Development thread (Grandfathered; OLD Vireio Structure)

[Tankshell]

Hi all.

Thanks for your continued work on Vireio. I have a rather noob question...

How is it that the '3D sense of depth' varies so much between supported games? For example, I have been playing Skyrim a lot using the latest Vireio build, and the depth in that game looks very good once configured (and set to 110 FOV). When I am stood close to objects. ie a cart or a horse it really looks 3 dimensional like I could reach out and touch it.

In other games, using the same separation settings I have configured for Skyrim (or even adjusting them a bit), eg. Dear Esther... everything still looks relatively flat (also set to 110 FOV). Surely if the eye separation value is set the same for both games profiles, the sense of 3D should also appear to be same for me? Or am I missing something completely basic here?

[baggyg]

Hi all.

Thanks for your continued work on Vireio. I have a rather noob question...

How is it that the '3D sense of depth' varies so much between supported games? For example, I have been playing Skyrim a lot using the latest Vireio build, and the depth in that game looks very good once configured (and set to 110 FOV). When I am stood close to objects. ie a cart or a horse it really looks 3 dimensional like I could reach out and touch it.

In other games, using the same separation settings I have configured for Skyrim (or even adjusting them a bit), eg. Dear Esther... everything still looks relatively flat (also set to 110 FOV). Surely if the eye separation value is set the same for both games profiles, the sense of 3D should also appear to be same for me? Or am I missing something completely basic here?

See the previous notes on Dear Esther, that for some reason the eyes need to be reversed and the SHOCT system used to get the right convergence. In my experience you have to hit the diverge button at least 8 - 10 times before it shows depth. Once its there its awesome though

I just tried Dear Esther with the 1.0.5 rc1 build. I can confirm it works.

The default profile is not good though. You need to press F6 to swap eyes, then hold down F3 for around 5-10 seconds to get a good 3D effect.

[Neil]

Hi all.

Thanks for your continued work on Vireio. I have a rather noob question...

How is it that the '3D sense of depth' varies so much between supported games? For example, I have been playing Skyrim a lot using the latest Vireio build, and the depth in that game looks very good once configured (and set to 110 FOV). When I am stood close to objects. ie a cart or a horse it really looks 3 dimensional like I could reach out and touch it.

In other games, using the same separation settings I have configured for Skyrim (or even adjusting them a bit), eg. Dear Esther... everything still looks relatively flat (also set to 110 FOV). Surely if the eye separation value is set the same for both games profiles, the sense of 3D should also appear to be same for me? Or am I missing something completely basic here?

It's imperative that the convergence adjustment is also set as described in the guide. While Oculus' SDK insists that you shouldn't have convergence in games, the rules aren't the same for S-3D drivers because there isn't the same consistency with object placement, distance to camera, etc. So, we have to use convergence to help compensate for these differences.

In practice, as you walk close to objects, the visual results should be very similar between Vireio and a native game, and properly setting convergence is often a requirement to achieve those visual results. I say "similar" because there are still advantages with native game development - there is no doubt.

Skyrim has an advantage because it's a game I own, and I was able to add the convergence setting to the game's profile. I couldn't do this for titles I don't own, and the Vireio driver developers haven't received their Rift yet so they can't pre-configure they way I can.

Regards,
Neil

[Tankshell]

Hi all.

Thanks for your continued work on Vireio. I have a rather noob question...

How is it that the '3D sense of depth' varies so much between supported games? For example, I have been playing Skyrim a lot using the latest Vireio build, and the depth in that game looks very good once configured (and set to 110 FOV). When I am stood close to objects. ie a cart or a horse it really looks 3 dimensional like I could reach out and touch it.

In other games, using the same separation settings I have configured for Skyrim (or even adjusting them a bit), eg. Dear Esther... everything still looks relatively flat (also set to 110 FOV). Surely if the eye separation value is set the same for both games profiles, the sense of 3D should also appear to be same for me? Or am I missing something completely basic here?

See the previous notes on Dear Esther, that for some reason the eyes need to be reversed and the SHOCT system used to get the right convergence. In my experience you have to hit the diverge button at least 8 - 10 times before it shows depth. Once its there its awesome though

I just tried Dear Esther with the 1.0.5 rc1 build. I can confirm it works.

The default profile is not good though. You need to press F6 to swap eyes, then hold down F3 for around 5-10 seconds to get a good 3D effect.

@baggyg thanks, that F6 toggle did the trick to reverse the eyes/cameras, I had no idea and would not have tried that. It's inconsistencies like this that need to be more clearly documented in the readme file I guess, especially for new users who haven't read through various threads and have been following the development of the driver. It wasn't mentioned at all. But now Dear Esther looks great in 3D, just as good as Skyrim! Again to all Vireio developers, top job you are doing and thanks.

@Neil ok thanks for the tip re. convergence, I will make sure to configure this for games as well in future.

EDIT - btw guys, do you know if it is possible to get the 360 controller working in Skyrim with Vireio? I have just played through Dear Esther using the 360 controller and it worked fine in Vireio, both keyboard and controller functioning at the same time. I tried this in Skyrim, but the control options seem to be mutually exclusive, and the head tracking does not work when the 360 controller is enabled...

[baggyg]

EDIT - btw guys, do you know if it is possible to get the 360 controller working in Skyrim with Vireio? I have just played through Dear Esther using the 360 controller and it worked fine in Vireio, both keyboard and controller functioning at the same time. I tried this in Skyrim, but the control options seem to be mutually exclusive, and the head tracking does not work when the 360 controller is enabled...

This depends on the game and whether the two are programmed to be mutually exclusive. In games like Skyrim the whole UI is changed hence they cant have both working at the same time. In these cases use a program like Xpadder to map the controller to key bindings. Then turn off controller version in Skyrim et voila! However you will have to learn the bindings since onscreen will still show the keys.

At some point joystick emulation should be added to Perception to get around this although it will still end up with the same situation.

[ChrisJD]

After trying F1 2012 last night with the tridef solution, I tried Game Stock Car 2012 (based on rFactor engine) and it also had a flicker in menus and a very overdrawn cockpit (just for your info more than anything )

I'm up to try anything for rFactor stuff..Formula Trucks and GSC2012 are on my current playlist

It doesn't help me figure out the problem, but I always feel better when another program that does the same thing has the same problem. So thanks.

It'll be Ford Escorts at Pukekohe Park Raceway for me. Assuming I can find all the files.

[ChrisJD]

Fixed the overdraw in the cockpit in rFactor, which also happened to make Borderlands 2, Borderlands HUD text and The Ball main menu render correctly as well. M-m-m-multi fix.



rFactor; still in mono but without the cockpit overdraw problem. Still has a problem with the gauges.

[Virgman]

This is great! I'd love to have BL2 support when I get my kit later this month. How are you guys doing with the UI? Is it something that can be modified or is it too embodied in the source code to fix with an external driver?

[mgood]

Wow, this is really impressive. Once this is good enough for general release, it may be all anyone needs for non-Rift games.

[cybereality]

Cool. I know racing games seemed like a popular request so this is great news.

[ChrisJD]

In other games, using the same separation settings I have configured for Skyrim (or even adjusting them a bit), eg. Dear Esther... everything still looks relatively flat (also set to 110 FOV). Surely if the eye separation value is set the same for both games profiles, the sense of 3D should also appear to be same for me? Or am I missing something completely basic here?

Even once you have the eyes the right way around the separation still has to be set individually for different games. If the game is on the same engine and happens to have been built to the same scale then the same values will work. If it's a different engine or the developers scaled things differently in the same engine then you'll need to mess around to get good values in that particular game.

It's a huge usability issue we've talked over a couple of times and we definitely want to fix it, but no one has gotten around to working on it yet.

How are you guys doing with the UI?

It's been discussed and there are some ideas but I think any solution is going to be pretty game specific and time consuming to work out. So no progress to speak of on that front. Borderlands 2 does actually have its own settings for squashing the UI in and scaling it. I don't know if it's enough to make the UI usable on the Rift though.

[mgood]

You could implement a 'slide edges towards center with mouse' toggle button like a certain other solution is reputed to use

[Neil]

You could implement a 'slide edges towards center with mouse' toggle button like a certain other solution is reputed to use

First, I don't care if you name them (VorpX - there, I said it). In this case, while I applaud VorpX for being the first showcase the work, the inventor is actually cplr:

Instead of shrinking the UI, another solution would be to move & adjust the center-point the UI based on the head tracking (which I guess for the mod's purposes, would be the mouse input), So as you look left, the UI shifts to the right, exposing the hidden areas.

You can read his contribution right here:

http://www.mtbs3d.com/phpbb/viewtopic.p ... 72#p117929


EDIT: To be fair, this isn't to say that cplr was the first inventor. No one could truly know that. However, it's not a proprietary idea.

Regards,
Neil

[memristor1]

I've tried to enable the SHOCS calibration (Shift + *(numpad)) but it doesn't do anything for me in Skyrim. I've tried putting the Vereio drivers on the desktop, inside the Skyrim folder, and Vereio.exe in the Skyrimlauncher.exe folder. Is there another way to activate it?

Update: Looks like there are two commands for 3D calibration? Shift + * or CTRL + I ? I used the last one and it worked. I had to reduce parallax a lot for the lines to overlap. Maybe that's what was making me nauseated yesterday Funny thing, after standing close to wooden beam to measure the parallax I turned around and there was a Skyrim guard standing right behind me, just staring. Almost jumped out of my seat.

[mgood]

Yeah, I don't think it's proprietary.. it is clever, though. I wish I'd thought of it, it seems obvious in hindsight

[mahler]

the README.txt on GitHub still refers to Oculus SDK 0.1.5
It that still used or can it be upgraded to version 0.2.2?

[phort99]

When I was testing Dear Esther I noticed it's really hard to get the mouse sensitivity perfect so the mouselook maps 1:1 to head tracking, and I thought of a fairly simple way you might be able to calibrate it to get it perfect. Disable head tracking (and don't wear the headset), then every frame move the mouse very quickly to the right. The user then adjusts how far the mouse moves every frame with keyboard commands, and the goal is to get the character to turn 360° every frame, so the world appears to come to a stop. Then you know how many pixels correspond to 360° rotation, and can map that fairly easily to the head tracking.

Alternately if you wanted something slightly less accurate but also less prone to causing seizures, you could just have the player use the mouse to turn 360° in-game and measure how far the mouse moved horizontally.

[MrGreen]

Trying to do the SHOCT setup found here:

http://www.mtbs3d.com/wiki/index.php?ti ... etup_guide

The Shift+* and Numpad keys work but the F2/F3 keys don't seem to work to adjust the separation. I'm doing that in HL2 with the latest RC driver.

What am I missing?

I also find it very hard to tell if the red lines are exactly in the middle of my eyes to adjust the IPD.

[ChrisJD]

the README.txt on GitHub still refers to Oculus SDK 0.1.5
It that still used or can it be upgraded to version 0.2.2?

I don't think there is any reason it can't be done. Someone just has to get around to doing it. Is there a specific feature that the newer version adds that is likely to encourage someone to do it?

[Philpax]

the README.txt on GitHub still refers to Oculus SDK 0.1.5
It that still used or can it be upgraded to version 0.2.2?

I don't think there is any reason it can't be done. Someone just has to get around to doing it. Is there a specific feature that the newer version adds that is likely to encourage someone to do it?

0.2.1 adds magnetometer yaw drift correction, if I remember correctly. I'm using 0.2.1 with my builds, and it's working fine - was a drop-in replacement. Drift correction needs to be configured, though.

[Benjimoron]

OT but Philpax from JC2 I assume? If so, hello and keep up the good work!

[Philpax]

OT but Philpax from JC2 I assume? If so, hello and keep up the good work!

Looks like I'm not the only one with a certain set of interests

[Endothermic]

Well I finally got head tracking working with vireio though only by accident.

I decided I wanted to play x-com again (not on the RIFT) but was bored with the normal game so wanted to try the warspace mod. Followed the instructions and it installs fine but everytime I would start x-com it would sit on the start bar for 5 seconds then come up with an error. I tried for weeks and did everything that the author said, install latest dotnet and java bla bla bla and still crashes.

Then I tried it on my old reformatted system and it worked without a hitch.... and I noticed it only had dotnet 4.0 not 4.5 installed so I uninstalled dotnet 4.5 on this machine and installed 4.0 and woosh x-com with the mod was working.

I wondered if the tracking could possibly be working since x-com wasn't working but now was with the different dotnet on and woosh.... no issues with the tracking now.

[ChrisJD]

A bunch of stuff clicked back together in the last couple of days. I tried to get a few things going in stereo quickly tonight, plenty of issues still. Have to have shadows disabled in all of them on top of the other stuff.

GRID - Wing mirror has a problem.


rFactor - I'm having trouble picking what's wrong with the 3d.. but I think the cockpit is scaled differently to everything else. So I'm getting strong cockpit 3D with weak world 3D? Maybe I'm just staring at these things too much.


Borderlands 2


An obvious issue from this quick attempt to get stereo in Borderlands 2 (look at the pop up video thing)

[RescueGamer]

Can anyone check the DIY mode? With this mode the objects just look very tall, i think changing some numbers on the SideBySideRift.fx file will solve this, but don't know how :S

[Tankshell]

A bunch of stuff clicked back together in the last couple of days. I tried to get a few things going in stereo quickly tonight, plenty of issues still. Have to have shadows disabled in all of them on top of the other stuff.

GRID - Wing mirror has a problem.

Great, can't wait to get GRiD going. It just seems to be the menu screens that dont render in the current latest version of Vireio, making it almost impossible to play properly, other than hitting enter repeatedly and just trying whatever race it throws you into

EDIT - I have also noticed that the wing mirrors in both Dirt 2 and Dirt 3 also have weird depth issues at the moment, must be the same problem as in Grid as they all the use the same EGO engine right?

[ChrisJD]

EDIT - I have also noticed that the wing mirrors in both Dirt 2 and Dirt 3 also have weird depth issues at the moment, must be the same problem as in Grid as they all the use the same EGO engine right?

Probably the same problem, but there could also be new problems as well.

They use different versions of ego http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EGO_%28game_engine%29 although from Vireio's point of view they all work the same. I have no idea why they chose to lock F1 2012 to dx10/11 given it's supposedly on the same engine as Dirt 3.

[Hermit]

worked for a few hours on SBS in dx11.
still no 3d or tracking for now. have to do homework

What resolution do you guys render the game for each eye?


lame preview pic (f1 2012) http://i.imgur.com/YPiNW0q.jpg

[ChrisJD]

Can a couple of people with Rifts look at these images in the rift and tell me if they work? If they don't could you say what's wrong?

I've been looking at them on my monitor and something seems off, they aren't as easy to view as other images. But apart from making my eyes very tired staring at them I can't really say what the problem is, or if there actually is one and it's not just my imagination.

One
Two
Three
Four

[Valez]

Separation is way to high.
Warping is good.

I can see black borders on top and bottom. This seems to be a general problem in Vireio though.

[ChrisJD]

Separation is way to high.
Warping is good.

I can see black borders on top and bottom. This seems to be a general problem in Vireio though.

Thanks, that combined with some more testing has narrowed down where to look for the problem tomorrow.

Black borders are a function of an absence of information.

[Valez]

Well, then let's eliminate that absence.

I use A cups, the Display all the way in.
There are no visible Borders on the sides, and the border at the top is rather small but that
at the bottom is approximately the heigth of the HUD element for Zoey in the L4D screenshots.
I can see both borders even when I am directly looking at them (the borders from Doom3 are only visible when looking straight ahead for example).
I guess the difference between the top and bottom border size depends on how someone fits the Rift on his head.

I tested this with Dear Esther and Antichamber to make sure it is not just on the screenshots.


If you want to know more, just ask. I'm happy to help.

[Neil]

Separation is way to high.
Warping is good.

I can see black borders on top and bottom. This seems to be a general problem in Vireio though.

Thanks, that combined with some more testing has narrowed down where to look for the problem tomorrow.

Black borders are a function of an absence of information.

Actually, that may be a blessing in disguise. I don't have my Rift here, but if the UI is suddenly visible because of this...

Regards,
Neil

[Valez]

Well, if it would not be visible without borders it would still be very hard to read with borders.
Aside from that, at least for me the borders take away much from the immersion.

[ChrisJD]

Well, then let's eliminate that absence.

Sorry, that was the short, I'm heading off answer, it wasn't clear.

The eyes get rendered at the full screen resolution (more importantly, at the full screen aspect ratio). When you put that image into half the screen you get something like this (All screen shots are without distortion for clarity).



The big black borders are there because there is nothing to put there (while maintaining the aspect ratio).

There are various ways to try and address this. Ignore the aspect ratio and stretch to the area, terrible idea.


Zoom the image in and lose the edges of the view. Better, but it creates more problems than you might think. You have to be able to bump the fov way up (additional distortion issues) to get the correct fov instead of the narrow zoomed fov you see here. This means rendering a lot more geometry that never gets seen.


In some games we might be able to get away with reprojecting using the correct aspect ratio for the side. However, this doesn't work in general because the game has already culled geometry outside of the projection the game is using so we get geometry popping in and out. imo that's worse than black borders.

[ChrisJD]

M'kay, found the Math error that was present when the last set of screen shots were taken. This image should be approximately correct for a person of average ipd, although not perfect as there are still bugs. The cockpit of the car is offset at a slightly different rate to the body so the hood looks off and the and wing mirror images don't align with the wing mirror model positions.


Same image

[Valez]

The big black borders are there because there is nothing to put there (while maintaining the aspect ratio).

Ok, that makes sense, thank you.
However, the Borders are very distracting and the HUD isn't even usable with borders in most cases.
But if there is no easy fix for that, I guess people just have increase the distance of the display.

M'kay, found the Math error that was present when the last set of screen shots were taken. This image should be approximately correct for a person of average ipd, although not perfect as there are still bugs. The cockpit of the car is offset at a slightly different rate to the body so the hood looks off and the and wing mirror images don't align with the wing mirror model positions.

Looks good.
You seem to be just inches over the ground and everything looks like it is really small, but I guess this is because
you chose high separation.

[ChrisJD]

Looks good.
You seem to be just inches over the ground and everything looks like it is really small, but I guess this is because
you chose high separation.

It's a lot of educated guessing until I have my Rift. The game fov is set way to low which might be part of the problem as well. I shall do some more Math and see roughly what the fov should be and try again with a few more games.

[ChrisJD]

Another set of tests if anyone has the time.

3 sets of images http://chrisjd32.imgur.com/

Pick the best in each set and indicate if it's still off or not.

[Valez]

All pictures "fuse together"

Grid

Your own body is the size of a child and the other cars the size of toy cars.
There doesn't seem to be much of a difference between the screenshots.



F1

Both look similar, hard to see a difference with the lack of reference points between the pictures.
Cockpit and car are looking the same size.
I would guess 121 is the better one.
Makes me really excited about driving a F1 car in the Rift. The feeling you get just from the screenshot is amazing!

Dirt

160 seems best, the cockpit and hands are looking roughly the size they should, a bit too big maybe (But this could be the game itself. In Skyrim your arms are 2 meters long for example).
Can't really judge the scale outside the car, but it seems worse in the other pictures.