Spent the day getting very dizzy and nauseous while fiddling to find the best stereoscopic settings, but I finally found some values that worked for me. The gun and cross hair presented my most time consuming challenges, but finally managed to wrestle them into submission and you can now run around a scene blessed with Rifty goodness.
I have decoupled the weapon from the 'look around and smell the roses' camera, which means you can look down and see yourself reloading, and have moved the gun to the place it should be if your head was some way above your arms :) I am not 100% happy with each of the many components that go into creating the illusion, and I think a LOT of fine tuning is required to recreate that larger than life world of VR.
There is a VERY fine line that needs to be trod so that your final VR render creates a player that is the right scale, the right height, carries things correctly, moves properly, tilts the head from the right joint and a massive bag of very small and subtle things that break the illusion. As you can imagine this is not a day's work to do, but I am pleased the main blocks of functionality are in place and allow you guys and gals to start playing with the Rift and Reloaded (if you are lucky enough to own both).
Friday I don't plan to let the grass grow around my feet, and I move onto the character AI work. I need to stop them walking into deep waters, firing through terrain and generally behaving like lemons.
Play
Another 4 miles on my personal walking clock, which allowed me to reward myself with a glass of J.D & Coke. Have ten more minutes writing this blog post and then I am off to watch Time Team and eat. Might return later for 2 more hours of bits and bobs. I have a spare PC with a duff power supply that needs repairing, and a new SSD which needs to go in my newest PC as I plan (once again) to migrate to the new one and leave the old one as a backup. The reason being that my current (old) PC has the nastiest and badly messed up registry you can imagine, and it's starting to prevent me installing stuff.
Awesomeeee
ReplyDeletewell done Lee, besides rift will there be stereoscopic rendering aswell?
Riftastic indeed - this just made my week, my month, my year... lol!!! Counting down the days to Jan 31st!!!
ReplyDeleteWill these details (detailed reloading etc.) be available to the users of the main engine?
ReplyDeleteNice work anyway!
i'd never own rift.. my choice. and i guess half the people who want it, and then get it WILL regret the decision
ReplyDeleteWhy would they regret it? I know people that have it and have a lot of fun with it
DeleteThe difference between HMD and Stereo is just the settings in the shader but I am focusing on Rift only for now to spend my energies as a precious resource. Non-rift users cannot view detailed reloading as the head position is fixed to the gun cursor. Rift users can reload and then look 'down' whilst the gun is facing forward, a very cool trick for VR!
ReplyDeleteI understand that but i hope that you will include it afterwards, since lets be honest
ReplyDeleteVR for rift only is not a solution, the ultimate goal should be to provide both but yes i agree it is more important to get rift first.
btw may i ask what are the plans regarding mobile support, is there some kind of schedule?
Considering the frames per second your currently getting with Reloaded you sure you want to see what thats going to be like on your mobile device? It would be 4 to 5 times slower.
DeleteId rather see support for Mac and Linux years from now rather then mobile. They just dont have the video memory required for games that would be generated with Reloaded.
No current plans for mobile support. All our energies are going into the PC version ;)
ReplyDeleteYaya got you Sir ;)
ReplyDeleteThis is a GREAT Reloaded in my opinion. And this feature should be advertised heavily. The Rift is one of the most exciting gaming technologies to come along in a long time. For me, the future of gaming isn't the Xbox One or PS4 (which already seem quaint and outdated), but instead a gaming PC paired with a Rift on a 4K monitor.
ReplyDeleteMark - I agree 100% - the Rift is going to change everything.... for those of use that went through the original VR fad - this is a totally new technology. It now works thanks to the advancements of high res screen, etc. Once one looks through the Rift - they instantly 'get it'. Lee - by the way saving your screenshot to my desktop and viewing at full screen through the rift looked great! Feel free to show more. I also linked your blog on the Oculus Rfit forums updating that Rfit support was now present.
ReplyDeleteIf only I could afford a rift setup :( Still, nice to hear it's working nicely. The coolness factor of any demo where you can run about and look around while doing so would be awesome! I was always disappointed that VR didn't take off many years ago, but lets hope this will take off!
ReplyDelete@ space123321, I think the VR revolution was more based on hardware issues more than the screen issue. Running complex scenes in 3D now is possible, whereas in the 90's, 3D was a joke in comparison. It seemed great at the time, but today it looks terrible. Obviously better screens help enormously, but if scenes could look as good as they do now, I think a blurry screen would have been quite acceptable!
I tried some very crazy VR hardware over the years. The one before the Rift was called VR920(c)(r)(tm) and did a decent job of stereoscopics but failed on tracking and viewer coverage. The Rift solved these issues, and I have to tell you, when you enter the Riftverse (providing you don't vomit all over your keyboard), it's like NOTHING you've ever experienced. I have to keep calm as I know many readers want me on AI, logic, performance, e.t.c. but between us Rifters, it's like someone just discovered cross-shredded bread! The downside is that it puts artists under a very powerful microscope as you see every little flaw when the brain gets tricked into believing these artificial items are in the REAL world!
ReplyDeleteP.S. Viewing the blog image full screen through the Rift HMD is a pretty neat trick. Never thought of that ;) Hopefully you can see how the sniper rifle really pops in the scene. I spent literally minutes just reloading the weapon over and over. Funny how apt the title of this development is, and describing the number one activity early Rifters will perform with the engine.
ReplyDeleteMight also explain why I am still up at 3AM ;) So much for getting up at 9AM on Friday I guess, but at least I can vouch for a great Rifting experience when you get your hands on the beta at the end of the month.
ReplyDeleteLOL - I love it Lee... great stuff and it is so nice to see the excitement from the rift in your blog... sorry to all non-rifters - however huge victory to the rifters out there. I might also note that over the years I have dumped way to much money into VR technology only to be disappointed - however $300 towards a dev kit and everything changed. I will be one of the first in line for the next dev kit (HD) or the actual commercial version of the rift - whatever comes first. I am so pleased that I pledged Reloaded with the hope that the Rift would be supported down the road, only to find out that it is supported this early in the process. Thanks again Lee!
ReplyDeleteSadly I'm never going to own a rift, so this won't be an experience for me.
ReplyDeleteAmazing! You have beaten CryEngine Free SDK for implementing Oculus Rift! I was reading Lee's comments, and one thing became very apparent. Through VR your mind will associate the 3D world you are playing in with reality. It will be harder to create the illusion of a VR world, as Lee was saying, because every little detail has to be perfect, and the more photo realism the game engine graphic can produce the better. I have been creating content and game levels with CryEngine 3, which is very complicated. But the graphics are almost photorealistic. I'm just suggesting to take a look at CryEngine 3 for inspiration. I know a lot of people in that community are desperate for the Rift. The simplicity and power of Reloaded is impressive, now that the Rift has been added. CryEngine enthusiasts might crossover, and there are millions of them. We should concentrate on creating the most photo realistic graphics possible. That is what will set future games apart; that is what will attract a lot of people. AI, game logic, Weapons, etc are pretty much the same across platforms, the trick is in the eye candy, especially for VR. Great job Lee!
ReplyDeleteHi Lee,
ReplyDeleteCould you look at the LOD distance for entities? I mean the possibility to set own distance. It seems it doesn't work in the latest Alpha. I'm sorry for my another post about LOD, but it is an important thing for me:)
Awesome job Lee :) looking forward for some awesome rift experience on Reloaded.
ReplyDelete