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[kinggroin]

You guys seen this yet?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2p9Cx4iX47E&&ab_channel=Mindshow

Seems pretty cool! Rigs character models to you so you can perform as them and play it back. You can sign up for early access but there's a queue.

Spoiler

I have so many dumb fucking ideas already in mind.

THIS NEEDS ITS OWN THREAD

 

[pj]

Just for the record, 2.0 means that you are rendering (1200*1.4*2.0)*(1080*1.4*2.0)*2 pixels per frame.

That's almost exactly as much as 10 "full HD" 1080p frames. And you need 90 of those in a second.

Yeah I'm aware. When 1080 came out people were claiming 2.0 worked fine. I think I'll probably keep it around 1.5 because I didn't notice a ton of difference between 1.4 and 2.0

I have a feeling that the people claiming 2.0SS as being fine with the Titan X are most likely in reprojection territory. Sure they're not dropping frames, but if you're sensitive to the reprojection artifacts, it's still not a great setting. Especially in games where you have fast moving action.

Yeah I noticed it immediately on the gun in SPT. Turning off reprojection made it into a judder fest.

 

[thepotatoman]

I just updated my free UE4 VR demo, Star Hill VR, to add Vive support (it was previously Rift DK2-only). I don't actually own a Vive though (yet), so if one of you could test it and confirm that it works with the Vive, I'd appreciate it!

Download is at the bottom.
https://happolygames.itch.io/star-hill-vr

It works. Head pivot only which feels a little weird compared to the complete 1:1 stuff. Makes turning your head left or right feel slightly off.

I couldn't figure out the controls to do anything but move, look, and jump, leaving me stuck at the intro level thing.

 

[Durante]

Continuing on from my post yesterday about the "The Lab" renderer for Unity, apparently Carmack recently said that “Not using MSAA should be an immediate fail for any app submission [to the Oculus store].”

While I don't see why anyone would care about the Oculus store (sorry John ), after experiencing the performance and IQ of it I really think that forward rendering with hardware MSAA is currently the way to go for VR-first project. The advantages are just too significant to ignore.

 

[Theanine3D]

It works. Head pivot only which feels a little weird compared to the complete 1:1 stuff. Makes turning your head left or right feel slightly off.

I couldn't figure out the controls to do anything but move, look, and jump, leaving me stuck at the intro level thing.

Thanks a lot for letting me know! I'm not sure why it's head-pivot only, I'll have to look into that. There's probably a setting for it in UE4 that I didn't turn on.

There are actually no other controls besides those you mentioned. To activate the star flowers (which serve as switches to activate doors) you simply touch them by bumping into them.

 

[Trojan]

Continuing on from my post yesterday about the "The Lab" renderer for Unity, apparently Carmack recently said that “Not using MSAA should be an immediate fail for any app submission [to the Oculus store].”

While I don't see why anyone would care about the Oculus store (sorry John ), after experiencing the performance and IQ of it I really think that forward rendering with hardware MSAA is currently the way to go for VR-first project. The advantages are just too significant to ignore.

Can you give a quick description of how Valve's new renderer differs from base Unity and UE4? Are the benefits just from the aliasing technique they use or are there other major things contributing to the IQ bump? Curious on how renderers can differ from a VR perspective.

 

[Durante]

Can you give a quick description of how Valve's new renderer differs from base Unity and UE4? Are the benefits just from the aliasing technique they use or are there other major things contributing to the IQ bump? Curious on how renderers can differ from a VR perspective.

There are two major differences that come to mind:

• It's a single-pass forward renderer, rather than a deferred or partially deferred renderer. This allows it to use hardware MSAA, which is relatively cheap and quite simply gives a better result in VR than any of the current state-of-the-art temporal accumulation (or older pure postprocessing) solutions.
• It has automatic quality adaption (primarily by means of changing resolution) in order to maintain the framerate target.

There are also some more minor things, like optimizing for latency by flushing the queue more aggressively and multiple times per frame.

It also has disadvantages, the most crucial for me currently being that it doesn't support cascaded shadow maps. That's not an inherent problem though, just an engineering issue.

 

[Prophet Steve]

Continuing on from my post yesterday about the "The Lab" renderer for Unity, apparently Carmack recently said that “Not using MSAA should be an immediate fail for any app submission [to the Oculus store].”

While I don't see why anyone would care about the Oculus store (sorry John ), after experiencing the performance and IQ of it I really think that forward rendering with hardware MSAA is currently the way to go for VR-first project. The advantages are just too significant to ignore.

I'm working at a company that also uses Unity for VR. Sadly they use deferred rendering. For their previous project they just used FXAA and now they are waiting for the temporal AA in Unity. I brought it up but they don't seem convinced at all that MSAA is the way to go.

It is so devastating.

I doubt I'll have the time to convert the project to use The Lab renderer and have a well-running MSAA comparison.

 

[SimplexPL]

I'm working at a company that also uses Unity for VR. Sadly they use deferred rendering. For their previous project they just used FXAA and now they are waiting for the temporal AA in Unity. I brought it up but they don't seem convinced at all that MSAA is the way to go.,

I think I read somewhere than temporal AA does not work well in VR (i.e. postprocess shader AA in general does not work well in VR). Basically the only working AA are SSAA (extremely resource heavy) and MSAA (not compatible with deferred rendering). This is a very sad state of affairs if true.

 

[Astral/H3X]

So I saw earlier some discussion on Raw Data being unusual in that it uses resources to load the mirror window. I have a few questions on that.

1) most importantly, can you use the built in SteamVR mirror instead? Does that circumvent the resource usage?
2) are there any other games that we know of that exhibit this behavior?

 

[Tain]

Temporal AA definitely doesn't look very good in VR. When it comes to FXAA, I go back and forth on whether it's worthwhile, though currently I'm not using it in my project.

I'd like to use MSAA in my UE4 project. Hopefully Epic's partial adaptation of the Oculus forward renderer stuff happens in the near-ish future. Until then, brute force I guess.

 

[Prophet Steve]

I think I read somewhere than temporal AA does not work well in VR (i.e. postprocess shader AA in general does not work well in VR). Basically the only working AA are SSAA (extremely resource heavy) and MSAA (not compatible with deferred rendering). This is a very sad state of affairs if true.

I'm sure it won't work well. We don't even do a lot of dynamic lighting, pretty much the only reason is for HDR. And MSAA costs them too much performance atm.

 

[SimplexPL]

From little what I know, MSAA has big performance hit AND poor coverage on deferred engines, so it's a dead end.

 

[Prophet Steve]

From little what I know, MSAA has big performance hit AND poor coverage on deferred engines, so it's a dead end.

Well yeah, but I mean even when switching to forward rendering they think it costs too much performance for too little benefit.

 

[Akronis]

There are two major differences that come to mind:

• It's a single-pass forward renderer, rather than a deferred or partially deferred renderer. This allows it to use hardware MSAA, which is relatively cheap and quite simply gives a better result in VR than any of the current state-of-the-art temporal accumulation (or older pure postprocessing) solutions.
• It has automatic quality adaption (primarily by means of changing resolution) in order to maintain the framerate target.

There are also some more minor things, like optimizing for latency by flushing the queue more aggressively and multiple times per frame.

It also has disadvantages, the most crucial for me currently being that it doesn't support cascaded shadow maps. That's not an inherent problem though, just an engineering issue.

Unfortunately forward rendering caps lighting quite a bit.

Point lighting is incredibly expensive with forward rendering, as I understand it.

 

[Prophet Steve]

Unfortunately forward rendering caps lighting quite a bit.

Point lighting is incredibly expensive with forward rendering, as I understand it.

The Lab renderer is much better with that though and allows up to 18 lights in a single pass.

 

[Starviper]

I've only got a 1080p Tv attached but 4770 & a 1070 and have to turn some settings down but SS I can run at 2 (in game not steam VR) setting and definitely not reprojecting
Had to move back from the beta branch to the stable release of steam vr for the first time since May this weekend though due to performance of the latest beta

Yeah SS set through Nvidia control panel seems to work; and I wasn't aware the beta brance was causing some performance problems. I'll try switching back as well and see how things work!

 

[josecitoxnyo]

Have you tried looking at the frame timing graph in steamvr?

It should be able to tell you what's eating up all render time

It seems the issue is motherboard related, something breaks the Vive. I built another PC with every single part of the other one except the motherboard, i use a Z170mx Gaming 5 and it works perfectly. The G1 gaming is the one with problems and i can't pin point why.

Everything works fine except VR, something breaks the Vive. I already disabled onboard devices like audio, networking, etc and it does'nt do anything. : /

I open Steam VR, move the mouse and the performance graph starts filling with missed frames LMAO WTF

 

[Durante]

Unfortunately forward rendering caps lighting quite a bit.

Point lighting is incredibly expensive with forward rendering, as I understand it.

It does introduce a cap (of 18 as it is currently configured). But up to that cap it's not really all that expensive. This also depends on the specifics of a given scene.

Of course, forward rendering does have some disadvantages, otherwise no one would ever have invented deferred shading. However, particularly for the use case of VR and the things important for that use case, I think the advantages outweigh the disadvantages.

 

[Evo X]

Free Vive game releasing tomorrow.

Independent developer Black Cell OG is set to launch their debut title on HTC Vive tomorrow, Wake Up. Billed as an ‘atmospheric riddle’ videogame, Wake Up takes the player into a broken dream environment.

In Wake Up, players will experience a mysterious dream in virtual reality (VR), where your only guide is a small butterfly. Tasked with solving riddles in order to wake up from this world, players will journey through a variety of surreal environments with a unique soundscape.

According to Black Cell, Wake Up is ‘a smaller game which will take between 20 and 40 minutes to complete, depending on the speed you are able to solve the riddles’.

http://store.steampowered.com//app/499540

http://www.vrfocus.com/2016/08/black-cell-aim-to-wake-up-your-htc-vive-tomorrow/

 

[Evo X]

New info on DOOM VR

Doom May Have Solved VR's Traversal Problem

There's a glaring, unavoidable issue facing every developer who dares to venture into virtual reality: how do you handle movement? The answer for many creators--especially those making first-person shooters--has been some form of teleportation. Rather than risking motion sickness by letting players sprint straight ahead, they allow you to warp around the map with some sort of point-and-shoot traversal mechanic. It works, but it's clumsy and often jarring, especially since it's easy to lose your bearings while magically popping from the place to place in first-person.

Doom VR takes this same tact but ends up feeling far more elegant thanks to a few subtle yet crucial tweaks. Rather than instantly shifting the camera from point A to point B, Doom makes you feel like you're dashing through the world with super speed: when you hold down the trigger of HTC Vive's left handheld controller, the world slows down, the audio drops into a deep rumble, and a bright blue aiming cursor appears. When you release the trigger, you see the world rush past as you dart to your selected destination. Being able to see how you got to where you're going while feeling like a time-bending badass in the process feels worlds better than the instantaneous, unceremonious perspective shift found in other VR games.

In fact, it works so well, it actually enhances the intensity of Doom's already frantic action. During a recent hands-on demo at QuakeCon, I found myself locked in a circular, metallic hallway filled with infinitely-spawning mancubi, cacodemons, revenant soldiers...basically every iconic Doom enemy imaginable. Seeing those familiar creatures up close in VR was breathtakingly cool, but that's no surprise--immersion is what VR does well. Far more impressively, I had an absolute blast warping through the environment with the new bullet-time-meets-traversal system.

When waves of snarling monsters rushed towards me, I would whip my head around in search of open areas I could target with the glowing traversal cursor, frantically chaining together multiple consecutive teleports with my left hand while still firing off rockets with my right. I eventually found myself crossing my arms and even aiming behind my head to avoid enemy flanks and maximize my chances of survival. Where many VR shooters end up being dull, on-rails shooting galleries, Doom's unique movement mechanic turned every area into a dynamic, open arena, and instead of letting enemies shamble straight at me, I could blink all around them like Dishonored's Corvo Attano. In short: I was having fun not in spite of the traversal mechanic but because of the traversal mechanic.

It certainly didn't hurt that Doom VR looks excellent, though. It retains most of the visual detail of the recently released (and well reviewed) full game, as well as many of the series' signature weapons: I used the plasma rifle, super shotgun, rocket launcher, and long-range pistol during my run, and even got to lob a grenade by actually swinging my arm. Like the movement, the aiming and shooting controls felt smooth and clearly communicated.

What's not clear, however, is the structure and scope of Doom VR. Will we be able to play the entire Doom campaign in VR? Possibly, but the developers have yet to confirm or deny anything. For now, my demo featured a selection of unrelated environments that were stitched together by an in-game narrator (communicating by radio or intercom) who would matter of factly inform me he was saving me from certain annihilation as he beamed me from one dangerous situation to the next.

After starting in a quiet marine laboratory filled with weapons and enemy holograms to examine, I was quickly thrust into a looping, inescapable metal hallway that was rapidly filling with monsters. After that, I was beamed "somewhere safer" and ended up on a rocky pillar in the middle of hell. Finally I found myself in a dark cavern occupied by the Spider Mastermind, whose fleshy brain spurted blood as his massive, scorpion-like claws swiped at me. I was terrified, awestruck, and--shortly thereafter--dead.

Clearly Doom VR doesn't intend to shy away from boss battles or other major set piece moments, though there's really no way to predict how many we'll find in the final product. But regardless of how deep the full experience ends up being, my QuakeCon demo put Doom VR's earlier E3 showing to shame and gave us a reason to be optimistic for its predicted (but unconfirmed) 2017 release.

Source: http://www.gamespot.com/articles/doom-may-have-solved-vrs-traversal-problem/1100-6442439/

 

[dsk1210]

New info on DOOM VR

Doom May Have Solved VR's Traversal Problem



Source: http://www.gamespot.com/articles/doom-may-have-solved-vrs-traversal-problem/1100-6442439/

I wonder when they are thinking about releasing this?

 

[metareferential]

New info on DOOM VR

Doom May Have Solved VR's Traversal Problem



Source: http://www.gamespot.com/articles/doom-may-have-solved-vrs-traversal-problem/1100-6442439/

Sounds really interesting, even though they just tweaked teleport movement.
Speaking of movement : does anybody know how Onward tacked this? Footage I have seen dod not explain it.

 

[kittoo]

Edit: wrong thread. sorry

 

[Wowfunhappy]

New info on DOOM VR

Doom May Have Solved VR's Traversal Problem



Source: http://www.gamespot.com/articles/doom-may-have-solved-vrs-traversal-problem/1100-6442439/

Isn't this essentially just the same teleportation system as Raw Data?

 

[Tain]

Doom's solution sounds... very conventional and obvious to me? Polished and dope-looking teleportation. The traditional version of the game is great, mechanically, and I hope they put some smart limits on their teleportation to have the game maintain some challenge.

 

[Zalusithix]

Isn't this essentially just the same teleportation system as Raw Data?

Well there's the slowdown aspect that isn't a part of Raw Data, but you can't have a multiplayer game slow down the entire world every time you have a person lining up a teleport. But yeah, other than that it sounds very much like the teleport system in place for Raw Data. As such, I don't think you can claim it has "solved" anything. It'd still be subject to all the gameplay limitations that our existing teleport methods have. Just because you can design around them, doesn't mean they're solved.

That and I must say, whenever I see people talk about the teleportation disorientation, I can't help but think about how it doesn't affect me. Assuming I can more or less see where I'll be headed to when I teleport, I don't need the interim parts filled in. And by "see", I don't mean the Budget Cuts portal view. The target area just has to be within view so I can mentally parse the landmarks I'll be closest to before the jump. Then so long as I'm facing the same direction I expect to be facing post jump, I'm fine. It might take me a small period of time to take in all the smaller details from the new area, but I don't feel disoriented. Even if you factor in the time it takes to fill in those minor details, it's still faster than however many seconds it'd normally take me to traverse that distance and absorb the information in a more organic way.

 

[Wowfunhappy]

I don't find teleportation disorienting, but I do somewhat loose my sense of immersion. Much less so than, say, Joystick controls though.

 

[Zepp Twofist]

The Doom thing is a complete surprise to me. When they talked about it back at E3, I assumed it was just a static scene or something to showcase VR, but now it seems they are doing proper VR development. Having something like Doom (or even a scaled down version of it) available for room scale VR would be pretty fantastic.

I don't find teleportation disorienting, but I do somewhat loose my sense of immersion. Much less so than, say, Joystick controls though.

I've played a bit of Mind: Path to Thalamus lately, which lets you switch between a pretty simple teleport implementation and a pretty simple directional movement at will, and while I'm not a huge fan of either scheme, the teleport works infinitely better. When I use the directional movement, I feel like I am floating in some weird "Hush" episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer creature style, while teleport at least keeps my stomach where it's supposed to be. Both are disconnecting from reality, but one of them at least keeps me from being ill.

 

[josecitoxnyo]

I've fixed the issue i detailed previous posts. Something weird about the bluetooth driver and USB devices, i deleted everything except my mouse and keyboard using USBDeview and plug in the Vive to the USB 2 ports and it's working perfectly, such an odd issue tho.

Any good free horror game/demo for the Vive???

 

[Evo X]

Any good free horror game/demo for the Vive???

The Brookhaven Experiment and Sisters both have demos available.

 

[SimplexPL]

Many people are praising Chair in a Room.

 

[Durante]

Isn't this essentially just the same teleportation system as Raw Data?

Yeah, it seems to me like the author isn't fully aware of all the locomotion systems which are currently in use.

 

[SimplexPL]

In the comments he claims that he is.

I've actually played all those games with the exception of The Lab, which is a big part of why I was so impressed by Doom VR. Traversal just feels so much better here.

This is his "article" (gallery): http://www.gamespot.com/gallery/12-real-games-coming-to-valves-steamvr-platform/2900-475/

The title is really clickbaity though.

 

[metareferential]

In the comments he claims that he is.



This is his "article" (gallery): http://www.gamespot.com/gallery/12-real-games-coming-to-valves-steamvr-platform/2900-475/

The title is really clickbaity though.

How can you write about VR and not have played The Lab? Come on.

 

[Enordash]

Sounds really interesting, even though they just tweaked teleport movement.
Speaking of movement : does anybody know how Onward tacked this? Footage I have seen dod not explain it.

It seems like you use the track pad on one hand for forward, back, side-to-side. Look is obviously tied to your head. If this is the case, it should make you sick like any other game that tries to do this right? I've heard at least one YouTuber claim that there's no motion sickness involved. Even if I'm not getting the track pad part perfectly correct, it's still slow movement in-game while you are stationary in the real world so I don't see how it could possibly be different.

On a different note, I have one controller that doesn't track as well as the other. Has anyone had success improving tracking with a reset or resync of some sort?

 

[Melon Husk]

We have to keep working on the teleport mechanic until it clicks. Refine it, polish it, perfect it. VR is in so early days we don't even have movement controls standardised.

It's boring, I know, but after a 1000 small steps we may reach ubiquity, something as natural as WASD.

 

[ShadowSoldier89]

if doom is just the same as raw data, that isnt solving shit for me other than just being another teleporting system

 

[Paganmoon]

As it stands, I'll take Teleport over "Joystick" locomotion any day, for standing/roomscale experiences. Seated, sure, use Joystick.
I really don't get how Artificial Locomotion with Joystick, can be perceived as more immersive while standing, compared to teleport. There is no disconnect if you teleport (as you're standing here, then you're standing there), there is a major disconnect when your view moves and your feet do not, taking me straight out of the experience.

 

[Durante]

I consider the traversal mechanic in Raw Data as both immersive and very functional, as well as conducive to exhilarating gameplay, so I have no problem with it being adapted and refined further.

 

[Enordash]

if doom is just the same as raw data, that isnt solving shit for me other than just being another teleporting system

Do you have something entirely different in mind or are you longing for a better teleport mechanic?

 

[Wrestlemania]

The teleportation mechanics seem to be moving towards essentially free movement with some sort of visual effect to help with those who get sick. Tunnelling, basically. Has that actually be implemented in anything other than tech demos?

 

[Evo X]

My RenderTargetMultiplier in Steam VRsettings keeps changing back to 2.0 no matter what I set it to. It's not read only and I am hitting save before I exit notepad.

If I change it and check the file, it will maintain.

But then I played Raw Data, and went back to check and it had changed itself back to 2.0.

Anyone know what's up?

 

[Wrestlemania]

Do you have something entirely different in mind or are you longing for a better teleport mechanic?

I'd quite like to see something like dashing in the direction you move a stick/touch the touchpad. It's the pointing to move bit I really want to go.

 

[DouglasteR]

Can you just imagine Skyrim and Doom in full glory VR ?

Till there i believe we will have GPUs beefy enough to handle the GFX cost.

I cant even phantom how immersive skyrim can be (Doom is waaaay too fast, but i hope im wrong on this too).

 

[Durante]

The teleportation mechanics seem to be moving towards free movement with some sort of visual effect to help with those who get sick. Tunnelling, basically. Has that actually be implemented in anything other than tech demos?

What exactly is "that"?
If you want to describe "teleportation with a very fast relocation transition" as "tunneling" then that is exactly what Raw Data does.

Can you just imagine Skyrim and Doom in full glory VR ?

Till there i believe we will have GPUs beefy enough to handle the GFX cost.

I cant even phantom how immersive skyrim can be (Doom is waaaay too fast, but i hope im wrong on this too).

Well, if Bethesda is to be believed we'll get the full Fallout 4 experience in VR.

(Which is the only thing that could/will actually make me buy the game, so well done on that)

 

[ShadowSoldier89]

Do you have something entirely different in mind or are you longing for a better teleport mechanic?

anything else. the only movement I've really enjoyed is hover junkers, everything else I've played has been lame there. As much fun as Raw Data is, the teleporting movement sucks, especially mid fight

Well, if Bethesda is to be believed we'll get the full Fallout 4 experience in VR.

(Which is the only thing that could/will actually make me buy the game, so well done on that)

I beat Fallout 4, but 'm holding off on playing the DLC until that releases

 

[Wrestlemania]

What exactly is "that"?
If you want to describe "teleportation with a very fast relocation transition" as "tunneling" then that is exactly what Raw Data does.

So the initial teleportation mechanics had to instantly teleport to a location, with the idea being that showing you move in a way your body is not was disorienting.
We're now seeing teleportation where you do actually see the movement, but it just happens quickly and with visual effects to help combat sickness. You're still locked to the movement you initiated as you would with teleportation though, and you can't interact in the same way you can when you're stationary or how you could when moving using a normal locomotion method.
"That" would be tunnelling with free movement and visual effects to help with sickness. This is the best example I've seen of it, and I'm sure it'd work with a more subtle vignetting effect. Then there's the speed thing, which personally I can handle being closer to normal walking speed but it'd be interesting to see if tunnelling alone can combat it and allow basically normal locomotion to work.
Really I just want to get rid of the pointing to move element of it, that's the bit I don't like.

 

[DouglasteR]

What exactly is "that"?
If you want to describe "teleportation with a very fast relocation transition" as "tunneling" then that is exactly what Raw Data does.

Well, if Bethesda is to be believed we'll get the full Fallout 4 experience in VR.

(Which is the only thing that could/will actually make me buy the game, so well done on that)

Ops, i meant Fallout4 and not Skyrim, my bad.

I really cant wait. It will be something to KILL ppl IRL.

 

[Paganmoon]

Well, if Bethesda is to be believed we'll get the full Fallout 4 experience in VR.

(Which is the only thing that could/will actually make me buy the game, so well done on that)

It'd also have the added bonus (hopefully!) of them fixing their engine. I can't see the current engine working too well with VR considering how erratic it can jump around with the framerate.

I beat Fallout 4, but 'm holding off on playing the DLC until that releases

Nothing is suggesting it'll be included for current owners though is it? I've understood it as it'll be a separate purchase, or DLC at best.

Ops, i meant Fallout4 and not Skyrim, my bad.

Man, I'd actually take Skyrim ahead of Fallout4, if I had a choice about it

I really cant wait. It will be something to KILL ppl IRL.

what?