
sturdy coral
... everyone else has to deal with reviews too, it isn't like they single you out
mighty carbon
coming from 90s gaming, I am totally ok with reviews written in blogs and whatnot. That doesn't allow for a mob to form.
glossy agate
I thought SJW'd was when you get outraged for having stuff like crazy violence or some other fucked up stuff in a game so social justice warriors get offended. Sounds like people are rolling everything into the meaning now
mighty carbon
I saw a ton of stupid reviews on Steam like "bad game" and stuff.. Why is it a bad game? (not mine, just in general) Why did you thumb it up? Nothing - just crap all over.
glossy agate
I have never seen that on a good game though. Most bad reviews I have seen are legit
mighty carbon
SJW to me is when one person says something that isn't polite or whatever, a dirty joke, and some fool gets offended and feels like (s)he has to represent a segment of population that might be offended too. So they go to social media and start a campaign against you and your company.
sturdy coral
.. you didn't give any examples like that though
you are just talking about outrage culture maybe
but not SJW
glossy agate
Yeah exactly. Not complaining about locomotion types though
mighty carbon
I personally never wrote a bad review or thumbed a game down. Maybe because I am really picky and haven't purchased anything that was looking as an awesome game, but turned out to be a total turd.
sturdy coral
(maybe because you had reviews to help guide your purchases)
mighty carbon
nope, never read reviews
(user reviews that is)
either play demo (doesn't happen too often nowadays), watch youtube gameplay or read selected reviews from jornos I've read before (and thus it seems like they aren't reviewing genre games for a paycheck alone)
I feel that people sometimes look at reviews summary on Steam (Positive, Mixed, etc. on the front page of the game) and that already impacts their purchasing decision.
Mixed reviews... That game is crazy awesome
negative reviews are bizarre - I don't get what these kids expect from games
glossy agate
Its cause they put micro transactions in a full price game, and the performance was really bad.
mighty carbon
or, "Absolutely Great game... " and thumbs down... WTF?!
sturdy coral
$60 games have a high bar
mighty carbon
who cares @glossy agate ? I played it without paying a single penny... It's not forced on players.
sturdy coral
single-use microtransaction items
mighty carbon
performance is great
glossy agate
The players cared obviously. And I agree its a toxic practice, thats getting more popular for some reason
mighty carbon
that's another issue.. I don't get why people don't understand settings.. They are PC gamers, aren't they? I disabled MSAA and used TAA and had smooth performance
again, microtransactions are there, but you aren't forced to use it.. I didn't even know there was such thing until I started reading into the reviews
I'd argue there are people who feel obligated to make a big deal out of everything they don't like and post a negative review. Usually people with a lot of time on their hands who have nothing else to do. Bitter individuals obviously.
glossy agate
Its not mandatory, but its still bullshit on $60 game. I am not the only one who feels that way according to reviews on all these games that are doing it.
sturdy coral
Some reviews say the game is padded out with filler that you can skip faster with microtransactions. It is really in vogue to hate that right now. Some people are definitely overplaying their hatred of it, but probably for good reason, to keep all companies from compromising game design with stuff that makes you pay to skip.
having that stuff in the game means you have to question the motives of the devs any time you reach filler or grindy content
glossy agate
New LOTR game did the same shit. Buy your way through the grind.
mighty carbon
if you into SP games with good story and rich lore, and into sci-fi, play DX HR and then DXMD
and see for yourself.. I enjoyed both games equally.
glossy agate
I played it last weekend, and it was so obvious.
mighty carbon
Oblivion has grind 😉 DX MD doesn't.. At least I didn't see it that way and I totally don't like grind
I stopped playing Diablo 3 because of too much grind
tired tree
then never try POE
diablo3 was uninspired grind
POE is grind for grinds sake, and enjoyable as all hell
glossy agate
But I don't think POE uses it as tactic to pry open wallets.
AND its F2P, which is where micro transactions belong if the dev wants the money they deserve
sturdy coral
yeah, it is pretty hard to complain about them in something that is F2P
the worst practice is an expensive multiplayer only game where microtransactions are added later and they affect game balance/add pay to win
and they only fully add it in after initial reviews
tired tree
poe was more a reference for the perfect way to deal with microtransactions
glossy agate
Thats exactly what PUBG just did haha. Buy a random chance at the gear you need.
I did a little work for robocraft back in the day. They were F2P, but it turned into pay2win pretty fast
wicked oak
and then you have stuff like warframe
grinding simulator 2017
but it is how the game is
like path of exile or diablo, its essentially a grinder
mighty carbon
ha, almost burned my project in the furnace at work while chatting about reviews o.O
Does PoE stand for Pillars of Eternity ?
glossy agate
Path of exile
glossy agate
This one just came out today. Curious on how it will do. http://store.steampowered.com/app/697020/Until_None_Remain_Battle_Royale_VR/
digital marlin
PoE stands for Pillars of Eternity to me 8\
a game which I loved but never finished for some reason.
mighty carbon
just heard from Meta AR that Meta 2 AR HMD supports Steam VR, and better support will be coming in a few weeks..
Someone from Epic said tracking is good
I don't know if it's Hololens good or not as good, but good enough
has anyone used Meta 2 AR ?
sturdy coral
until none remain looks like a pretty constrained area
that may be necessary with the low VR player base I guess
glossy agate
@sturdy coral Thats what I was thinking. BR probably runs into both hardware contraint, and playerbase issues. Risky move haha.
BAM just got a BR gammode though like 14 players max and people like it. At that number though its basically deathmatch with loot.
full junco
what a funny discussion you had here
@mighty carbon have you thought about maybe just not developing games? you don't seem to be too happy with it
if you would be more happy with not allowing people to review your game, you do something very wrong
mighty carbon
eeh?
Where did you see that?
dealing with entitled gamers and developing games isn't the same thing.. I don't see how you could even put it together
There were no user reviews up until 2011
and everyone was happy
shell quarry
users are notioruosly unreliable reviewers
the curaters system was a good move by steam
mighty carbon
I really like 90s... No user reviews, no social media, no flood of games, etc. Everyone was happy.
shell quarry
oh people were definitly unhappy they just didn't have a platform to broadcast their unhappiness to the entire planet
mighty carbon
meh, I don't know about that..
full junco
@mighty carbon and you wouldn't have been able to create any game in the 90s
mighty carbon
I would
I managed to make Steel Storm with ancient engine and FOSS tools.. And since Unity was crappy, there weren't whole a lot of indies to compete with..
full junco
in the 90s you wouldnt even have had an "ancient engine"
mighty carbon
So, I actually like the time when access to tools was restricted - less competition
full junco
you wouldnt even have been able to look for tutorials in the internet
mighty carbon
now it seems like everyone and their grandma are making games
full junco
you would have had to buy a book and somehow manage to find out how to write your own great engine with c++
or c
mighty carbon
Fair 'nuff.. I like 2008 - 2010 😃
shell quarry
that's fine better to have a bunch of crap if it increases the total amount of gems in the end
full junco
you can surely like 2008-2010, but it can't always be as perfect for you
mighty carbon
except it was 😃
glossy agate
More people are making more money from games now than ever before though. Its good now, if money is the goal.
mighty carbon
@Xanjis#5079 you have no idea what you are talking about.. With flood of games we have in 2017, you have to have some PR/Marketing.. That wasn't the case in 2008-2010
@glossy agate you mean Steam is making more money.. Not individual devs
shell quarry
pretty sure pubg barely got any PR and now it's the most popular game on steam
atleast not triple A marketing
glossy agate
I mean game industry is passing $100 billion now
mighty carbon
so back in 2009, there were 10 devs and they were making $100k. Now there are 100k devs making $100 (I am throwing numbers out there to pain the picture)
mighty carbon
someone does, just now us and not an average Joe-developer
glossy agate
Just like the broader economy
mighty carbon
mobile and consoles are making up major earnings
glossy agate
Just gotta be top 10%, but nowadays PR is a part of it.
glossy agate
Same with my day job I guess so Im used to that
shell quarry
it's not even marketing it's that you have to already have been a trustworthy dev to get anywhere
full junco
@mighty carbon what you seem to dislike is that now, many many more good indie games exist compared to 2008-2010. so its way harder now to make a very good game, especially if you are working alone on a game. and since you don't seem to be able to do it any more in this way more rich landscape of games, you blame people doing reviews or people doing this or that or whatever. but for the gamer, the time now is way, way nicer. so many great games to choose from. if you as a dev can't keep up with how it is now, just don't create games.
you always talk about how you have a great job and you have a life and a not much time to work on games and so on. so I don't even see why you expect that with such a limited amount of time, you can create any game that will get good reviews. you either need a crazy good idea, crazy skill or a crazy amount of time to create a good game now. if you don't have any of that, just don't do it
mighty carbon
@full junco you didn't even know about Cuphead.. So I assume that you don't even play those fine indie games you are talking about (and so don't many other people).
shell quarry
it's just a bad idea to try to make your job solely about games. Best bet is to just use what you learned with unreal and go program bank databases
glossy agate
^corporate VR contract work. Way lower risk
mighty carbon
@full junco I am doing it on purpose, so you had to say something negative 😛
shell quarry
vr is a good bandwagon to get in on for devs tbh
full junco
what on purpose?
mighty carbon
making games despite all odds
full junco
but you seem to complain all the time
I am working alone on my game too, but I don't have a life. I only work on my game. so I have all my time for my game.
shell quarry
some people are happy with their life and just need to vent some times though john
mighty carbon
again, on purpose, to get you riled up 😛
well, @full junco , you don't see me going on with: "Go get youself a life"
full junco
this is a game dev chat, wouldn't really make sense to tell me I should work less on my game here 😛
full junco
I honestly think you would be way more happy then because you would spend your time with some other stuff where you wouldn't have to complain all the time about how bad everything is
you don't see me complain about how bad everything is, I am happy
mighty carbon
I actually was saying earlier that I want to go standalone and simply was answering questions folks had about why I want to do that
I didn't just pop up out of the blue complaining and venting
full junco
well you are here for a bit longer already and I am too 😄
mighty carbon
I am not 100% happy with the market nowadays and ain't going to say nothing when I can say something
full junco
if you go back and see what you talked about the last 2 years it was a lot of complaining about how bad either ue4 is or game dev stuff in general
mighty carbon
UE4 was an alien tech for me 😛
game dev is fucked up industry, no need to sugarcoat it..
full junco
is is not fucked up. it is nice
shell quarry
I have this channel set to automatically read it out in an ai voice. Comedy gold to hear all these lines from a robot voice
full junco
lol
mighty carbon
eeh? well, I guess you don't read news and postmortems either @full junco
Volition was just shut down.. People work crazy hours, die, have no life, get divorced.. "Great" industry, no doubt
full junco
yeah I don't see game devs too often that created a really great game that people liked a lot saying how "fucked up" the industry is
shell quarry
great industry if your a prodigy with a quantum computer for a brain
mighty carbon
that's why in 2008 it was a golden era for indies.. People didn't want to put up with bs and went on making their own games.. Nowadays indie dev is even worse than AAA dev.
full junco
I fully agree with you that 2008 was a perfect time for indies
there is no point in complaining about how bad it is now compared to back then though
either make a great game, or don't do it
mighty carbon
2006 - 2010 was perfect timeline.. You could have life, you worked shorter hours and by just putting game on Steam you could have made a very decent living (and Valve usually didn't let all games through)
lol, well, amaze us with your great game and fortune it might make for you... or not. Good luck @full junco !
full junco
if you start working on a game now, you know how the industry works at the moment. so either you accept it and think you will succeed in the current conditions, or you think you won't and then you shouldn't even start working on the game
mighty carbon
Look at Titanfall 2 - great game, came out in the wrong time, failed
and that's AAA
lol, oh man.. I guess you gotta experience it first hand to eliminate that wishful thinking
and sure, it works for some.. but you should really get yourself ready for a failure. This way when you don't succeed, you aren't going to be too disappointed
full junco
if I fail I will fully blame myself for it though, while you blame everyone else
mighty carbon
that's one of the most retarded things I've ever heard
you presume that you either make perfect game or shitty game.. As if there is nothing in between
you can make an okay'ish game and with the right circumstances get on top. And those circumstances may not depend on you.
my original game was nowhere perfect, but it did well.. It wouldn't have done well in 2015+ due to refunds and user reviews and people being overly sensitive
glossy agate
Made some new hands for my game. (Just put them in and still have to set correct positions). Nice not having robot hands anymore, and particles are placeholder. https://youtu.be/Oxsizkgbaro
glossy agate
Made them from a previous model I had. Been a while since I painted skin weights for organic but it only took like 30 min. Got lucky
Textured in substance
mighty carbon
aye, cool
glossy agate
I exported robot hands and just re bound the bones to my new mesh to make retargeting easy peasy.
full junco
ryan says he made new hands for his game. motorsep asks where ryan did get the hands from. ryan says again he made them himself. motorsep's mind blown 
sorry 😄 it just was funny
full junco
@glossy agate your hands are nice, maybe a bit too shiny but I'm not fully sure what material they are made from, is it like plastic gloves?
weights seem to be quite pefect
glossy agate
I agree. Was supposed to look like black latex surgical gloves but there is a little disconnect from how it looked in substance to ue4. Easy to tweak though.
full junco
ah
glossy agate
Wanted to add a bit more dust to them also so they aren't too clean in dirty setting
full junco
probably a good idea
glossy agate
vocal whale
hello guys, i`m trying to push back vr motion controller pawn from the wall when people try to approch to the wall via arm swing locomotion system, but i cant connect pawn as a variable ! any idea ?
graceful junco
@vocal whale, launch Character takes a character as target input. A pawn in not necessarily a character. You have to cast to character first.
vocal whale
basiclly i just wanna to push back pawn from the wall how can i do that ? @graceful junco
pearl tangle
@vocal whale just get the distance between the character and the wall and set it's position to be further away from it?
pearl tangle
Nah they were a rip off and they can't track for shit from the stuff I had seen. I got a refund like 2 years ago
wicked oak
that is a great read
pretty much everything i already knew
except the tick group during physics
wich is quite interesting
tired tree
@wicked oak yeah, placing non interacting ticks into during_physics is a great idea, I hadn't thought about using the tick order for spreading cpu load
also nice to hear the monoscopic far field stuff is making its way to desktop
@full junco they also mention porting adaptive scalability to general engine use in those slide
mighty carbon
@tired tree are you going to add that trick with ticks to your plugin/template ?
tired tree
there isn't anything to do it to'
if you remember I try to keep gameplay out of it, and what little does have ticking usually has it off and when it is on it has to be in the pre-physics
its just a good idea in general
mighty carbon
I see, I didn't think physics are specific to the gameplay
trail shale
Why can't I get the game to launch into a true VR stand alone?
It only says VR preview
tired tree
@mighty carbon ...everything that moves should be pre-physics so that collisions work correctly....
otherwise you are moving it after the physics thread gets ran and it won't get correct collisions until the next frame (already simulated physics)
most of the plugin deals with things that move or are interactible
except for function libraries
you would move expensive things to during_physics that don't have interactibility or movement that requires collision
ie: gameplay specfic things
like non moving AI portions or scoreboards, or spawners or gamemodes
mighty carbon
I see
trail shale
I'm trying to make a particle emitter but it disappears once my VR player head moves through it...I'm trying to make it actually obscure the player's vision
so it's like i'm in the middle of a cloud but can see out
some occlusion or colliison settings in the particle itself?
urban shell
have entitlement checks been removed from oculus now?
alpine torrent
@mighty carbon first i was thinking is this new OEM to Windows mixed reality lineup of headsets
urban shell
meh..migrated project, and forgot to re-enable online oculus plugin. entitlement nodes now appear.
full junco
@mighty carbon ha, LG calling his desktop VR headset LG GearVR just with an "ultra" in between the words
I guess Samsung could easily sue them
I think picking such a similar name is quite a bad decision
mighty carbon
4.18.0 should be out next week
fresh laurel
yay
full junco
so in a month or so master will be 4.20
mighty carbon
@full junco what are the prominent VR features (or rendering features that are VR compatible) that will be coming in 4.19 ?
so... remember TimS complained about 30% taken by the storefront holders is too much? Well, Apple and Google now take only 15% instead of 30%
mighty carbon
full junco
thats only about "subscriptions" though?
not about regular app sales
and I don't know about any relevant features in 4.19
apart from vulkan improvements
vulkan will have significantly better performance in 4.19 compared to 4.18
mighty carbon
oh.. hmm.. I wonder if it's for music / books / movies only.. I don't recall subscription based games on mobile.
full junco
and epic said they would merge texture arrays in 4.19
mighty carbon
what's that?
full junco
a texture thats multiple textures, so an array of textures
mighty carbon
atlas ?
tired tree
REALLY?
full junco
so in the material you can select a different index using the UV and for every index you will get a different texture
tired tree
about damn time
full junco
it essentially does what a texture atlas is doing, just way more nicely
tired tree
that would have made things so much easier back when I was doing voxels
full junco
thats the PR
rolando said "We're now planning to have this for 4.19, and someone is scheduled."
tired tree
oh that one.....
full junco
that was back in july though, so no clue if they will really do it
full junco
koderz is updating it regularly
and quite a lot of people commented there and said they want to have it merged, so at some point epic had to do something 😄
you should also comment there and say you are looking forward to having it in 4.19 if you like to have it
the more "community interest" there is, the less likely is that they forget to merge it into 4.19
wicked oak
oh man, steam should now learn about the app store %
given that they do even less than google play and apple store do
too bad its a monopoly
full junco
@tired tree when I tested texture arrays with vulkan back in 4.16 or so, they actually didn't work because the whole texture array RHI code was missing in vulkan. nothing in the engine is using them, so rolando had no reason to add the vulkan rhi code for it. I told him about it and he then added all the RHI code for texture arrays, but he didn't use the PR, so he never tested if any of his code actually works
I tested it in 4.18 a while ago, and texture arrays fully work on vulkan
wicked oak
atlassing intensifies
they would do GREAT for actor merging
thats more or less the use i see for them
tired tree
i'm thinking about Ryans procedural depth work and how he could really use texture arrays to improve them
full junco
he could?
tired tree
not visually
mighty carbon
where can one use texture arrays ? UI elements ? What else ?
mighty carbon
well, if you have crap load if icons and whatnot, you don't want for them to be in the individual textures
full junco
all textures in the array have the same size, and UI elements usually dont all have the same size
for stuff that has the same size, yeah, makes sense
wicked oak
an atlas is better there @mighty carbon
full junco
no
mighty carbon
ok, so what's the use for texture arrays ?
full junco
I dont think an atlas is ever better than a texture array
texture arrays do what atlases do, just without all the issues atlases have
mighty carbon
if they are all the same size
full junco
yeah, inventory items too
mighty carbon
so, what are the cons of using texture arrays ?
glossy agate
What would be cool, is if you could mask them in the material. Kind of like the the render target stuff, but probably cheaper
full junco
texture arrays are a directx10 or 11 feature I think
so they just weren't supported earlier, it's stuff the GPU is doing
I mean, shader model 4 or 5
mighty carbon
I see.. So no downsides really
full junco
well, there is significantly less software to create texture arrays than software to create texture atlases
mighty carbon
oh, heh.. That's a big time downside
I thought one brings bunch of textures into UE4 and UE4 makes an array out of them
Unity says there is no pipeline for texture arrays
full junco
the software to create them is free, so its fine
mighty carbon
which software is it ?
full junco
PVRTexTool
wintry escarp
can anyone tell me why this returns 0,0? the thumbstick bit, the other bit returns true to say the touch controller is enabled https://imgur.com/a/iIxLg
sturdy coral
@wintry escarp how is it 0,0, it is only a 1 dimensional axis right?
mighty carbon
you know what I find bizarre ? Is that all of those companies went easy route and made wand-like controllers instead of making an ergonomic ones similar to Touch (unless that is patented of course)
full junco
what companies you talk about?
I would expect that lgs headset will ship with knuckles controllers
which are way nicer than the touch controllers
mighty carbon
aren't those still in R&D phase ?
full junco
yes, just like the LG headset still is
glossy agate
Any recommendation here for scary VR games that have no guns?
full junco
you mean like "sword instead of guns", or games where you can't defend yourself at all?
glossy agate
My friend coming over saturday was in the vegas massacre. She likes horror VR but is gun shy right now, I don't want to put her into panick attack
glossy agate
I just dont really have many non shooting games haha
She just texted asking for horror with no guns
mighty carbon
what makes a good horror game?
glossy agate
Don't know. Only one I have is Brookhaven
full junco
@glossy agate maybe you should quickly develop one 😄
full junco
oh
glossy agate
But it all morphed into my current game idea
needles freak me out, so maybe one with needles coming for your eyes, and hands or something haha
full junco
I would really like to work on some "story driven" VR game, there are way too few of those. but there will probably be always few since its just super expensive to create
detailed environments and characters and motion capturing...
glossy agate
Yeah, super time consuming, and I don't know anything about story telling.
full junco
I hope that someone will invent some magic technique that makes such games cheaper to produce...
glossy agate
I think just the dantes inferno story in VR would be so cool. All the visuals would be awesome to see
tired tree
much money, many memories
full junco
the cost of motion capturing can surely be solved
it pretty much is already
but I don't see how it will ever be cheap to create detailed virtual environments and realistic character models
characters can be generated procedurally, so that would essentially work too, at some point you open adobe whatever and just put some values in there and you get photorealistic characters
but the environments, I don't see any solution for that
glossy agate
I got adobe Fuse that kinda does that. Have to re-texture everything though to make them look decent.
glossy agate
Think Ill grab this game for my friend. Seems short enough http://store.steampowered.com/app/707580/AFFECTED_The_Manor/
full junco
good reviews, yeah
glossy agate
Seems easy for a noob to pick on too, cause she only tried VR once at a comicon
mighty carbon
Carmack said VR is awesome without having photorealistic visuals
full junco
carmack is working on mobile stuff
mighty carbon
wintry escarp
pissing me off, examples online suggest what I'm doing should give a value
tired tree
and you have the headset on?
wintry escarp
FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCK
rotation works without hmd on
thanks
I'm gonna stick tape over that sensor
mighty carbon
or just use VR Expansion plugin 😉
tired tree
I don't need you to shill my plugin motorsep
mighty carbon
well, if I knew of another VR plugin, I'd mention that instead of yours
granite jacinth
Was it sad that I had to google wtf "shill" meant?
tired tree
no, its adorable
full junco
PGO is great, but it makes packaging so slooow...
sturdy coral
@wintry escarp if it is rift there is an option to always force the proximity sensor on now
In the debug tool
sturdy coral
Yeah, that plus the health and safety warning being forced on every few minutes made it a total pain to dev for
full junco
hm, can't remember ever seeing health and safety warning
maybe thats a regional thing that they only show in the USA? 😄
I think I've just learned that I shouldn't use vr.steamvr.postpresenthandoff
sturdy coral
Now you can turn it off after the first view
@full junco what did you see with it? They didn't know the details of why not to use it when I asked them at office hours
full junco
ah
I added an option to my graphics menu so that I can easily turn it on/off
and my GPU time is a lot less stable when its enabled for some reason
I do not notice anything regarding the async reprojection, but I think I'm at 90 fps, so I can't really notice it
but the unstable GPU time alone is a reason to not use it
because unstable gpu time really doesn't work well with the adaptive resolution stuff
so visual quality is actually improved quite a bit with having vr.steamvr.postpresenthandoff disabled
I had it enabled all the time, I guess that was a bit stupid
btw, should the controller in UE4 actually lag behind the controller in the steamvr overlay even with late update enabled?
@tired tree you probably know the answer
full junco
ok
tired tree
it is and not thread delayed like ue4
its basically real time
or as close as you are going to get
full junco
I am sometimes seeing very strange lags with my controllers
so like, once every 1-2 seconds the controller is strangely jumping around a bit
as if it would show for 1 frame where it was like 5 frames ago or something like that
and that mostly happens while my game is very busy
tired tree
I get that when my playspace is really cluttered, miscalibrated, or I have my projector on
oh
full junco
so when my CPU is at 100% that happens way more often
tired tree
are yo still hitting 90fps?
full junco
so in my main menu, I dont notice it, since nothing is happening there
I think I am still hitting 90 fps, yeah
full junco
I would see in the steamvr frame timing monitor if I would go below 90, right?
it shows constant CPU time of ~3 ms and GPU of ~9 ms, even when my game causes 100% CPU load and the controllers do that strange jumping around
tired tree
lots of controller judder is from not being 100% stable 90htz
its a ue4 thing though.........
pretty sure that graph shows stable even when reprojecting....
been awhile since i've checked though
full junco
what is a UE4 thing?
tired tree
its a ue4 drop
not a steamVR
when ue4 drops to 45 frames and can only sample controllers at 45 htz then
full junco
shouldnt when it drops to below 90 fps always that stuff on the left be visible?
that vertical line
and I just tested, if I load up 4.18, vr template, and let prime95 run with 5 threads blend test in the background (it puts the CPU at 99%, even though I have 12 threads), then I also see the slightly jumping controller there I think
in my game it is way more noticeable though, but i'm still on 4.15 and they changed how late update stuff worked, right?
tired tree
yeah
in 4.18 late updates are handled differently
which is why I can't easily test for you, I already merged their changes into 4.17 version of my plugin
because they are good
regardless, you should be able to see short spikes on that graph
enable it in headset and play with screen percentage
full junco
you can test it for me
use 4.17 or 4.18 or whatever and let something run in the background that puts your cpu at 100%
full junco
just so much load that the CPU is at 100%, not more
tired tree
yeah? and if a frame takes slightly longer? then it a thread hits 12ms and spikes
full junco
so, don't run 20 threads if your CPU can only do 6 threads I mean, do it so that the game still manages to do constant 90 fps
the issue should be visible while the game runs at constant 90 and never drops below
and it is my test target because in my game I let stuff run on my own threads that causes to cpu to be at 100%
I made sure my threads run with very very low priority and that I dont spawn too many, but UE4 then sometimes has its nav mesh thread running, a physics thread, RT, GT, other pool threads for whatever stuff, so sometimes it just happens that my game is doing 100% CPU load even if I only use few custom threads
tired tree
why don't you use their thread pools? thats what I did with my voxel setup
then it plays nicely and you scale to the system
full junco
I do scale it myself
full junco
I have my own thread pool
if I only spawn so many that in the absolute worst case, when all UE4 threads are doing stuff and I'm doing stuff I'm not above the threads the CPU has, that would mean that in the more common case where UE4 isnt calculating navigation stuff or physics stuff, I would use too few of the CPU, so I do it so that there are "too many" threads in the worst case
so then 100% cpu load
tired tree
yeah no, at 100% utilization I get the normal spikes, it shows constant 90fps but its getting variable frame times
full junco
where is it showing 90 fps and where are you seeing variable frame times?
tired tree
its not "5 frames" worth
though
in game says 90 but thats just because its avg'd
steam graph shows spikes from time to time
in game
with the view in hmd
full junco
steam graph in game?
tired tree
commonly though you don't run at 100% on computers with a threadpool though
you keep it a thread or two below maximum
full junco
well that view in game is the same like on the monitor
tired tree
and keep in mind logical processors vs physical
full junco
well I shouldn't spawn same amount of threads on i5 vs i7
tired tree
have you looked at epics threadpool?
they limit it further
they spawn only to the physical cores
not the logical threads
full junco
why?
then the game can't run better on a i7 than on a i5
more threads are there to be used
tired tree
think they cap at 8 in editor and 4 in shipping?
or at least they used to
I uncapped mine that I derived from it, but still limited to below max logical
full junco
one good reason to use my own threads is that I can then exactly set the thread priority for them
but you don't see what I see, that even when steamvr says the frame time is at constant 90, the controller can lag?
tired tree
no
full junco
try to use a bit less CPU load so that you can still get 90 fps
tired tree
i don't see it then
full junco
with too few load I dont see it, with too much I see in the steamvr graph that some frames take longer than 11 ms, but there is a certain amount of cpu load where I do have smooth 90 fps and still see the controller issue
tired tree
like i said
tired tree
FLateUpdateManager in HeadMountedDisplay
they converted it to a class to handle things
instead of each late updated object handling it themselves
full junco
ok, thanks
uneven moon
you guys know anything about this
the two cabs are the exact same object duplicated but one ends up black after light build (static)
identical settings on the two meshes
so it's not a UV problem
skylight lights the one on the right but it's still dark, the directional light has no effect (except it does cast a shadow)
sturdy coral
@full junco I had somewhat similar tracking jumps when kinect was on until I turned down the priority of the kinect thread
@uneven moon add a small lightmass volume around it and that will give it more samples
the image based lighting of the skybox is modulated by the indirect lighting cache samples which are sparse in your main lightmass importance volume, additional small volumes are supposed to help
you can turn on a visualization of it to see
4.18 changes that a lot
uneven moon
@sturdy coral I've got one lightmass volume
It covers that entire area
Where one car looks fine, the other doesn't
Use more than one?
sturdy coral
if one happens to align with the origin of the sample
then one might get more representative lighting than the other
there are too many things about your setup I don't know though, so what I'm saying might not apply at all
are these cars movable and are they using single sample from stationary lights?
uneven moon
cars are static, lit by a directional light which is stationary
the light casts static and dynamic shadows
sturdy coral
If you place multiple Lightmass Importance Volumes, most of the lighting work will be done with a bounding box that contains all of them. However, Volume Lighting Samples are only placed inside the smaller volumes.
if you have just one volume though samples will be placed, but you can get more optimal placement with one big one and multiple smaller ones
uneven moon
Gotcha, I'll test now
sturdy coral
if the cars are static I don't think you would see the same issue
you often see dark meshes like that when you have a duplicated object in the same place
because the lightmass bake hits the duplicate but then it gets rendered below the primary, or things like that
uneven moon
the cars are static, no duplicates in the same place. what's strange is that the same mesh in two spots (close to each other) behaves differently. Adding smaller volumes inside the big one didn't change anything
if I duplicate the first car and place it next to it, both light fine.
that spot at the bottom right always makes the car dark
top left is fine, even when another car is added
both spots are inside the volume
nothing different
sturdy coral
are you using cascaded shadow maps up close?
uneven moon
the directional light is set to stationary so the cascaded options are greyed out
Except that one setting
sturdy coral
there is still an option for cascaded with stationary
ok yeah that one
it is 0 though so should be off
uneven moon
I can confirm only some spots in the parking lot = dark meshes
sturdy coral
turn on
Show->Visualize->Volume Lighting Samples
that should show you if it is related to the indirect lighting cache
sturdy coral
does your importance volume cover the whole scene? I think they are supposed to be concentrated near ground surfaces
sturdy coral
(the visualized samples, not the volume)
uneven moon
none appear in the parking lot itself
sturdy coral
put a smaller lightmass volume over the parking lot and see how they change
uneven moon
nothing changed
sturdy coral
takes a rebuild too
uneven moon
yeah I did
sturdy coral
post a screen of the lighting only view
uneven moon
sturdy coral
yeah, weird
if you zoom in on them you should see whatever pixel density the bake will go to
check your logs during the bake for warnings, but it should normally pop them up for you
I don't know what else to look at. You can try changing your light to static and see if it gets the same issue or fixes it