I just spent three hours in rec room... Good God, there are some strange people in there.
I'm also amazed at the amount of American kids on at four in the gorram morning. Like, ten years old or younger. How do they even afford an $800 VR setup?
[QUOTE=capgun;51638489]Fucking hell Gorn is so fun. I am so buying it day one on steam[/QUOTE]
It just needs to have more restrictions on grabbing enemies because it's too tempting to just grab someone by the chest and fling them across the room, removing all challenge.
[QUOTE=El Periodista;51639817]I just spent three hours in rec room... Good God, there are some strange people in there.
I'm also amazed at the amount of American kids on at four in the gorram morning. Like, ten years old or younger. How do they even afford an $800 VR setup?[/QUOTE]
mommy and daddy of course
[media]https://www.twitter.com/evleaks/status/817960781610360832[/media]
A Vive phone, interesting. (Near the end)
[QUOTE=EcksDee;51640085]mommy and daddy of course[/QUOTE]
Or parents bought it for themselves and let the kids use it. Or one parent bought it for themselves and used the kids to justify it to their partner :D
Are kids shorter in Rec Room or do they just always crouch? Not sure exactly how this is handled.
[QUOTE=Novangel;51640166][media]https://www.twitter.com/evleaks/status/817960781610360832[/media]
A Vive phone, interesting. (Near the end)[/QUOTE]
I wonder if there's any real reason to call it a vive phone or if they're just pushing the branding? There was an insanely cool concept with the vive tracker where you had phone cases for it and people could join the game by looking into the VR world through their tracked phone, would be kinda neat to have a phone that's LH tracked
[QUOTE=r0b0tsquid;51640307]Or parents bought it for themselves and let the kids use it. Or one parent bought it for themselves and used the kids to justify it to their partner :D
Are kids shorter in Rec Room or do they just always crouch? Not sure exactly how this is handled.[/QUOTE]
You don't have legs in rec room so your body is just lower down.
[QUOTE=r0b0tsquid;51640307]Or parents bought it for themselves and let the kids use it. Or one parent bought it for themselves and used the kids to justify it to their partner :D
Are kids shorter in Rec Room or do they just always crouch? Not sure exactly how this is handled.[/QUOTE]
How "tall" you are in Rec Room is decided by the Vive determining the distance between the HMD and the floor.
Pretty interesting article - [url]http://www.glixel.com/interviews/epics-tim-sweeney-on-vr-and-the-future-of-civilization-w459561[/url]
This is interesting - "[B]But Oculus, right now, is following the iOS model.[/B]
Yes. I think it's the wrong model. When you install the Oculus drivers, by default you can only use the Oculus store. You have to rummage through the menu and turn that off if you want to run Steam. Which everybody does. It's just alienating and sends the wrong message to developers. It's telling developers: "You're on notice here. We're going to dominate this thing. And your freedom is going to expire at some point." It's a terrible precedent to set. I argued passionately against it.
But ultimately, the open platforms will win. They're going to have a much better selection of software. HTC Vive is a completely open platform. And other headsets are coming that will be completely open. [B]HTC Vive is outselling Oculus 2-to-1 worldwide.[/B] I think that trend will continue."
[QUOTE=Elspin;51641374]I wonder if there's any real reason to call it a vive phone or if they're just pushing the branding? There was an insanely cool concept with the vive tracker where you had phone cases for it and people could join the game by looking into the VR world through their tracked phone, would be kinda neat to have a phone that's LH tracked[/QUOTE]
I'm betting that's what they're gonna do, as well as having it be a flagship Daydream phone. HTC might have a good opportunity with Daydream to try secure some of the mobile VR market that Samsung has been running for the past few years.
[editline]9th January 2017[/editline]
[QUOTE=Xanoxis;51643530]Pretty interesting article - [url]http://www.glixel.com/interviews/epics-tim-sweeney-on-vr-and-the-future-of-civilization-w459561[/url]
This is interesting - "[B]But Oculus, right now, is following the iOS model.[/B]
Yes. I think it's the wrong model. When you install the Oculus drivers, by default you can only use the Oculus store. You have to rummage through the menu and turn that off if you want to run Steam. Which everybody does. It's just alienating and sends the wrong message to developers. It's telling developers: "You're on notice here. We're going to dominate this thing. And your freedom is going to expire at some point." It's a terrible precedent to set. I argued passionately against it.
But ultimately, the open platforms will win. They're going to have a much better selection of software. HTC Vive is a completely open platform. And other headsets are coming that will be completely open. [B]HTC Vive is outselling Oculus 2-to-1 worldwide.[/B] I think that trend will continue."[/QUOTE]
Not to be too much of a fanboy, but the CES announcements have just solidified my love for the Vive platform. The tracking puck seems simple and affordable enough to actually be viable, the wireless add-on has been getting rave reviews from every publication I've seen it mentioned on and will be in full production Q2 for like $250, [I]and[/I] they're pushing out the new headstrap which not only will give integrated audio, but likely some improved comfort as well. HTC is really taking this VR gig and running away with it imo.
[QUOTE=Xanoxis;51643530]Pretty interesting article - [url]http://www.glixel.com/interviews/epics-tim-sweeney-on-vr-and-the-future-of-civilization-w459561[/url]
This is interesting - "[B]But Oculus, right now, is following the iOS model.[/B]
Yes. I think it's the wrong model. When you install the Oculus drivers, by default you can only use the Oculus store. You have to rummage through the menu and turn that off if you want to run Steam. Which everybody does. It's just alienating and sends the wrong message to developers. It's telling developers: "You're on notice here. We're going to dominate this thing. And your freedom is going to expire at some point." It's a terrible precedent to set. I argued passionately against it.
But ultimately, the open platforms will win. They're going to have a much better selection of software. HTC Vive is a completely open platform. And other headsets are coming that will be completely open. [B]HTC Vive is outselling Oculus 2-to-1 worldwide.[/B] I think that trend will continue."[/QUOTE]
"rummage through a menu"
[img]http://foxcock.me/web/images/ShareX/2017_01/2017-01-09_00-34-30.png[/img]
it's at the top of the general settings menu
how paranoid do you have to be to think that Oculus will one day stop its users from accessing all of their Steam games? the FUD is as bad as how people legitimately believed that the Rift would have in-game adverts after FB bought them
[editline]9th January 2017[/editline]
at least Oculus doesn't restrict their hardware from opposing APIs
Does anyone have experience with the razer osvr "hacker vr"? I only hear about it in passing, and feels like the main candidate for the "also ran" award.
[QUOTE=Xanoxis;51643530]Pretty interesting article - [url]http://www.glixel.com/interviews/epics-tim-sweeney-on-vr-and-the-future-of-civilization-w459561[/url]
This is interesting - "[B]But Oculus, right now, is following the iOS model.[/B]
Yes. I think it's the wrong model. When you install the Oculus drivers, by default you can only use the Oculus store. You have to rummage through the menu and turn that off if you want to run Steam. Which everybody does. It's just alienating and sends the wrong message to developers. It's telling developers: "You're on notice here. We're going to dominate this thing. And your freedom is going to expire at some point." It's a terrible precedent to set. I argued passionately against it.
But ultimately, the open platforms will win. They're going to have a much better selection of software. HTC Vive is a completely open platform. And other headsets are coming that will be completely open. [B]HTC Vive is outselling Oculus 2-to-1 worldwide.[/B] I think that trend will continue."[/QUOTE]
Uh... That's the Android model, man. Not the iOS model. My Pixel's got a little tab in the settings pane to allow sideloading apps, same as virtually every Android device available for the past decade or so.
The iOS model would require users to run software that could potentially brick their headsets for access to a slightly shittier app store filled with garbage software. Clearly, this is not what's happening.
Also, I don't know if you've been paying attention to HTC's financials, but they're kind of in dire straits. Which is a shame, because I love my Pixel, and I love the Vive. But even Valve can't save an entire consumer electronics manufacturer if their phones can't pick up the bottom line.
Personally, I don't think this is worth worrying about at the moment. We've got an industry with two flagships, and an array of mid- and lower-tier offerings. Same as cell phones, personal computers, etc. As far as composition goes, the market can stay like this for a while and be perfectly healthy.
Just chill out, and worry about who's going to "win" later, when Oculus/HTC/Valve/Facebook/Microsoft is actually dead and we can announce a clear winner.
[QUOTE=bitches;51643568]at least Oculus doesn't restrict their hardware from opposing APIs[/QUOTE]
Come onnnnnnnn lmao
We still don't have official numbers for the sales of the headsets, any articles that use Steam data are inaccurate as hell.
[QUOTE=Orkel;51643859]We still don't have official numbers for the sales of the headsets, any articles that use Steam data are inaccurate as hell.[/QUOTE]
Unless developer for one of the biggest engines knows something more than you.
Anyway, article is still interesting, dev still thinks open source is the way to go, while also making the game for Oculus only. It seems that for now money wins, but devs still prefer opensource.
Here we go again.
Oculus did express the desire to support other HMDs on their store. But they're not going to support other APIs like OpenVR for a variety of reasons in terms of quality assurance, lack of business deals with Valve / HTC, etc. OpenVR is an open platform but it's closed source, Valve controls its development.
That's why all eyes should be aimed at the Khronos Virtual Reality Standard Initiative, of which all important parties are part of. That's the ticket to standardisation and Oculus seems to be all for it.
[QUOTE=Clavus;51644590]Here we go again.
Oculus did express the desire to support other HMDs on their store. But they're not going to support other APIs like OpenVR for a variety of reasons in terms of quality assurance, lack of business deals with Valve / HTC, etc. OpenVR is an open platform but it's closed source, Valve controls its development.
That's why all eyes should be aimed at the Khronos Virtual Reality Standard Initiative, of which all important parties are part of. That's the ticket to standardisation and Oculus seems to be all for it.[/QUOTE]
In the end I think that's the best case for VR, Valve is handling things in a more open way than Oculus for now but an open vr standard developed by an independent group with no business incentives towards one company or other is the ideal case for the future
[QUOTE=Elspin;51645253]In the end I think that's the best case for VR, Valve is handling things in a more open way than Oculus for now but an open vr standard developed by an independent group with no business incentives towards one company or other is the ideal case for the future[/QUOTE]
How would this group make money?
[QUOTE=Elspin;51645253]In the end I think that's the best case for VR, Valve is handling things in a more open way than Oculus for now but an open vr standard developed by an independent group with no business incentives towards one company or other is the ideal case for the future[/QUOTE]
There's not all that big of a difference between the two. When looking VR HMD support, you have the device interface and the management service. Oculus rolled both into Oculus SDK, which is openly available (not open source) for anyone to implement. Valve created the OpenVR SDK (the device interface) and SteamVR (the management service). Both are openly available (but not open source). No game interfaces purely with the OpenVR SDK, they all interface with SteamVR, because nobody is going to write its own management service for a game. In the end it's practically the same deal for gamers and game developers.
And there are no industry groups without business incentives. Standards are created because companies recognise it benefits the market as a whole. But it doesn't happen overnight nor do standards have only positives; they tend to make it harder to innovate with new tech when they're too entrenched. That's why it's a delicate balance for a growing VR market.
[QUOTE=Ott;51645462]How would this group make money?[/QUOTE]
I'm not sure who funds the khronos group at the moment actually but it's a non-profit and it already maintains things like OpenGL.
[QUOTE=Clavus;51645549]There's not all that big of a difference between the two. When looking VR HMD support, you have the device interface and the management service. Oculus rolled both into Oculus SDK, which is openly available (not open source) for anyone to implement. Valve created the OpenVR SDK (the device interface) and SteamVR (the management service). Both are openly available (but not open source). No game interfaces purely with the OpenVR SDK, they all interface with SteamVR, because nobody is going to write its own management service for a game. In the end it's practically the same deal for gamers and game developers.[/QUOTE]
You seem to be implying that you can add support for a headset to use the Oculus SDK, is that true? I was under the impression that the only way to do that was nasty hacks that are only possible because the revive people complained loudly about the DRM. Is there a published and accepted way for third parties to actually add support? Because if not, you missed my point, and if so I was mistaken.
[QUOTE]And there are no industry groups without business incentives. Standards are created because companies recognise it benefits the market as a whole. But it doesn't happen overnight nor do standards have only positives; they tend to make it harder to innovate with new tech when they're too entrenched. That's why it's a delicate balance for a growing VR market.[/QUOTE]
I mean business incentives to favour one product over the other. The problem with Oculus or Valve maintaining what's supposed to be an open standard is while you could debate whether they would do so they have something to gain by giving preferential treatment to their own products.
[QUOTE=Elspin;51645574]I'm not sure who funds the khronos group at the moment actually but it's a non-profit and it already maintains things like OpenGL.[/QUOTE]
Khronos is an industry consortium. It's completely funded by its members, which are all companies from the industry. Pretty much all programmers that contribute to those standards are also employed by those companies.
[editline]9th January 2017[/editline]
[QUOTE=Elspin;51645574]You seem to be implying that you can add support for a headset to use the Oculus SDK, is that true? I was under the impression that the only way to do that was nasty hacks that are only possible because the revive people complained loudly about the DRM. Is there a published and accepted way for third parties to actually add support? Because if not, you missed my point, and if so I was mistaken.[/QUOTE]
It's pretty much the same deal for game devs, it's a different story for hardware developers. OpenVR actively encourage HMDs to interface with it, while Oculus has made no such announcement (though they seemed to invite any company to approach them iirc). The thing is, I don't recall seeing any HMD outside of the Vive that supports OpenVR natively. It's kind of silly for a hardware dev to hand off the primary software interface to their headset without a support deal in place (see: Samsung and Oculus on GearVR). What OpenVR and OSVR are doing instead is wrapping around other interfaces to create some sort of hydra of support (issues). It's working so far but it's really kind of a mess, and I can't fault Oculus for not wanting to contribute to that until all products were out in the wild and we see who can sit at the big boys table to discuss standards.
[QUOTE=Clavus;51645731]It's pretty much the same deal for game devs, it's a different story for hardware developers. OpenVR actively encourage HMDs to interface with it, while Oculus has made no such announcement (though they seemed to invite any company to approach them iirc). The thing is, I don't recall seeing any HMD outside of the Vive that supports OpenVR natively. It's kind of silly for a hardware dev to hand off the primary software interface to their headset without a support deal in place (see: Samsung and Oculus on GearVR). What OpenVR and OSVR are doing instead is wrapping around other interfaces to create some sort of hydra of support (issues).[/QUOTE]
So you missed the point then, it's the same thing to game devs from a development standpoint (sort of) but that wasn't what I was talking about at all. Whether or not anyone's taken advantage of it, it's a big deal for the future of the industry to be able to produce hardware that can take advantage of existing software. VR could remain an industry ruled by one or two high quality headsets but competitors should at least be given a chance to compete, and that's not going to happen with a closed driver system that people can't hook their headsets into.
I'm not suggesting that OpenVR is perfect either, I straight up said in my post that it's better than nothing but ideally it should be handed off to an open standard group.
It's not unlikely that future HMDs will use a new standard and simply wrap all the old SDKs into compatibility layers. See: the entire Windows software ecosystem.
I don't think VR developers are afraid about the lack of support in the future. They first want to actually make money from sales, and we're not quite at that point yet.
[QUOTE=Clavus;51645946]It's not unlikely that future HMDs will use a new standard and simply wrap all the old SDKs into compatibility layers. See: the entire Windows software ecosystem.[/QUOTE]
It'll probably be just a more open and better developed openvr, a common layer that allows manufacturers to provide drivers to their headsets and software developers a way to develop with little to no extra effort to support different headsets.
[QUOTE]I don't think VR developers are afraid about the lack of support in the future. They first want to actually make money from sales, and we're not quite at that point yet.[/QUOTE]
Good luck "first actually [making] money from sales" when you need to get developers to specifically support your further complication to the ecosystem. The only way a headset manufacturer is going to gain headway further down the line without being one of the biggest companies in the world is if they have the opportunity to support software that currently exists without it needing to be changed for them. People are debating how well peripherals for VR are going to do needing support, how realistic do you think it is for another entire vr software ecosystem based around another piece of hardware is going to be (especially for a small company with good ideas)? Let's not forget that Oculus themselves came from a small kickstarter and what you're proposing essentially kills the chance for those small companies to become the giants they are today.
If you think the industry should be locked down to what currently exists then that's your opinion and you're entitled to it but I think that would be dangerously short sighted
[QUOTE=Elspin;51646203]It'll probably be just a more open and better developed openvr, a common layer that allows manufacturers to provide drivers to their headsets and software developers a way to develop with little to no extra effort to support different headsets.[/QUOTE]
It won't be game developers interfacing with that standard, since it'll probably just concern the device interface. The management layers for each different store (Oculus SDK, SteamVR, etc) will likely remain separate because they're intertwined with said store. Game devs will still have to think about how to support different stores (since they each have different services etc). It has been fairly simple for game devs up till now since Steam was the only notable PC gaming store around. Things aren't necessarily getting easier for game devs when the number of combinations of VR HMDs, input devices and stores explodes.
[QUOTE=Elspin;51646203]Good luck "first actually [making] money from sales" when you need to get developers to specifically support your further complication to the ecosystem. The only way a headset manufacturer is going to gain headway further down the line without being one of the biggest companies in the world is if they have the opportunity to support software that currently exists without it needing to be changed for them. People are debating how well peripherals for VR are going to do needing support, how realistic do you think it is for another entire vr software ecosystem based around another piece of hardware is going to be (especially for a small company with good ideas)? Let's not forget that Oculus themselves came from a small kickstarter and what you're proposing essentially kills the chance for those small companies to become the giants they are today.
If you think the industry should be locked down to what currently exists then that's your opinion and you're entitled to it but I think that would be dangerously short sighted[/QUOTE]
When did I ever say that? I'm against the whole "I want it here and now" sentiment that people seem to have while disregarding the business reality of the growing VR market. The market is heading in that 'open standard' direction everyone is shouting about and I from what I see that's also what Oculus intends to go with, eventually. Valve is in the luxurious position of already having a huge cash flow and market position while Oculus has to hammer out a spot so they have a customer base. People just gotta be patient and enjoy their ReVive for now while things get sorted out through thousands of engineering hours and inter-company discussions about what pixel should go where.
[media]https://twitter.com/TimSweeneyEpic/status/818495240789233664[/media]
Still not clear if this is for some given period of time (such as recent sales) or based on how many of an HMD is being used on UE (if they can get metrics of that somehow), but I can sort of believe it just by hearing him say "China". Asia in general has a [i]shit-ton[/i] of VR cafes/arcades using the Vive, given HTC's influence there. There's only a handful of Chinese developed games that find their way onto Steam, which I assume a large amount of them are made specifically for these VR cafe/arcade businesses. Not to mention, China has a lot of rich people that love having the next technological toy.
[QUOTE=Clavus;51646416]It won't be game developers interfacing with that standard, since it'll probably just concern the device interface. The management layers for each different store (Oculus SDK, SteamVR, etc) will likely remain separate because they're intertwined with said store. Game devs will still have to think about how to support different stores (since they each have different services etc). It has been fairly simple for game devs up till now since Steam was the only notable PC gaming store around. Things aren't necessarily getting easier for game devs when the number of combinations of VR HMDs, input devices and stores explodes.
When did I ever say that? I'm against the whole "I want it here and now" sentiment that people seem to have while disregarding the business reality of the growing VR market. The market is heading in that 'open standard' direction everyone is shouting about and I from what I see that's also what Oculus intends to go with, eventually. Valve is in the luxurious position of already having a huge cash flow and market position while Oculus has to hammer out a spot so they have a customer base. People just gotta be patient and enjoy their ReVive for now while things get sorted out through thousands of engineering hours and inter-company discussions about what pixel should go where.[/QUOTE]
You're getting further and further from the point by trying to bring in tangential, unrelated details. Supporting different storefronts is [i]ideally[/i] an unrelated issue that developers have to deal with regardless and it has no business in a discussion about supporting different hardware. What I'm talking about is supporting the headsets themselves within your game without additional software development time. Whether your game is sold on steam or elsewhere, the ideal situation is that whatever headset you have within reason just "works", whether it's a rift, vive or other. Openvr is an imperfect solution to me (partially because it's controlled by someone with incentive to favour their own product) but it does at least do the job. Whether your friend has a rift or a vive is mostly irrelevant, you could sign into your steam account on their computer and start it up. If I want to make a game, it's less of a concern for me supporting multiple headsets. If I want to make a headset, I can test it against an existing library of games to see how it functions without having to enter talks with valve or force it through hacks. It's not without its issues in implementation, and I'm not a fan of how it's not actually open source, but it's definitely better than the alternative.
In unrelated news, I was saying way back that the HoloLens mounting system is pretty fantastic and I wished it was on the vr hmds. Like a hardhat, you just plop it on and turn a knob to tighten it without having to fidget with velcro straps or anything. The new vive audio strap is pretty much exactly that, and the people testing it seem to really like it, would definitely wanna get one if I have the chance. That and I can actually use the new vive tracker to support tracking my robots in steamvr now which is neat
[QUOTE=Elspin;51646506][..]What I'm talking about is supporting the headsets themselves within your game without additional software development time. Whether your game is sold on steam or elsewhere, the ideal situation is that whatever headset you have within reason just "works", whether it's a rift, vive or other.[...][/QUOTE]
The software development time to simply support a HMD for any of the current VR SDKs is already incredibly small since they're very similar interfaces, and pretty much zero for anyone building on Unity and Unreal. Most of that software dev time is spend on things like utilising specific store services, or design for physical differences in controllers and device quirks. You're not getting around that as a game developer, unless one HMD dominates the market (god forbid). Supporting various VR HMDs is never going to be as simple as supporting a monitor since they have much more going on.
[QUOTE=Clavus;51646645]The software development time to simply support a HMD for any of the current VR SDKs is already incredibly small since they're very similar interfaces, and pretty much zero for anyone building on Unity and Unreal. Most of that software dev time is spend on things like utilising specific store services, or design for physical differences in controllers and device quirks. Supporting various VR HMDs is never going to be as simple as supporting a monitor since they have much more going on, there's no unified hardware design.[/QUOTE]
The situation that the two major systems are very similar to develop for in Unity meaning it's not much work to do both does not in any way mean it's a good situation for the industry, that should be obvious. If anything it illustrates a complete misunderstanding of the entire problem: it's not about reducing the time that the developer takes to add support, it's about eliminating it completely so that future hardware developers don't have to request they do it. Future hardware developers cannot realistically compete if they need to have support manually added.
You're maybe half correct on it being more complicated to support than a monitor, it's true in some cases like the Touch's fancy hand tracking tacked on to a traditional controller, but that's why I say [i]within reason[/i]. It's understandable that some games will only work when designed with really specific hardware in mind but I don't think that's going to be the majority of games, developers will want to take advantage of more of the market unless they have an idea that absolutely needs the features. The biggest divide I see in the future for the VR ecosystem is tracked controllers or not, the microsoft ones that are upcoming don't seem to have them.
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Virtual Reality General V3 - You've got the Touch
