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The Big VR Thread

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I only got to tune in for a little bit (looking forward to the VoD) but the frame rate on some of the stuff Dan was looking at was pretty lousy looking. I wonder if it was only on the stream, the second video output, or if the headset was showing the same unevenness. That seems like an issue if it's on the headset.

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I only got to tune in for a little bit (looking forward to the VoD) but the frame rate on some of the stuff Dan was looking at was pretty lousy looking. I wonder if it was only on the stream, the second video output, or if the headset was showing the same unevenness. That seems like an issue if it's on the headset.

They said that it felt fine when actually playing; this might be thanks to asynchronous time warp (which apparently smooths out juddering at less than optimal frame rates).

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Hmm, it looks like Adr1ft is going to be compatible with Vive after all... how many petals are left? Apparently the gameplay isn't great, but I plan to get it anyway for the awesome space views :).

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So yesterday we announced the project (yeah, on April Fools Day, and on the Giant Bomb UPF stream at that) that Will Smith left Tested to work on. FooVR.

 

https://medium.com/will-smith/what-i-ve-been-working-on-84871ac38cea#.5jhbwk15j

 

What we've been tinkering on the last several months has been a framework for recording and publishing "shows"/"podcasts" with multiple people in the same VR space. Of special interest to us Thumbs readers; Episode 0 is an interview with our very own Jake and Sean about Firewatch, complete with a trip to VR version of Henry's lookout tower.

 

It's currently live on Oculus Home, and we're working on kicking out a final Vive SteamVR build. I think that version is going to be really impressive due to room tracking and the hand controllers, and internally we're developing and recording with the Vive so the project is tuned for it. 

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I'm excited about this. I hope the episode is still up by the time I get some hardware that can run it.

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Can I just confirm that as a VR viewer of these recordings, you can walk around in them and stuff? Can you tea-bag the guests?

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So yesterday we announced the project (yeah, on April Fools Day, and on the Giant Bomb UPF stream at that) that Will Smith left Tested to work on. FooVR.

 

https://medium.com/will-smith/what-i-ve-been-working-on-84871ac38cea#.5jhbwk15j

 

What we've been tinkering on the last several months has been a framework for recording and publishing "shows"/"podcasts" with multiple people in the same VR space. Of special interest to us Thumbs readers; Episode 0 is an interview with our very own Jake and Sean about Firewatch, complete with a trip to VR version of Henry's lookout tower.

 

It's currently live on Oculus Home, and we're working on kicking out a final Vive SteamVR build. I think that version is going to be really impressive due to room tracking and the hand controllers, and internally we're developing and recording with the Vive so the project is tuned for it. 

 

This sounds really cool, but I'm also quite sad about all the 'person X hasn't slept in days' toxic crunch BS.

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@clyde 

We have no plans of taking Ep0 down, and in case we do I'm sure I could kick you a build. :)

 

@Ben

Oculus doesn't do room tracking the way Vive does, so we had to settle with teleporting between preset points in the environment. But you can pick up a copy of Dangerous Hunks and slap Sean in the face with it if you so desire, or any number of other props around in Henry's Tower. (There may even be a Christmas Duck hidden somewhere in there)

 

@Osmosisch

Yeaaah, we're all kinda short on sleep. It ain't great. But that's the reality of 4 people with no money trying to make something ambitious that's really reliant on getting eyes on it early. In a perfect world we would have enough time and money to take it at a comfortable pace and make sure everyone's well rested and everything is well polished, but them's the breaks. I'd argue that us busting our ass on something we care about and want to make great is different from a AAA producer telling everyone to stay the weekend, or an art student mistakenly thinking the only way to be successful is to paint for 18 hours straight every day. 

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Some kind soul recorded Ep0 for the youtubes. Enjoy our hilariously janky demo vicariously though someone else's eyes. 

 

 

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Very cool, fun pilot episode and the VR interactions made it more enjoyable than I would have expected. You've probably considered it but you could have your own version on Youtube with like 3D and 360 video support. It's nice that someone uploaded episode zero but in the future you and other content creators would want to control that distribution.

 

Also reminds me of this thing that Microsoft released recently: 

 

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@Osmosisch

Yeaaah, we're all kinda short on sleep. It ain't great. But that's the reality of 4 people with no money trying to make something ambitious that's really reliant on getting eyes on it early. In a perfect world we would have enough time and money to take it at a comfortable pace and make sure everyone's well rested and everything is well polished, but them's the breaks. I'd argue that us busting our ass on something we care about and want to make great is different from a AAA producer telling everyone to stay the weekend, or an art student mistakenly thinking the only way to be successful is to paint for 18 hours straight every day.

I understand. For short projects and such like this it can make sense to go above & beyond for a short period. I don't think that makes it OK to glorify that kind of thing, or frame it as normal. And yeah, of course it's different for a small outfit - but not in all ways. If through cultural osmosis this is the way all small studios operate, it makes it harder and harder for anyone to get into gamedev as a career while living a 'normal' life.

Anyway I'm sorry to add a sour note to what looks like a lovely moment for you. Congratulations again.

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Awesome, I was worried this was just going to end up being some sort of boring conferencing solution.

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I borrowed the office DK2 last weekend and checked out the stuff in Oculus Home, including the Foo Show. It was pretty damn cool. Standing next to Sean Vanaman as he reads the blurb on the back of an in-game book and talks about the writing of said blurb was pretty out there. It feels like being there in the room with the guys, but then you realize that the room doesn't actually exist outside of the simulation. The mix of reality, Video game and podcast is unlike anything I've experienced before. A new medium. I look forward to future episodes. :)

 

Also played a whole bunch of Lucky's Tale. Very solid, fun platformer, tho for some reason the performance goes to hell on the first level of Chapter 4(Magma Mambo, I think it's called). The game was buttery smooth up till that point but then it immediately became unplayably laggy. :/

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Pinball FX2 on the Rift. The footage is very shaky, but this video shows me some stuff I want to know about.
 

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This article suggests that there may be significant VR news at the upcoming Google conference. A smart-phone that is built with the capability to capture 3D meshes of spaces would certainly perk my ears up.
http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2016/04/the-google-io-2016-schedule-is-packed-with-virtual-reality-talks/

 

BTW: I just found out that I can make stereoscopic 360 captures of any scene in a Unity project using a free prefab from the asset store. That is awesome. I have only done a few tests, nothing that I'm especially proud of. But it's cool to be able to see 3d, panoramic captures of things I drop into Unity using the GearVR. 4096x4096 seems to be the best resolution for it. I've also been experimenting with using the ios Street View app to make photospheres for use in the GearVR. It's pretty fun.

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Got my Vive set up last night! Wasn't too bad to get going, had to update the controller firmware but after that things were pretty smooth. The area I have juuust barely fits the minimum for room scale (about 5' by 6' I think?)

 

So here's me playing Space Pirate Trainer in my pajamas and grinning like an idiot.

 

B6n8Wqw.jpg?1

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Thanks for sharing.

I've got an Oculus order in for the beginning of August. I'm paying attention to news about things like Project Tango, Samsung's dedicated device, and details about the Touch controllers in the meantime. If any dramatically benificial alternatives arrive before my creditcard gets charged, I'll jump ship. Either way, I hope the platform-companies prioritize cross-platform support between the devices because I'd love to see what hanging out with Thumbs in VR would be like.

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I just got my Vive this week and I'm loving it. I can't wait for the full version of Budget Cuts to come out, I had several moments where by the skin of my teeth I managed to take out a robot and it was that much more exciting because it involved me crouching on the ground, turning around and quickly throwing a knife at it. 

 

FOO Show was a lot of fun to interact with, can't wait for more of that. The novelty of being next to the people overrides the jankiness of it that you see when watching a video replay of it. 

 

But for the time being I'm actually most excited just to show the Vive to people. I showed one friend yesterday and it just blew his mind. Watching people play VR games is just a delight.

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