Minecrift Discussion Thread

[mabrowning]

In general, some good testing!

-1280x800 (16:10)+AA X12

What kind of AA is that? Minecraft Video Settings(Optifine), Video Card Settings (Catalyst Control Panel), or VR Settings->Optics/Rendering->FSAA (oversampling).

[CaptnYesterday]

The AA was in Minecraft options. I think the path was Options->video->quality->'Antialiasing'. At work so I am not sure. Is there a better way to enable. I would happily test and edit my post if so. SH*t, I also forgot to add that I was testing on #82 (i think).

[mabrowning]

The AA was in Minecraft options. I think the path was Options->video->quality->'Antialiasing'. At work so I am not sure. Is there a better way to enable. I would happily test and edit my post if so. SH*t, I also forgot to add that I was testing on #82 (i think).

Ok, yeah, that is Optifine AA. If you wouldn't mind, could you try with our custom Oversampling pipeline? Options->VR Settings->Rendering/Optics->FSAA. I would predict performance similar to downscaling, but It might be better to skip that and just let the oculus downscale it as you recommend, since it looks like joe's post on the OVR forums indicates it does so without additional latency. Our oversampling just renders to a bigger framebuffer internally, then downscales in a fragment/pixel shader.

[CaptnYesterday]

Testing is my joy and I will absolutely try it and report frame rate and comparison to down scaling.
So far, in other demos, the down scaling has achieved better results, but won't let that bias apply to all demos.

"A test! A TEST!! I demand a test!!!"
-Bender

Edit: In the meantime, I have edited the original long post to reflect what AA was used and that your FSAA will be tested.

[Jademalo]

Ma, would it be feasible at all to attempt to implement FXAA, or would it cause issues due to the HUD being an element in the world?

[mabrowning]

Ma, would it be feasible at all to attempt to implement FXAA, or would it cause issues due to the HUD being an element in the world?

Hmm... it would be feasible after a bit of research, but the I think main problem that AA is defeating on the rift is actually not jaggies, but texture sizzle; FXAA wouldn't help that much. Our "Antialiasing" is the old-school super sampling SSAA. I bet we could look into MSAA. That would likely be almost as good with much better performance.

Edit: On second through:

Because multi-sampling calculates textures only once per pixel, aliasing and other artifacts will still be visible inside rendered polygons where fragment shader output contains high frequency components.

Nevermind, that won't help at all.

[Jademalo]

Ma, would it be feasible at all to attempt to implement FXAA, or would it cause issues due to the HUD being an element in the world?

Hmm... it would be feasible after a bit of research, but the I think main problem that AA is defeating on the rift is actually not jaggies, but texture sizzle; FXAA wouldn't help that much. Our "Antialiasing" probably shouldn't be called FSAA... it is just super sampling. I bet we could look into MSAA. That would likely be almost as good with much better performance.

Oh, I always assumed it was Jaggies. I know that FXAA is really bad with texture quality, so that makes sense.
Out of curiosity, would increasing the AF in Optifine help at all? I know that for some reason it's an absolute resource hog, even when it's normally impactless on other games.

[mabrowning]

Out of curiosity, would increasing the AF in Optifine help at all? I know that for some reason it's an absolute resource hog, even when it's normally impactless on other games.

Anisotropic filtering helps to make blurry textures sharper when viewed from extreme angles. It would probably be more beneficial to turn on trilinear filtering and mip maps. Maybe that combined with MSAA would look decent with acceptable performance. Worth experimenting with!

[Tbone]

Extended desktop mode is instant headache for me in Minecraft. It's laggy to the extreme. HL2 runs fine in extended, but Minecraft runs like a slide show. I'm not sure why. I messed with the resolution but it didn't seem to help. I figure I should just stick with duplicate until someone writes a guide on how to run all these apps in extended efficiently. Head still hurts even from a few seconds!

[CaptnYesterday]

Extended desktop mode is instant headache for me in Minecraft. It's laggy to the extreme. HL2 runs fine in extended, but Minecraft runs like a slide show. I'm not sure why. I messed with the resolution but it didn't seem to help. I figure I should just stick with duplicate until someone writes a guide on how to run all these apps in extended efficiently. Head still hurts even from a few seconds!

Hey Tbone, that's exciting news! (sorry about the headache though). Would you mind telling me a bit more about your hardware setup or any special settings in those situations outside of HL2?
(I am guessing that HL2 is fine for you because it defaults to an elusive yet present Windowed Mode'? )
If you play Minecrift for long periods of time, latency is pretty key.

[Tbone]

I think I figured out the issue but not really how to solve it. The game starts in full screen mode. If it goes to windowed mode and then goes back to fullscreen, it leaves a window bar at the top and the game becomes stuttery. This happens every time I move the window to the Rift in extended mode, which is why it is worse for me. If I switch from window to full in duplicate mode, it still does the stutter, so it sounds like I need to find a way for Minecraft to start in true fullscreen on the Rift in extended mode.

All this said, I just put three hours in in the MetaCraft in duplicate mode without any problems. Anything to reduce latency, though...

[Jademalo]

Just did a test or two - Mipmap seems to have very little performance defecit, AA completely destroys the framerate the more blocks there are.

[NikoKun]

I'm sure the FPS could be a bit better.. But it's not completely terrible, at least not for me. It's tolerable. If this was as good as it could possibly get, I wouldn't complain.

With Minecrift, on a flat but semi built up creative map, I get anywhere from 30fps when the map first loads, to a little under 60fps, on the flattest most fps friendly maps lol. And that's with all the Optifine settings also maxed, and 1080p rez.
Without Minecrift, I get 120-200fps easily with Optifine, sometimes more on fully loaded flatmaps.

I also use Extend mode for the Rift, just drag the Minecraft window over, and click the maximize button, and it seems to be about right. No skewed frame, or FOV warping. I can't seem to get the F11 full screen mode working with Extend mode, but it doesn't seem to be necessary anyway.

My PC has: AMD FX 8120 3.1ghz, EVGA GTX 650Ti Boost SuperClocked 2gb, and 16gb RAM.

[Jademalo]

If I disable all enhancements like AA, VR, AF, Mipmaps, I can get 900fps. My card hates it lol

[Jademalo]

Also ma, the Jenkins link on GitHub doesn't work since the branches were renamed.

[CaptnYesterday]

Hi Mr.Ma and Stella. I edited my long a$$ post with the FSSA on 1280x800. wow. That is amazing! the quality it generates while still keeping a decent frame rate . MineCraft's AA was cutting performance in 3rds, but your looks better and taxes less. Much less and MUCH better

1080/1200p vs 800+FSAA: Personal Pref.
As far as what looks better, the 1280x800+your FSAA appears smoother under all game textures and distances that I have tested on. No shimmery pixels/textures even when holding still and level.
Unfortunately my eyes were having a very-slightly tougher time focusing under FSAA and there seemed to be slight lag when turning my head when compared to 1080p and no FSAA. I have no idea if it is just me at this point... Gonna come down to personal preference.

I cannot decide and will start swapping back and forth every couple of hours until I know what feels best for me. Anyway, thanks for the feedback and I enjoyed all the display testing on your Mod. I am looking forward to testing the xbox controller next!

EDIT: Mr. Browning, do you know if the following method for your FSAA inherently adds any latency (noticable or not)? You stated "Our oversampling just renders to a bigger framebuffer internally, then downscales in a fragment/pixel shader." I tried my best to research this out there but by and large there is not much concern for latency added for traditional monitor game play, and I did not know who else to ask.
Afaik, Software downsampling adds to latency, but I simply do not know enough about aliasing at this stage to determine how much would be added or if it even is added in this case.

[StellaArtois]

Guys, can I just say many thanks for your analysis on the image quality. Fantastic. I will respond in more detail in due course when internet connection and laptop battery allows (on vacation atm)!

[mabrowning]

Also ma, the Jenkins link on GitHub doesn't work since the branches were renamed.

Thanks. Will be fixed next time I push up some worthwhile commits.

[mabrowning]

Mr. Browning, do you know if the following method for your FSAA inherently adds any latency (noticable or not)? You stated "Our oversampling just renders to a bigger framebuffer internally, then downscales in a fragment/pixel shader." I tried my best to research this out there but by and large there is not much concern for latency added for traditional monitor game play, and I did not know who else to ask.
Afaik, Software downsampling adds to latency, but I simply do not know enough about aliasing at this stage to determine how much would be added or if it even is added in this case.

It most certainly adds something. At the very least, our implementation involves copying one framebuffer to another, then to another(downscale x, then downscale y). I haven't measured to see what the actual addition is, nor do I have the setup to do so with any precision, but I imagine on most cards its much less than 1ms. Could be wrong, but it isn't a very complex process and this is kind of what the graphics cards are designed to do. Nevertheless, dedicated scaling hardware in the Rift's box will do it faster. Will it do it "better"? I dunno. Image quality is one of those perceptual measurements: there isn't a good way to pragmatically say which is better. One may be sharper or softer, etc. In addition, it'd be difficult to get a post-rift scaled screenshot, so we'll just have to switch back and forth like you suggest to try to determine differences. Its on our list to make resolution changing inside minecraft to run a little smoother.

[CaptnYesterday]

^ I couldn't agree more about this. It was my original intent to find the 'best' setting, and to a degree I think I have, but when you get to the point of comparing the 1080p hardware downsample vs your FSAA... it comes down to preference. I struggle with decisions that are so close and tend to try wrapping things up in a simple practical solution when I can.

Back to gameplay comments:

-Seeing through the world still occurs (as of #82). It is rare and difficult to reproduce. I will take a screenshot next time.

-F1 removes the hud, but also removes the courser. I always keep the hud in visible for this reason (even if its in the way when fighting or looking down. Is there a toggle to keep the cursor without the bottom hud. Also having that bottom hud vertically adjustable would be friggin awesome (Already mentioned that one).

-Incase it helps at all, the jumping cursor snaps back left or right and persists for a while even after I center the view (I use F1 for re-centering). So even though the hud is now centered I cannot bring the retical horizontally to the middle of the screen before it teleports to the far side. (This is still the only game breaker that I can report on and play every night)

VR 'Moments':

-Noticed a neat byproduct of hud drift that actually kept me from re-centering it a few times. When the hud is off to the side it was a neat to just look over to find my health hunger and inventory. I actually liked having the hud to that far left or right (out of my direct vision) but still having the cross-hair. Just one of those 'Only in VR' experiences. The only problem with enjoying that little byproduct is the jumping cursor issue soon follows.

-Hey, anyone out there look up at the sky sometimes and think the retical is a seagull flying over? I laugh because my brain makes the association even after 10+ times!

-Was testing the FSAA and resolution downscaling at the top of a Jungle Tree and the sunrise came up and over from behind a distant mountain. Stopped and watched the whole thing. All I could think was how thankful I am to you guys for all your hard work. My wife loved it too.

Hope development slows down soon so guys can enjoy this experience as much as we are. I have tried so many demos that are just awesome and this is still the most fun and its a full game experience!

[mabrowning]

Whelp, I had other plans for tonight, but you just inspired me to fix the mouse jumping. Controllers are workable enough for now.

You can toggle the crosshair/HUD separately in VR Settings->HUD/Overlay Settings-> Show Crosshair/ Show Block Outline.

There is also the issue that you mention: resetting the origin doesn't reset the mouse to the center of the view. I'll work on that.

We actually have 4 different "origins"(yaw offset) that can be reset. I just realized this today.
Relative to the yaw reported by the Rift:
- Hydra base station rotation. (if hydra positional tracking is enabled)
- GUI placement (if look/move is coupled)
- "Body" offset (if look/move is decoupled)
- "Aim" offset (if look/aim is decoupled)

At present, we aren't consistent with what gets reset when. I think we should simplify: only 1 single place to "Reset Origin", potentially with a user-mappable hotkey/controller button; this triggers a reset of everything so that the world view doesn't change, but everything re-centers around the current head orientation.

Eventually, I will have hydra body tracking and there will be one other complication: your head will need to be facing "forward" (relative to body) when resetting origin, otherwise the body->neck->head transform will get off. Perhaps I'll leave that one alone unless the user explicitly "recalibrates" the hydra body tracking. Fun times.

[mabrowning]

Ok, b86 has all the mouse issues fixed. I've added a vertical keyhole to help keep it in view at all times. "Pitch Affects Camera" applies only after the mouse would move "outside" the keyhole, so if you're one of those monsters who plays with that, you'll probably want to set the keyhole height to 0....

I've fixed the keyhole horizontally so the crosshair never jumps. I had some stupid code in there for keeping the crosshair in the view when you turned your head, but I changed it so it makes much more sense and isn't buggy. I must have been drinking the night that I wrote it originally...

As an awesome side bonus, I've fixed HUD opacity! Now chat bars, inventory hotbar, and the usual transparent UI elements are transparent again instead of ugly black. I fixed a few other render errors in there as well (like the UI going black when it was raining; no one complained about that one yet, surprisingly).

[Jademalo]

My rift is finally in the same part of the country as me, I'm gonna see if its either delivered today or if I can go and pick it up personally.

It's happening!

EDIT: It's not happening - UPS won't unload it off the van until Monday.
Even though it's literally 4 minutes away from me.

I hate couriers.

[StellaArtois]

Hi Mr.Ma and Stella. I edited my long a$$ post with the FSSA on 1280x800. wow. That is amazing! the quality it generates while still keeping a decent frame rate . MineCraft's AA was cutting performance in 3rds, but your looks better and taxes less. Much less and MUCH better

1080/1200p vs 800+FSAA: Personal Pref.
As far as what looks better, the 1280x800+your FSAA appears smoother under all game textures and distances that I have tested on. No shimmery pixels/textures even when holding still and level.
Unfortunately my eyes were having a very-slightly tougher time focusing under FSAA and there seemed to be slight lag when turning my head when compared to 1080p and no FSAA. I have no idea if it is just me at this point... Gonna come down to personal preference.

I cannot decide and will start swapping back and forth every couple of hours until I know what feels best for me. Anyway, thanks for the feedback and I enjoyed all the display testing on your Mod. I am looking forward to testing the xbox controller next!

EDIT: Mr. Browning, do you know if the following method for your FSAA inherently adds any latency (noticable or not)? You stated "Our oversampling just renders to a bigger framebuffer internally, then downscales in a fragment/pixel shader." I tried my best to research this out there but by and large there is not much concern for latency added for traditional monitor game play, and I did not know who else to ask.
Afaik, Software downsampling adds to latency, but I simply do not know enough about aliasing at this stage to determine how much would be added or if it even is added in this case.

Captn, another variable to play around with. At whatever resolution / level of AA you play at, would you mind having a play around with the head track prediction time (with head track prediction on of course)? In my limited testing of latency, I found that can make the difference between lag-o-vision and smooth gameplay... EDIT: I'm thinking we may want, at some point, some sort of dynamic 'change head track prediction time to match current rendering latency'.

[StellaArtois]

^ I couldn't agree more about this. It was my original intent to find the 'best' setting, and to a degree I think I have, but when you get to the point of comparing the 1080p hardware downsample vs your FSAA... it comes down to preference. I struggle with decisions that are so close and tend to try wrapping things up in a simple practical solution when I can.

Back to gameplay comments:

-Seeing through the world still occurs (as of #82). It is rare and difficult to reproduce. I will take a screenshot next time.

-F1 removes the hud, but also removes the courser. I always keep the hud in visible for this reason (even if its in the way when fighting or looking down. Is there a toggle to keep the cursor without the bottom hud. Also having that bottom hud vertically adjustable would be friggin awesome (Already mentioned that one).

-Incase it helps at all, the jumping cursor snaps back left or right and persists for a while even after I center the view (I use F1 for re-centering). So even though the hud is now centered I cannot bring the retical horizontally to the middle of the screen before it teleports to the far side. (This is still the only game breaker that I can report on and play every night)

VR 'Moments':

-Noticed a neat byproduct of hud drift that actually kept me from re-centering it a few times. When the hud is off to the side it was a neat to just look over to find my health hunger and inventory. I actually liked having the hud to that far left or right (out of my direct vision) but still having the cross-hair. Just one of those 'Only in VR' experiences. The only problem with enjoying that little byproduct is the jumping cursor issue soon follows.

-Hey, anyone out there look up at the sky sometimes and think the retical is a seagull flying over? I laugh because my brain makes the association even after 10+ times!

-Was testing the FSAA and resolution downscaling at the top of a Jungle Tree and the sunrise came up and over from behind a distant mountain. Stopped and watched the whole thing. All I could think was how thankful I am to you guys for all your hard work. My wife loved it too.

Hope development slows down soon so guys can enjoy this experience as much as we are. I have tried so many demos that are just awesome and this is still the most fun and its a full game experience!

I was trying the Rift downsampling versus the Minecrift FSAA as well, now that we've fixed the aspect ratio issues. Running at 1920X1080 and downsampling in the Rift to me gave some odd edge shimmering edges to text and other GUI elements that just wasn't present with FSAA. However the image quality of the actual world was pretty comparable; and the framerate was definitely higher with the Rift downsample.

Still haven't had enough time to enjoy the experience TBH (but glad you are!). Everytime I play I find another little issue and end up going back into 'dev' mode instead of 'play' mode!

[StellaArtois]

Whelp, I had other plans for tonight, but you just inspired me to fix the mouse jumping. Controllers are workable enough for now.

You can toggle the crosshair/HUD separately in VR Settings->HUD/Overlay Settings-> Show Crosshair/ Show Block Outline.

There is also the issue that you mention: resetting the origin doesn't reset the mouse to the center of the view. I'll work on that.

We actually have 4 different "origins"(yaw offset) that can be reset. I just realized this today.
Relative to the yaw reported by the Rift:
- Hydra base station rotation. (if hydra positional tracking is enabled)
- GUI placement (if look/move is coupled)
- "Body" offset (if look/move is decoupled)
- "Aim" offset (if look/aim is decoupled)

At present, we aren't consistent with what gets reset when. I think we should simplify: only 1 single place to "Reset Origin", potentially with a user-mappable hotkey/controller button; this triggers a reset of everything so that the world view doesn't change, but everything re-centers around the current head orientation.

Eventually, I will have hydra body tracking and there will be one other complication: your head will need to be facing "forward" (relative to body) when resetting origin, otherwise the body->neck->head transform will get off. Perhaps I'll leave that one alone unless the user explicitly "recalibrates" the hydra body tracking. Fun times.

Ahah, that would explain why sometimes during the calibration process, the centre of rotation of the displayed calibration text would sometimes be off. Reset origin would definitely be good mapped to a key / controller button.

[StellaArtois]

Also having that bottom hud vertically adjustable would be friggin awesome (Already mentioned that one).

VR Settings->HUD Settings->HUD Vertical Offset should do what you want...?

[NikoKun]

So just a little update to my previous post.
I got around to testing out MineCrift's FSAA, in comparison/along with Optifine's options.

At first, in my previous post, before testing FSAA, I was running with Optifine maxed, obviously not the best for FPS. I was lucky to get 30-40fps on a flatmap, with mipmapping, antialiasing, and anisotropic features all maxed. It seemed ok, but could be better, and fps on survival/nether maps was pretty crap.

So I turned off Optifine's settings, and turned on FSAA. After restarting MC.. Pretty damn nice antialiasing right off the bat, but still quite a bit of distance texture "static". I was expecting it to be a bigger hit to performance, but it seems to actually run better. After the map was finished chunk-loaded, I was getting about 50-60 fps. Oh, and with FSAA off, I only get a little over 60fps anyway, since stereo rendering seems to be a big hit by itself. (Unmodded MC gets a couple 100fps for me normally. lol)

To fix the distant-texture-static, I turned Mipmapping back on, and set it to max. Which looks pretty good now, and I don't notice much fps drain coming from that specific feature. Although I had to leave antisotropic off, drops fps for me in this case, and negligible visual benefits visible on the Rift's resolution anyway. Still getting a good 40-60 fps, even on survival and nether maps.. And it gives virtually the same graphical quality results as from Optifine's stuff, even better in some ways, fps and aliasing wise.. So this certainly seems like the way to go!

EDIT: While I'm still getting lots of FPS benefit from this, any methods to test FPS seem rather hard to judge, because fps is so greatly dependent on the current map. I did most my testing in the same spot each time, so the differences I was noticing at least suggest improvements. This could also be a situation of each player needing to test each setting, to see what works best for them. At this point, I've got my settings pretty close to perfect, for me.

One more thing/BUG: I noticed a slight bug with how the cross-hairs interact with certain game features. It would seem that "where" the cross-hairs appear to be, is not actually where the game THINKS you are aiming. This can be demonstrated with any point-and-click teleport method. Try to point somewhere with the mouse/cross-hairs and teleport, like with the WorldEdit teleport compass, you wont end up in the right place. You'll teleport somewhere near by, but it's like the angle was off. Aiming with the Bow also seems to be somewhat effected by this issue too. I've been using build 87 tonight, if that helps troubleshoot.

edit2: Another slight oddity I noticed, that I didn't with older builds, was something with the smoothness of movement. As you turn and look around, there's like a 5 degree jitter in movement, like snapto or some weird prediction glitch. Sometimes it almost looks like a form of screen-tearing. I might just be crazy, lol, and anything could be causing that, so yeah, no biggy. It's not bad enough to worry about, barely noticeable.

edit3: Possible bug with the Reset Origin button in build 87, it doesn't seem to have any effect, unlike previous versions. Recalibrating from the in-game menu also seems like its not really doing anything. The initial on-launch calibration, however, seems to be working ok.

[StellaArtois]

So just a little update to my previous post.
I got around to testing out MineCrift's FSAA, in comparison/along with Optifine's options.

At first, in my previous post, before testing FSAA, I was running with Optifine maxed, obviously not the best for FPS. I was lucky to get 30-40fps on a flatmap, with mipmapping, antialiasing, and anisotropic features all maxed. It seemed ok, but could be better, and fps on survival/nether maps was pretty crap.

So I turned off Optifine's settings, and turned on FSAA. After restarting MC.. Pretty damn nice antialiasing right off the bat, but still quite a bit of distance texture "static". I was expecting it to be a bigger hit to performance, but it seems to actually run better. After the map was finished chunk-loaded, I was getting about 50-60 fps. Oh, and with FSAA off, I only get a little over 60fps anyway, since stereo rendering seems to be a big hit by itself. (Unmodded MC gets a couple 100fps for me normally. lol)

To fix the distant-texture-static, I turned Mipmapping back on, and set it to max. Which looks pretty good now, and I don't notice much fps drain coming from that specific feature. Although I had to leave antisotropic off, drops fps for me in this case, and negligible visual benefits visible on the Rift's resolution anyway. Still getting a good 40-60 fps, even on survival and nether maps.. And it gives virtually the same graphical quality results as from Optifine's stuff, even better in some ways, fps and aliasing wise.. So this certainly seems like the way to go!

EDIT: While I'm still getting lots of FPS benefit from this, any methods to test FPS seem rather hard to judge, because fps is so greatly dependent on the current map. I did most my testing in the same spot each time, so the differences I was noticing at least suggest improvements. This could also be a situation of each player needing to test each setting, to see what works best for them. At this point, I've got my settings pretty close to perfect, for me.

One more thing/BUG: I noticed a slight bug with how the cross-hairs interact with certain game features. It would seem that "where" the cross-hairs appear to be, is not actually where the game THINKS you are aiming. This can be demonstrated with any point-and-click teleport method. Try to point somewhere with the mouse/cross-hairs and teleport, like with the WorldEdit teleport compass, you wont end up in the right place. You'll teleport somewhere near by, but it's like the angle was off. Aiming with the Bow also seems to be somewhat effected by this issue too. I've been using build 87 tonight, if that helps troubleshoot.

edit2: Another slight oddity I noticed, that I didn't with older builds, was something with the smoothness of movement. As you turn and look around, there's like a 5 degree jitter in movement, like snapto or some weird prediction glitch. Sometimes it almost looks like a form of screen-tearing. I might just be crazy, lol, and anything could be causing that, so yeah, no biggy. It's not bad enough to worry about, barely noticeable.

edit3: Possible bug with the Reset Origin button in build 87, it doesn't seem to have any effect, unlike previous versions. Recalibrating from the in-game menu also seems like its not really doing anything. The initial on-launch calibration, however, seems to be working ok.

Nice writeup, thanks NikoKun!

I think that's pretty much the conclusion I've come to independently - that FSAA plus Optifine mip-mapping is the way to go. Perhaps we need to default the game to those settings where possible, so new users get a good experience out-of-the-box.

With the crosshair interaction bug; does the issue correct itself if you set player eye height to 1.62m (the Minecraft defaut)?

The jitter-bug ( ) - don't like the sound of that. Do you think it's due to a change of your Minecrift graphics settings since older builds? Have you tried playing around with the head track prediction values to see if you can remove the jitter effect?

With the calibration / reset origin; sounds like ma's on a mission with that, it may be a work in progress

[StellaArtois]

My rift is finally in the same part of the country as me, I'm gonna see if its either delivered today or if I can go and pick it up personally.

It's happening!

Woot!

EDIT: It's not happening - UPS won't unload it off the van until Monday.
Even though it's literally 4 minutes away from me.

I hate couriers.

Oh.

[CaptnYesterday]

Build #86 BUST-OUT!!!

Mouse cursor issue: (Resolved)
-Sir, THAT was a brilliant little code drop. #86 Fixed everything that I could notice regarding the mouse cursor. The bottom hud drifts VERY little for me now too(even if I skip the calibration.

Veritcal hud positioning: (Resolved)
-I missed this as it was called 'HUD Pitch Offset', and I was looking for the word vertical PICNIC (Problem in chair note in code)
-I was thinking of having just the health hunger quickbar move rather than all options and inventory, but this is just as good!!.

Retical always on: (Resolved)
-Another PICNIC error. Sorry guys! /(>_<)\

HUD Opacity:(Resolved without even asking!)
-Love this! Now can choose the HUD opacity item in the menu 'off' and still reap benefits. Well done!



Smoothness of movement
-From Nikokun's 2nd edit above, this is (i think) exactly what I tried to explain and what I took to be latency with fssa under any resolution (For me, it only occurs under fssa). Nikokun, do you notice this at all when turning FSAA and MIP Mapping off? (quality may be pretty harsh unless you try this when scaling down from 1080p) I hope it is only me. Regardless, I agree that it is not that big a deal and can be gotten used to for many people. I think i noticed it so strongly because I only recently began using fsaa.

MIP Mapping
-wow! That's great even at level of 1. Note* Distant textures such as vines lose static by becoming rather 'solid' at higher levels of mip mapping.
-May just be me and my system, but get funny blue dot artifacts on some blocks that are a medium distance away. Looks like drops of water. (Only happened with both FSAA and MIP Mapping level3 or above. Still perceive latency or a judder effect, especially with both options enabled. Feels like low FPS but is consistently above 75

Reset origin via menu button rather than F1 (Nikokun's 'edit 3')
-This still works for me in build 86. Took along time for the hud to drift away so that I could even test it!

Static=Shimmering. I suck at articulating sometimes, but I am pretty sure that this is the same thing that I was mentioning. Stock 1280x800 shows the most static, 1080p down sampling much less and your fsaa setting on any resolution removes almost completely (except for distance which Nikokun mentioned can be mitaged with Mip Mapping)


Head tracking prediction:
-I will have to test later. Till then what direction do you think may help?


Stella, you mentioned maybe playing with some defaults option changes? (These are just opinion)
-Lowering 'HUD Pitch Offset' a little may be useful to some that feel the quickbar hud is a little too high.
-Cursor Always On
-MIP Mapping level 1 - higher level mip mapping solidifies some textures and may cause artifacts at level 3 and up (only when combined with FSAA). (Confirm?)

TLDR: If I fall off of the forums, well it is now your fault! This thing is fully playable so far. Been playing all day and actually had to pull myself away to test the above. Thank you.

[mabrowning]

Edit: updated to Build #91, with more joystick features.

Ok, Build #91 has a full Controller implementation.

You can navigate the GUI, you can navigate inventories, you can use the full inventory control methods (shift, right click, drag, etc).
Your bindings/mapping will be saved when you change them and loaded when you start up again.

Joystick controls are affected by the keyhole height and width. I've also added another aiming method like #2 above: the crosshair is stuck to the center of your head view, except it can be offset from that by moving the joystick. When you let off the joystick, the crosshair will return to the center of your view. I'm not sure about this one... I played for a few minutes and mostly left the joystick alone, aiming with my head; doesn't have quite the precision as other aiming modes.

A few bugs. I'll probably fix them eventually, but bugs are fun!
- If you hold down the joystick, then open your inventory, you'll keep running! Whee, fast travel!
- Less fun: creative tabs aren't "selectable". I'll probably need to add an alternative "free-cursor" mode to handle edge cases like that.

Could someone configure and post their options_controller.txt of an Xbox 360? I'd like to set up some sensible defaults, and I suspect that is the most popular controller.

[mabrowning]

On a different note, I'm in communication with the author of GSound; considering adding in support as an optional 3D audio implementation in minecraft.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=buU8gPG2cHI

You can actually download a demo and try it for yourself here! We can simplify quite a bit of the math for Minecraft since the geometry is entirely axis-aligned bounding blocks.

[Jademalo]

On a different note, I'm in communication with the author of GSound; considering adding in support as an optional 3D audio implementation in minecraft.

You can actually download a demo and try it for yourself here! We can simplify quite a bit of the math for Minecraft since the geometry is entirely axis-aligned bounding blocks.

As a huge audio nerd, that sounds fantastic!
That would almost certainly be a good change, and fantastic for that extra level of immersion.

[Neurario]

Love it! I've been a little obsessed in the past, with mods like the old BetterSound that performed basic attenuation. If anything comes of this, I hope you can release a library that doesn't require the rest of Minecrift!

Just want to note a bug that I've noticed with the HUD, though I'm not sure if it's intentional. I find that on multiplayer servers that have a scoreboard on the side of the screen, it is barely visible compared to the rest of the HUD. An example is attached to this post.

[mabrowning]

Yeah

Just want to note a bug that I've noticed with the HUD, though I'm not sure if it's intentional. I find that on multiplayer servers that have a scoreboard on the side of the screen, it is barely visible compared to the rest of the HUD. An example is attached to this post.

Hmm, yeah, that doesn't look like it'd be easy to use. I'll look into it.

[Jademalo]

Love it! I've been a little obsessed in the past, with mods like the old BetterSound that performed basic attenuation. If anything comes of this, I hope you can release a library that doesn't require the rest of Minecrift!

Just want to note a bug that I've noticed with the HUD, though I'm not sure if it's intentional. I find that on multiplayer servers that have a scoreboard on the side of the screen, it is barely visible compared to the rest of the HUD. An example is attached to this post.

Out of curiosity, what server is that?

[mabrowning]

Continuing my trend... b94 has even further joystick polish. I've been alternating playing on MetaCraft, finding problems, and fixing them.

My preferred controller setup is now:

• Keyhole Width: 90° (very edge of my vision)
  Keyhole Height: 100° (very edge)
  Mode: "Keyhole (loose)"
  Joystick sensitivity: 8.0
  "Recenter" bound to the joystick "click".

The Mode: "Keyhole (loose)" works kind of like the hydra. If you aim at something, then let off the joystick, no matter where you turn your head, the crosshair will stay there. This allows you to mine while checking behind you. However, pushing the crosshair up to the keyhole (while its visible) will turn the view as normal.

"Recenter" bound to the joystick "click": with such loose control of the crosshair, it can get lost. If you suddenly come across an enemy, you don't have time to find it. I've added the ability to "hold the line!" aka keep the crosshair bound to the center of your view while holding a button. That way you can aim with your head when you need a quick response.

If anyone can come up with a better scheme, please let me know, I'd love to try it! With this, I think the controller is approaching the usefulness of the hydra free-aim; not quite there, though. I need to give the hydra controls the same level of attention I've been giving the controller, but that will probably have to wait until next weekend. I've been programming for close to 18 hours.....

In other news... I nearly had a heart attack a bit ago: my first crap-my-pants moment in the Rift. I was mining in a corner of a cave after just signing in to MetaCraft. I thought I was alone. I looked over my shoulder and saw this.

[Jademalo]

In other news... I nearly had a heart attack a bit ago: my first crap-my-pants moment in the Rift. I was mining in a corner of a cave after just signing in to MetaCraft. I thought I was alone. I looked over my shoulder and saw this.

Truly, there is nothing more terrifying or more fearsome than the slayer of worms

[StellaArtois]

EDIT: Trying to copy and paste quotes on an iPad is ^*^&** impossible...

Head tracking prediction:
-I will have to test later. Till then what direction do you think may help?

I believe Oculus recommend that the head track prediction should be "somewhat less" than the current rendering latency (i.e. time to draw the current frame and then poll the Rift tracker again). So if you have 60fps (16.7ms) rendering latency, the head track prediction 'should' be set to 12-15ms. I think we currently default to 15ms. If you have 45fps it should be ~18-22ms. Etc.

BUT this is all in theory and I've only had time for a cursory play around with that previously. Hopefully you'll be able to play around with this a little more!

Stella, you mentioned maybe playing with some defaults option changes? (These are just opinion)
-Lowering 'HUD Pitch Offset' a little may be useful to some that feel the quickbar hud is a little too high.
-Cursor Always On
-MIP Mapping level 1 - higher level mip mapping solidifies some textures and may cause artifacts at level 3 and up (only when combined with FSAA). (Confirm?)

TLDR: If I fall off of the forums, well it is now your fault! This thing is fully playable so far. Been playing all day and actually had to pull myself away to test the above. Thank you.

This is something that it's good to revisit as we learn more more about what works and what doesn't. I'll give the defaults another 'give sensible defaults' pass some point soon.