Valve ported 'Team Fortress 2' to virtual reality

[Zoide]

Interesting. Could they be getting ready to compete against the Oculus Rift? Or maybe they'll be partners for the consumer Rift?

"will also share its thoughts on VR, after spending a full year prototyping ways to create virtual reality hardware and software"

http://www.theverge.com/2013/1/15/38807 ... rence-2013

[cerulianbaloo]

I'm hoping the latter, what with Gabe giving his thumbs up on the ks video and Abrash's kind words for Palmer during the quakecon panel. I thought they were doing more with AR than VR, but maybe it's a bit of both. And as the article points out, they found quickly its a lot better to design a game from the ground up with VR in mind vs converting existing ones, so it'll probably be a good while before we see something from them like that. I can hope for a VR HL3 though.

[W0mpRat]

After reading Michael Abrash's latest blog post from the end of the year (http://blogs.valvesoftware.com/abrash/) it's hard to say what Valve's intentions are. It reads as if they hope the Rift does well to "open the door" to VR. Maybe after the Rift has proved itself they will enter the hardware market

[Mart]

Interesting. Could they be getting ready to compete against the Oculus Rift? Or maybe they'll be partners for the consumer Rift?

If anything, it'll probably be the latter. Gabe has been quoted as saying they have no interest in entering the hardware business and that they would rather let other companies take care of it. I doubt Valve would commission a different company to manufacture a competing headset considering Gabe's endorsement of the Oculus Kickstarter. Palmer has also said they have a "very good" working relationship with Valve.

[android78]

... Gabe has been quoted as saying they have no interest in entering the hardware business and that they would rather let other companies take care of it. ...

And yet we have the steambox that looks like it will be a very real consumer product pretty soon.

[Fredz]

As one of the commenters on Verge, I wonder why they didn't adapt Portal 2 for VR, slow pace, the best existing support for the Razer Hydra, looked like the perfect candidate. I hope they'll release it though, would be a shame to port a game to VR and keep it for themselves.

[DannyO]

As one of the commenters on Verge, I wonder why they didn't adapt Portal 2 for VR, slow pace, the best existing support for the Razer Hydra, looked like the perfect candidate. I hope they'll release it though, would be a shame to port a game to VR and keep it for themselves.

Haha can you imagine that though? spinning around as you get bounced around, you'd be a hero to get through that game without throwing up.

[Bishop51]

Yeah, Valve is a smart company and I'm sure they know just how unworkable many titles are in the format (without massive rengineering).

I would be disappointed in Valve if they decided to go their own way with VR hardware too early and not to embrace what Oculus is doing. One thing this market needs desperately, at this young and fragile age, is broad spectrum support for a single hardware platform. There are too many variables in design and developers, all developers, need a chance to latch on to a single working standard. If that opportunity isn't given, both the hardware and the software will falter before either gets a chance to really get its hooks into Joe Blow public.That's not to say Valve can't or shouldn't branch out with their own AR/VR headset platform but they need to carefully consider when that kind of launch window is appropriate for this very green marketspace.

Then again, this is Valve we're talking about (gigantic corporation with the money to saturate the market and design their own content without sweating) and perhaps they are so confident in their designs that they feel obligated to take market lead. That could be a good thing too if the tech is forward thinking enough. Doesn't help me or my aspirations in VR as an Indie but I wouldn't turn down an awesome Valve gaming experience either! We'll never know what goes on in those dark halls

Still, I hope that they get into creative hardware licensing with Oculus and or work with them directly to realize their AR/VR ambitions. The Oculus is only 2 cameras shy on AR integration anyway

[MSat]

... Gabe has been quoted as saying they have no interest in entering the hardware business and that they would rather let other companies take care of it. ...

And yet we have the steambox that looks like it will be a very real consumer product pretty soon.

I think them creating their own steambox just legitimises the platform in a lot of people's eyes, and sets a standard for what they want their partners to build. That's not to say that's their only motivation, though. It would seem that they're interested in creating some kind of hardware - at least that which doesn't readily exist in the gaming market, given that they do have a team of hardware engineers. I think they're really interested in novel ways to interact with games, and if they come up with something no one else has, then they might just manufacture it themselves (though I imagine them partnering with someone instead of doing it alone).

[DannyO]

To me, Valve seems to be one of the few companies that seems to really care about pushing gaming forward, and with the Oculus Rift taking IMO (and many others I'm sure) the right approach to getting VR off the ground, I can only see/hope that Valve will work with them to help develop better support and have immersive controls for the Rift, add that together with a Steambox varient that could run these and we could see the PC become the dominant gaming platform again.

This is all just wishful thinking though, but a man can dream.

I make a prediction that we hear an announcement this year that Oculus and Valve work together to get VR on its feet.

[2EyeGuy]

So... what would be the problems converting Team Fortress 2 to Virtual Reality?

I haven't really played the game, so I'm not sure, but I imagine it would work OK in VR.

Here are some issues that I can guess at:

- Not a fair fight competing with super-human mouse and keyboard players.
- Some issues with network latency or prediction?
- Your gun is probably rendered using special code not as part of the main world and your avatar.
- Your view shakes and you can get pushed back by explosions and things like that?
- Different scales are used for different kinds of objects. TF2 players are only 5'2 compared to valve map and prop scales.
- Abrash is really fussy about latency, and Team Fortress 2 can't do a high enough frame rate in 3D.
- They need some sort of control scheme for aiming your gun.
- The HUD needs a lot of changing

[Ardheim]

No view shaking is present in TF2, and source engine can easily be pushed past 300fps on modern rigs.
I've got it running at around 90fps in 5760x1080, so that's no excuse.

The player tossing is a legit issue though, as well as the fast player moving.
You can also turn on a dime, so I'm having doubts about how good it'll feel for your brain to stop and reverse so fast.

Regular stereoscopic 3D is one thing, but virtual reality is something completely different.

What one can do however, is reuse maps and assets and build the game itself from scratch using the already existing assets.


When it comes to the gun aiming thing, one can always just render the 3rd person player model and place the cameras in the eyes. That way everything WILL seem smaller when you're mowing down babies with your minigun.

[spire8989]

Valve is a big supporter of the Rift and I'm 90% sure that I read somewhere today that they'll be presenting TF2 on the Rift itself at GDC...

Edit: Found an article: http://www.geek.com/articles/games/valv ... -20130116/

[BOLL]

The Valve talks sound incredibly interesting, I'm just worried it will take time for them to come online, if ever. I have listened to some talks from GDC at Gamasutra, but then a year later or more o_O *google* Oh, there is an MP3-store: https://store.cmpgame.com/category.php?cat=1 Zhumghz... bring it on!

[PasticheDonkey]

The player tossing is a legit issue though, as well as the fast player moving.
You can also turn on a dime, so I'm having doubts about how good it'll feel for your brain to stop and reverse so fast.

need to make turning not around the eye but around the head.

[android78]

What I'm hoping for with this is that they have managed to perfect independent look to gun control and that it works with the Rift coupled with Hydra for input.

[phort99]

In the press release they mention that one of the challenges was keyboard and mouse control combined with VR.

I imagine some other problems are: representing 2D HUD elements in a way that doesn't intersect the world or force the player to cross their eyes to look at them, changing the gun viewmodel so it makes sense in 3D, giving depth to 2D billboard particles, and possibly also rendering a body in first person so you don't look down and discover that you're invisible.

[2EyeGuy]

Here's the official answer:

These efforts have included "what stereo support entails, rendering 2D user interface in a 90 degree field of view display, dealing with view models and other rendering shortcuts, and how mouselook can interact with head tracking in a first person shooter." Ludwig will also share ideas on how a game specifically designed for virtual reality could avoid many of the issues that Valve faced when porting Team Fortress 2.

And it's obvious the other talk by Abrash is just going to be about latency.

[Endothermic]

Everything that has been released and the opinions of the media that say they have implied it, would indicate that they do indeed have the aiming detached from the head tracking (or atleast partially so you can aim anywhere you are looking) so i'l be very disappointed if it isn't.

And it's obvious the other talk by Abrash is just going to be about latency.

Hope so

The bit I found most interesting is the "rendering 2D user interface in a 90 degree field of view display".

Sure they have said they've been researching with large FOV displays and 90 is just a number but it is a number which has basically been married to the RIFT for the last 6 months and with Newell endorsing the RIFT and Abrash on the panel with Palmer at quakecon... and Valve saying they can't comment when asked if they are working with Oculus and Palmer saying the same thing when he's asked if they are working with Valve.....

[2EyeGuy]

This could be bigger than Carmack at E3 and QuakeCon.

I showed a developer and Portal 2 modder some videos about the Oculus Rift, because he didn't know what it was, and he was very excited. There are a lot of valve modder/developers out there who would be very keen on this.

[Endothermic]

because he didn't know what it was

Oh lies, I find it hard to believe every man and even their dogs, havn't heard of it by now

So many times I went to bed listening to the quakecon keynote.... does that make me a sad sad person..... wonder if the same will happen with this one... I spose I have only to find a basement in my mother's house to move into and get fat then i'd be the cliche.......

[neverman]

because he didn't know what it was

Oh lies, I find it hard to believe every man and even their dogs, havn't heard of it by now

So many times I went to bed listening to the quakecon keynote.... does that make me a sad sad person..... wonder if the same will happen with this one... I spose I have only to find a basement in my mother's house to move into and get fat then i'd be the cliche.......

Same here man!

[phort99]

I know this thread is kind of old, but I had a thought: It would be cool if the game forced you to actually close your left eye when looking through the Sniper's scope. They could render the left eye normally and the right eye zoomed in. I found it sometimes made aiming the Bow or Slingshot in OoT 3D easier if you closed one eye.

I know that would give Rift players an advantage over the rest since they could peek through their left eye rather than unscoping, but I really like that concept. Maybe we'll see it in another shooter.

[2EyeGuy]

I know this thread is kind of old, but I had a thought: It would be cool if the game forced you to actually close your left eye when looking through the Sniper's scope. They could render the left eye normally and the right eye zoomed in. I found it sometimes made aiming the Bow or Slingshot in OoT 3D easier if you closed one eye.

I know that would give Rift players an advantage over the rest since they could peek through their left eye rather than unscoping, but I really like that concept. Maybe we'll see it in another shooter.

I agree. I've had that idea for a long time. I think I tried that in AssaultCube. There are other things you can do in stereoscopic 3D besides stereopsis, and it would be good to get that sense of immersion when using a scope like in real life.