We finally prioritized mobile above DK2 dev, and have compiled our first fast demo for the superb GearVR platform by Samsung.
If you’re lucky enough to own a GearVR, download & enjoy:
• download dSky-v35.apk for Note4 / Galaxy6 + GearVR
At GDC 2015, I had some informal conversations with some of the best videogame designers and engineers in the world, and inevitably they all centered around: “we know all about videogames, what do we need to look out for when creating VR?”
Across the course of the conference, I synthesized these key points, which together represent what we feel are the guiding principles of VR design, circa 2015.
From the trenches, to your eyes. Here’s your free guidance:
1. Its got to be pure 3d
— 2d tricks no longer work. billboards, masks, overlays etc…
— unless you want to make a stylistic choice
— even your UI is now 100% situated in 3space
2. your geometry, and physics, must be seamless, waterproof, and tight.
— when a player sees the world stereoscopically, small details stand out
— for instance, props that float 1cm above a surface
— and 2mm cracks at wall joins
— these were overlooked in frame games, but are unforgivable in VR
3. really consider detail in textures / normals
— VR has a way of inviting players to inspect objects, props, surfaces and characters…
— up close. really close.
— in a much more intimate level than traditional games
— so be prepared for close inspection
— and make sure that your textures are tight
— along with your collision hulls
4. your collisions for near field objects must be perfect
— fingers can’t penetrate walls
— create detailed high resolution collision shells
. . . for all near sets pieces, props, and characters
5. positional audio is paramount
— audio now has true perceptive 3d positioning, 360° sphere
— you can really effectively guide the users attention and direction with audio prompts
— they will generally turn and look at audio calls for attention.
6. locomotion is key. and hard.
— swivel chair seated experiences are currently optimal
— near-instant high velocity teleports are optimal
— strafing is out, completely : generates total nausea
— 2 primary metaphors are
. . . a) cockpits — cars, planes, ships
. . . b) suited helmets — space suit, scuba mask, ski mask
— cockpits allow physical grounding and help support hard / fast movements
— helmets support HUDs for UI, maps, messaging
7. flying is fun
— a near optimal form of locomotion
— no concerns with ground contact, head bob
— good way to cover large geographies at moderate speed
— managing in-flight collisions:
— a whole ‘nother conversation : force fields and the skillful flying illusion
— speaking of collisions:
8. consider where to place UI
— fixed GUIs suggest a helmet
— local / natural GUIs are more optimal
— consider point of attachment : primaries are:
—— head attachment, which is like a helmet
—— abdomen attachment, which is something you can look down and view
9. graphics performance & frame rate is absolutely key
— the difference between 75fps and 30fps is night and day…
— you MUST deliver 75 fps at a minimum
— don’t ship until you hit this bar
— this isn’t an average, its a floor
10. consider the frustum / tracking volume
— generally, depending on the specific hardware, the positional tracking is in a limited volume
— design your game to optimize performance while in the volume
— and don’t do things that lead players outside the volume
— and gracefully handle what happens when they exit, and then re-enter, the tracking space
— this is similar to the “follow-cam” challenge in trad 3D videogames
11. pacing
— when designing the play experience, consider:
— VR currently favors exploratory experiences above fast paced combat
— this is an absolutely new medium, with its own conventions and rules
— this is a KEY design principle
— be considerate of a users comfort and joy
11+. test test test
— VR experiences are very subjective
— find out what works for your intended audience
— reward your players for their commitment
That’s your high level design direction.
There’s also some great, more detailed technical docs on the web regarding the dirty details of VR dev & design, from the creators themselves. Here they are:
Got experience with VR dev / design?
Think we missed something? Want a job?
Comment below:
Earth to Planet Alpha31…
sign us up!
Planet Alpha 31 – Sneak Peek (pre-alpha build) from Adrian Lazar on Vimeo.
Sneak Peek for Planet Alpha 31 captured from pre-alpha build.
www.planetalpha31.com
We’ve helped pioneer first person VR lightsaber control in-Rift with our ScenePlay demo app. This is what happens when you take that vector and extend it towards its logical conclusion: just add photorealistic rendering, VR cinema backplates, AI stormtroopers, laser bolts and explosions… voila.
Consider this advanced pre-viz of the experiences coming down the pipe in the next 3 years. Start practicing up your swordplay skills, and Enjoy.
What’s a lightsaber look like, you might ask? Well, this:
Mark Zuckerberg tests out the new Oculus touch hand controllers as Brendan Iribe observes
And this;
Testing out the Sony Move hand controllers & Sony Morpheus VR HMD for the PlayStation 4
Or, if you prefer the dark side, go ahead, play Vader:
YES, thanks to Typogenic, we now have live light baking and true shadow-casting from dynamic in-game text in Unity. Thank God!
real time shadows cast from dynamic TextMesh in Unity3d 5.1
THANK YOU Typogenic,
you’re TypoGenius!
And, while we’re at it,
where have you been, Littera?
This web-based font rendering tool is awesome!
What’s all this type about?
Exciting upgrades coming down the road for the dSky VRengine, specifically for our CreditsMachine component.
Stay tuned!
Anybody have a metric version handy?
In 1986, Pixar Animation Studios created its first film, dubbed Luxo Jr.
It was presented to a sophisticated audience at SIGGRAPH, the annual convention for those in the know, and in the engineering, design, and creation of the best 3D graphics in the world. At the time, the air was one of hope; Tron had just been released to audience acclaim a few years earlier in 1982, the first movie to have significant computer-generated visual effects (nee CG/VFX) sequences, and whispers in the wind predicted at some point, at some time, a completely 100% CGI (computer generated imagery) film would be created.
In less than 2 minutes, Pixar proved that seemingly inanimate objects, in this case simple desk-lamps and inflatable toy balls, could exude, even ooze, character, charm, and even emotion.
That one film opened the door to an entire new era of Hollywood cinema, which arguably exploded into mainstream consciousness a decade later in 1995 with Toy Story, the first commercially successful, full length, completely computer-generated CG film… again, by Pixar, the love child of George Lucas, John Lasseter and Steve Jobs.
Fast forward 30 years. Oculus, the amazing company that launched on kickstarter and was stunningly acquired by Facebook for $2 billion a mere 2 years later, launches a virtual cinema division dubbed Oculus Story Studio.
And now, here’s Henry.
Meet Henry from Story Studio on Vimeo.
Henry is a clear attempt to move from hardcore, sci-fi, robot-loving gamers, into a more general, emotional, human populace. Presumably, a human populace willing to put on a pair of blackened ski-goggles in order to watch — scratch that — in order to experience, genuine story-fed emotion.
Henry is, plain and simple: An attempt, albeit a decent one, to launch a new category, animated cinematic interactive VR… with a best-in-class example.
Come August 28, and more-so, come February 2016, the world will decide.
Here’s hoping they succeed.
In testing our apps with the general public, one thing has become abundantly clear: the bar for VR content is high. Extremely high, in fact.
Modern audiences have been primed for VR by two mainstream media: Hollywood Special FX blockbusters, and AAA videogames for consoles. Think the special effects from Avatar, or the Lord of the Rings, and Ex Machina; totally synthetic, computer-generated characters that are also totally believable… in fact, indistinguishable from human actors, apart from their extreme biological forms.
Avatar by James Cameron : Jake Sully (Sam Worthington) and Neytiri (Zoë Saldana).
On the videogame front, we have massive 40+ hour experiences with photorealistic graphics, huge free-to-explore environments; think Gears of War, Call of Duty and Grand Theft Auto.
These high expectations are compounded by the fact that the essence of the VR experience encourages close inspection of elements. In other words, people just love to lean in and closely examine textures and objects. This means that all the graphical and modelling shortcuts used for far away objects are now null. We must model for close-ups.
Now, for comparison, lets look at
Realistically, most of the VR content being created today is by either small motivated teams of 1-3 people, or by divisions of larger Special Effects firms who are dipping their toes into the new media. The videogame companies will be coming in strong soon. Hello EA, Blizzard, Epic.
To cut to the chase: consumers expect photorealism, yet there is no way to justify photo-realistic production budgets when the existing audience is effectively non-existent.
The solution, as with most, relies on elegance, not brute force. Extremely low poly models, which perform well on almost any platform, and short-form content, i.e. playtimes less than 5 minutes, are the sweet spot that make modern VR production possible… perhaps even profitable.
1. Darknet
2. See our earlier post on Synthesis Universe.
and…
great meetings with the Studios in Hollywood. Put some post-demo polish on the Star Wars featurette, now it may be time to revisit Harry Potter in his most awesome game of Wizard Chess VR. Remember BattleChess? You ain’t seen nuthin yet.
Early early pre-viz:
scene recreation, v0.03
Wixards Chess, still from Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone. © Warner Brothers
our first task is to do the basic “blocking” on the scene. For this we use simple capsules as stand-ins for the actors. Once all the gross movement is accounted for, then we swap in the high resolution humanoid models, and slowly add in actual gestures / movements / walks / hands / head animations, lip sync, and even eye gaze, aka dristi.
character stand-ins for basic scene blocking
Harry Potter Wizards Chess, Harry Potter and the Sorcerers Stone © Warner Brothers
Onward.
We’ve been very very busy preparing the final build… now that the camera is free to roam, we thought we’d better upgrade the exterior. Here she is, v1.0:
Obi’s hut, complete with new roof, water evaporator, and the legendary X-34 LandSpeeder
..inspired by the original matte painting:
