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HTC Vive Launch Thread -- Computer, activate holodeck

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Just experienced one of the coolest gaming moments I've ever had. I was playing Budget Cuts and was at the part where you're
in the ceiling. I teleported to the open tile and peeked through while on my hands and knees to see the two security robots. I then laid on my back, closed one eye and aimed my crossbow, and shot both of them.
It felt so awesome!
 

Krejlooc

Banned
What does a game like Budget Cuts do if you try to walk through a wall?

Budget cuts specifically? Nothing. There is a bit in the game where they put a grate outside of a walkway that is easy to get to if you "walk" off the platform so you are technically floating in space.

Other games? Some black you out until you exit the wall. Others will physically prevent you from moving into the wall. In UE4, if you give you pawn default collision properties, you can't walk into walls - walking forward into them will physically move your pawn backwards so that your new relative position is just outside of the wall.
 
I can't wait to try it. So do you keep coming back to any one game in particular?

Holopoint. Holopoint. Holopoint.

It's gotten to where that is the first thing I play when I put the headset on. I will play at least a round of Holopoint before I move on to other things. It's a really great workout as well as it requires more of a range of motion than any other game I've played so far. Plus it makes you feel like a badass. <- I can't stress that enough.
 

Jams775

Member
Anyone playing Windlands have a tip for getting up into that flying ship? I get as close as a board that goes vertical and it looks like the dev wants the playing to wall jump off of it but every time I do, I go flying too far.
 

Onemic

Member
Is it true that the mounting solution posted in the OP isnt viable for those with a popcorn ceiling? I already purchased both the rod and the clamp
 
Is it true that the mounting solution posted in the OP isnt viable for those with a popcorn ceiling? I already purchased both the rod and the clamp

I used the rods w/ a popcorn ceiling and it hasn't been a problem. I only applied as much pressure as was needed to keep the poles upright and don't plan to take them down any time soon, though. I could see it being an issue for someone who was regularly taking them down and putting them back up.
 

Onemic

Member
I used the rods w/ a popcorn ceiling and it hasn't been a problem. I only applied as much pressure as was needed to keep the poles upright and don't plan to take them down any time soon, though. I could see it being an issue for someone who was regularly taking them down and putting them back up.

In the worst case scenario,(Not that I'd be constantly taking them down) what would happen?
 
Is it true that the mounting solution posted in the OP isnt viable for those with a popcorn ceiling? I already purchased both the rod and the clamp

You could always try to put something like nice thick packaging foam on the end of it if you are worried.

Something like a steel plate and the packaging foam would be optimal. You would put the steel plate in between the end of the pole and the foam in order to distribute the pressure. So, pole, plate, foam, ceiling.

Don't need to get fancy if you don't want to. Anything you have laying around could be used to fit that context. Something flat and ridged for the steel plate and something firm and squishy for the foam.
 

Trojan

Member
Just setup my Vive today and I'm thoroughly impressed. Was able to clear a 3.2 X 2.4m space and spent an hour playing fetch on that Iceland mountain. Have so much to try with the stuff I downloaded but even the tutorial had me floored. My friends are also super pumped to try it out, so I will probably be having people over all weekend. Overall seems like a great purchase so far
 
Just setup my Vive today and I'm thoroughly impressed. Was able to clear a 3.2 X 2.4m space and spent an hour playing fetch on that Iceland mountain. Have so much to try with the stuff I downloaded but even the tutorial had me floored. My friends are also super pumped to try it out, so I will probably be having people over all weekend. Overall seems like a great purchase so far

If you like the archery demo in The Lab, then definitely check out Holopoint. Though you might want to take it easy if you aren't in shape. Probably a good idea to only do one or two rounds your first time if you aren't used to doing a full range of motion. But it will make you feel like Legolas and Katniss' prodigy.
 

Krejlooc

Banned
Just setup my Vive today and I'm thoroughly impressed. Was able to clear a 3.2 X 2.4m space and spent an hour playing fetch on that Iceland mountain. Have so much to try with the stuff I downloaded but even the tutorial had me floored. My friends are also super pumped to try it out, so I will probably be having people over all weekend. Overall seems like a great purchase so far

I really can't remember the last time I have been so completely taken by a piece of hardware. Best comparison I can give is when I got my dreamcast and completely fell in love with it. It's not that the Vive met my expectations, it's that my expectations were sky high after being involved with VR for 3 years and it still managed to smash them.

Full body, room-scale VR is magical. I don't think we'll see another mind blowing leap like that for a long time. We can improve the experience, of course, and things like Foveated Rendering will really increase the quality of VR going forward, but I don't know what could come up that would change the game up like roomscale full body VR has. It's the difference between "this type of gameplay concept wasn't possible before" and "this type of gameplay concept is now possible."

Of all the things I've demoed, Space Pirate Trainer seems to universally get the most praise from people who play it. It's got addictive gameplay. Budget Cuts is probably the single best game on the Vive at the moment, but it's only 1 level long. Hover Junkers is great too, but it's a hard game to properly demo because it's hard to explain to people (setting up your cover, switching guns, how to pilot your craft, the realization that you can duck and cover, how to reload, etc) and because it also depends on other people playing at the moment. But if you can get it all down and into a good game, Hover Junkers is really great.
 

Zalusithix

Member
Well, just got the sorbothane film today to apply to the magnetic-rail to keep the lighthouse bracket from having any potential to move over time due to vibration. It also provides an ever so slight vibration damping effect, but I got it more for the tackiness aspect.

Anyhow, for the hell of it I decided to test the now sorbothane covered rail against the metal corner drywall beads. Normally the rails will slide down the wall when attempting to support any weight due to the lack of friction between the surfaces. With the sorbothane backing, they hold to the wall like they're glued on when subject to sheer forces.

To demonstrate, here's an old audigy breakout box being held up:
72ZlTna.jpg
5CIyruD.jpg
MH0lcPL.jpg

That box is ~3.8 pounds and the rail didn't want to budge at all even with myself applying additional downward force. (The rail at the top of the box is only to keep it from tipping away from the wall and falling - it could only hold a few ounces of downward force at best.) While not really needed in my case due to the drop ceiling, it looks if you're lucky enough to have metal drywall corner beads, magnetic wall mounting is indeed a viable option.
 

Dex815

Member
Today I bought a few more games (120 euros more... oh boy) and tried a few:

Vanishing Realms - this is fun fun fun :) the definition of Zelda in VR that people uses is quite correct. I just wanted to check quickly if it worked with my GPU (GTX 770 4Gb). It did, and kept me so entertained that played the whole first chapter (~100 min). I only noticed a few frames drop in a very small area, not terrible.

Water Bears - I was afraid of the required room size cause I have 2.3m x 2.9m (requires 3m x 3m). So I was close to ask for a refund but I gave it a try and it worked perfectly. I finished all the puzzles in 50 minutes and had no problems with the room size. Probably the game should have more puzzles and more difficult ones too, but 10 euros for 50 minutes of some fun puzzles is not so bad I guess (considering the niche market).

TheBlu - woooow this one got me hard. I was totally not expecting for it to work with my GPU and it did, and never noticed a drop of frames. Maybe a bit pricy for only 3 experiences that last roughly 18 minutes in total, but they are really great. The lighting is amazing, the one in the deeps felt like reality. I don't think anyone would say that VR doesn't have a nice future ahead after playing these.

Space Pirate Trainer - Another one that totally works with the GTX 770. Also quite fun. I didn't make it farther than wave 8 I think. I cannot even imagine how people are getting those top scores.

So far the 770 seems to hold pretty well for all the games that I have tried with the exception of Holopoint. With all the official minimum requirements being at least a 970 I thought I would only be able to play a few like Tilt Brush or The Lab. Really glad to not have to wait till June/July for Pascal to experience most of these :D

BTW I tuned the chaperone to bright yellow and activated the floor boundaries always on, this last one helps A LOT to avoid reaching the chaperone. It gives you constant space awareness, I would recommend to activate it at least for the first few hours.
 

Krejlooc

Banned
TheBlu - woooow this one got me hard. I was totally not expecting for it to work with my GPU and it did, and never noticed a drop of frames. Maybe a bit pricy for only 3 experiences that last roughly 18 minutes in total, but they are really great. The lighting is amazing, the one in the deeps felt like reality. I don't think anyone would say that VR doesn't have a nice future ahead after playing these.

If you liked this, I recommend Irrational Exuberance, which is on Steam, and Sightline The Chair, which you can grab here: http://sightlinevr.com/

both are free and pretty awesome and kind of similar to TheBlu in that they are passive, visual feasts. If you don't mind dropping money for a similar experience, La Peri is $10 but probably the single prettiest demo I've tried. It's pretty amazing, although really short - like 8 or so minutes with two possible endings.

I really like these kind of interactive but passive experiences. The term I've heard used for them is FPX - first person experience. They kind of skirt the line between film and game. I'm really looking forward to longer, more story driven experiences like this coming in the future. The closest taste of this currently is probably The Gallery, but that is more of a puzzle game than really a passive experience.

One that I've been waiting for is by Virt, the guy who did the soundtrack to games like Shovel Knight, Nuren, Crypt of the Necrodancer, etc. He made a kickstarter about a year and a half ago to produce a several hours long VR rave, that would be host to several guest DJs. The demo he put out is sort of like a VR music video, and pretty awesome. No idea when the full version, called Nuren, will come out.

BTW I tuned the chaperone to bright yellow and activated the floor boundaries always on, this last one helps A LOT to avoid reaching the chaperone. It gives you constant space awareness, I would recommend to activate it at least for the first few hours.

Do you use the camera with your chaperone? I've found myself preferring the developer option, where the wall boundaries are turned off entirely and only the floor edge shows. I turn the floor edge up to bright red at high opacity, then augment using the chaperone camera which I set to a sort of cobalt color at very light opacity. That way I have a hard boundary I can see in my floor outline, and I get a light but unobtrusive visual feedback when I get to the edge in the form of the outline of my room.

When I demo to people, I turn it back onto the beginners option (and depending on preference, either turn on or off the chaperone camera) - better safe than sorry. But for personal play, I feel I know where I am in the room well enough with that minimal chaperone distraction.

I also use the full chaperone camera quite a bit if I need to "peak" into my room. Really, I get a lot of use out of the camera. I used to rave about the gear VR camera and I've been pretty vocal in my preferences for VR headsets to have built in cameras, so I'm super pleased that the Vive has one and that it's so consistently and easily reachable.
 

jotun?

Member
Anyone playing Windlands have a tip for getting up into that flying ship? I get as close as a board that goes vertical and it looks like the dev wants the playing to wall jump off of it but every time I do, I go flying too far.

Are you talking about this one?

6LYrQAN.png


If so, I got up it by just jumping at it then doing a bunch of quick taps for like 3 small walljumps in a row and managed to keep enough forward momentum


If you're talking about the one before that where there's a vertical board on the right and the target platform is up and ahead of you... well that one's just hard. When you walljump, you can somewhat control the angle that you jump out at, so you need to not go too far out, mostly forward... but not too much forward! I failed that spot like 5 times, but luckily you usually fall in range of one of the nearby trees

I like the game, but I don't care much for the no-swinging jumping sections
 

Jams775

Member
Are you talking about this one?

6LYrQAN.png


If so, I got up it by just jumping at it then doing a bunch of quick taps for like 3 small walljumps in a row and managed to keep enough forward momentum


If you're talking about the one before that where there's a vertical board on the right and the target platform is up and ahead of you... well that one's just hard. When you walljump, you can somewhat control the angle that you jump out at, so you need to not go too far out, mostly forward... but not too much forward! I failed that spot like 5 times, but luckily you usually fall in range of one of the nearby trees

I like the game, but I don't care much for the no-swinging jumping sections

Yeah I was talking about the one before with the vertical board. Do you aim your walljump by looking or use the direction pad? I try looking where I want to move but get pushed towards the ship. All the other spots haven't been too bad but this one has been rough on me.
 

BigTnaples

Todd Howard's Secret GAF Account
So I signed up for FedEx Delivery Manager yesterday in anticipation for my Vive as my card was charged.


My elation when fedex emailed me that a 15 pound package was on the way.


Well, but of snooping turns out it's a gift from a friend, not he Vive. Still awesome. But what a coincidence.
 

Compsiox

Banned
Budget cuts specifically? Nothing. There is a bit in the game where they put a grate outside of a walkway that is easy to get to if you "walk" off the platform so you are technically floating in space.

Other games? Some black you out until you exit the wall. Others will physically prevent you from moving into the wall. In UE4, if you give you pawn default collision properties, you can't walk into walls - walking forward into them will physically move your pawn backwards so that your new relative position is just outside of the wall.
I haven't played many games that actually stop you from going walls and stuff. Do any launch games do this? I played them all but I don't remember any doing this.
 

jotun?

Member
Yeah I was talking about the one before with the vertical board. Do you aim your walljump by looking or use the direction pad? I try looking where I want to move but get pushed towards the ship. All the other spots haven't been too bad but this one has been rough on me.

I'm playing on the Rift DK2, so I'm not sure if it's different on the Vive, but kind of both. Forward on the stick always moves in the direction I'm facing, so it's all relative. Just think of it like you barely want to touch that side wall, maintain momentum mostly forward
 

Tain

Member
I can't wait for the full Budget Cuts game.

As a fan of Arcade gameplay you should really try Holopoint. It gives me that Arcade feeling of wanting to 1CC it, except that I can't try more than a few times due to a lacking stamina stat :p

Got to try the Vive again today, unexpectedly, and yeah Holopoint is a BLAST. It's nuts how such a simple design gets so elevated by this tech.

Holopoint by Sega AM2 is a good fucking candidate for a dream game right now.
 

AwesomeMeat

PossumMeat
Water Bears is so good. It is super polished and a lot of fun. I thought the videos of it were pretty "meh" before I played it. It is a game I got for free a few weeks ago for some reason (i dont remember why it was free) and I'm finally getting around to it. It is a really solid game and very relaxing.
 

Samaritan

Member
Eep! Just checked and my order has now changed to "Pending Fulfillment" after getting my pre-authorization email. Ordered mine at the end of March, with a May estimate. Always figured that meant the very end of the month, but it's looking like it might come sooner now? At least, I hope that's what that means.
 

terandle

Member
HoloBall is pretty fun however I'm worried I'm going to smash my controller into the wall swinging that thing as hard as I can, would love to have a bigger space with this one.
 
Is there anything like RiftCoaster for Vive?

HoloBall is pretty fun however I'm worried I'm going to smash my controller into the wall swinging that thing as hard as I can, would love to have a bigger space with this one.

Be careful! Lots of people reporting the straps are garbage and snap easily.

Thanks for the response. Is there any option that is slightly more portable? Might try and bring this to a friend's house at some point.

Any 1/4 - 20 UNC threaded mount will work.
 

Tadie

Member
Got my Vive yesterday .

It is awesome!

Tried several games and applications ( Budget Cuts Demo, Holoball, Tilt Brush, Audioshield, SPT, Poly Runner VR, Realities.io, theBlu, Holopoint, Blarp und Irrational Exuberance: Prologue).

The experience was pretty great.

I love Holoball!!! :)

Such a great game.
But I only played each game nearly 15 minutes to be honest.
 
HoloBall is pretty fun however I'm worried I'm going to smash my controller into the wall swinging that thing as hard as I can, would love to have a bigger space with this one.

My wife let go of the controller playing this last night.
Somehow managed to grab the strap(it wasn't around her wrist) before it flew and hit the wall.

Don't know what was sexier...the fact she was actually playing a game after 10 years. Or that she ninja caught a wand blindfolded.
 
Where can I check if I´m in the Steam beta?

Is it easy to roll back?

It's just in the Steam settings menu somewhere - you can choose to opt in/out of Steam betas.
Yup- very easy- if you opt back out (in settings), it should restart Steam & automatically switch back to the non-beta version!
 

mrklaw

MrArseFace
is there a way to switch into steam cinema/theater mode from within steam VR? I wanted to try some of my SBS 3D bluray rips but I couldn't see any settings to switch, and I didn't want to use virtual cinema as I wasn't at my computer.

Also do you have to do anything special to get SBS 3D content to display as stereo?
 

deadfolk

Member
I cannot get the camera to work for me. I've tried different USB ports (USB2 and USB3) and even lowering the frequency to 30.

What happens is the camera view pops up for a moment, then the display goes grey, then camera again...rinse, repeat. At that point, I cannot even dismiss the camera - I have to remove the headset and disable the camera completely via the desktop.

Anyone seen anything like this?
 

sammex

Member
I've had my Vive for a few days now but as I'm so busy I've only been able to use it for a few hours. Setup was really easy, clamped the lighthouses on two large bookcases in my living room and everything worked straight away, took about 15 minutes in total but now I know how it's all supposed to go I could take it down and put it all back in 5minutes easily. Barely tried much outside of the lab but it's really impressive so far.
 

bj00rn_

Banned
Funny how opinons go.. Turns out I don't like Audioshield much even though it's one of the more popular VR titles around. The algorithm used to sync to the music doesn't make any sense to me. And the overall experience appears somewhat unfinished (imo).

theBlu on the other hand...is imo just fantastic.. What an experience.. All three scenarios in the paid version are great. I just wish there was more, but it's all worth every penny anyway. The production value is great, the attention to detail and animation is top notch. Now mix it with an even better hydrodynamics engine and even better animation (which is already good) my jaw will be permanently on the floor.
 

BigTnaples

Todd Howard's Secret GAF Account
theBlu on the other hand...is imo just fantastic.. What an experience.. All three scenarios in the paid version are great. I just wish there was more, but it's all worth every penny anyway. The production value is great, the attention to detail and animation is top notch. Now mix it with an even better hydrodynamics engine and even better animation (which is already good) my jaw will be permanently on the floor.


So excited to try theBlu. Really hope it does well enough that the add onto it or release another title. First thing I am going to try after the basic setup and maybe the lab.
 

artsi

Member
Funny how opinons go.. Turns out I don't like Audioshield much even though it's one of the more popular VR titles around. The algorithm used to sync to the music doesn't make any sense to me. And the overall experience appears somewhat unfinished (imo).

Yeah, I don't like it really. I want tracks with human made patterns like Osu or Stepmania.

If that was possible you could even make some actual dance choreography, if you can adjust the height / position of the balls.
 

mrklaw

MrArseFace
Beat budget cuts on the first go - think I've watched too many playthroughs on youtube. Wasn't scary, but you do instantly panic when your knives miss the target and attract the attention of the robots, and when you're scrambling to 'fire everything' as one comes around the corner.

I think it will be a game that needs more space as I wasn't confident throwing the knives quickly in case I hit a wall. First time I've switched the chaperone down to developer mode because the walls were too distracting too (and the game does a good job of showing your available space anyway)
 
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