CIG is working hard to implement VR

Turrican187

In the recent RTV CR talks a lot about how they will implement VR in Star Citizen - Yay!

https://uploadvr.com/star-citizen-will-still-get-vr-support-chris-roberts-confirms/

“So our biggest hold back on VR really is we’re still doing so much base-level refactoring and the engine, the renderer, we’ll be starting on Vulcan, DX12 refactor as well and we’re doing so much optimization that we feel like we’ve got to get that done first and get the base level engine stuff more finished, not constantly working and refactoring, and then we’ll put VR [in],” Roberts said.

“Because we actually had VR support quite a while ago but, of course, as we change stuff it breaks and then, your engine team, are they going to go and fix the VR stuff or that new procedural planet system that everyone can experience. So that’s what’s always happened in those situations but once all that stablizes of course, yes, we’re going to go and put that support in .”

Aethaeryn

That seems like a logical decision.  I like to see the focus on optimization.  The problem with trying to build a game *while* people are playing it is that they have to someone work out bugs while they add features to make them good enough.  This would then get re-broken or changed / scrapped  and they have to then fix the new system.

MaxBacon

It was never to not get that VR support, it was simply put on long-term, and not unreasonably so seeing how much they have to do on other fronts.

And indeed, DX12/Vulkan upgrade > VR Support (and pretty much sort of optimization VR requires to ever properly work).

Turrican187

Basic DX12 upgrade to benefit from the faster rendering is quite easy. DX12 special effects not so.
And you need high res for VR (2 renderings which the cry4 core does not like at all but possible) and each rendering synchronised at 60+ FPS.
And they have to take away all animations where the player is loosing control over the character + the 4 Arm thingy where players get confused when there are arms on your character that cannot be controlled (brain thinks it's got 4 arms).
FOIP will also be a problem while wearing a VR set.

With all these things in mind I would suggest that they don't waste time on VR because it will interfere too much with the gameplay and there is still a chance to create the new puking simulator ... But thats just me on a small multiplayer forum

MaxBacon

I think the fact they have the in-character, mixing the EVA, with FPS, and all those elements is the biggest problem for VR and not really specific bits on animations, UI and so.

It's easier to pull off VR when you only have to account like ED, the cockpit experience of it. To get a good VR implementation on those other types of play would likely mean cuts and giveaways (SQ42 cinematics rip). It's like playing those games with good VR focus yet wonky for who plays without it (and vice-versa).

rpmcmurphy

Chris Roberts:
YEAH on the VR FRONT, um, you know, the game's very much built to be VR FRIENDLY because, you know... like al-um... almost all the UI is DIAGETIC and the stuff that isn't we're putting more into being DIAGETIC and we wanna improve the whole DIAGETIC FEEL... ah... so... ahh... you know... our biggest HOLDBACK on the VR is really just we're still doing so much base level REFACTORING and the ENGINE and the RENDERER will, you know, be starting on you know, the X... the VULKAN, the X12 kinda REFACTOR as well, a-and we're doing so much OPTIMISATION that we sorta feel like, 'we've gotta get that done... FIRST', and... get the base level engine stuff more like FINISHED, not constantly working REFACTORING

And then we'll... we'll PUT VR...

Cos we had actual, you know, VR support quite a while ago but again as we CHANGE stuff it BREAKS and then your engine team, you go, 'are they gonna go fix the VR stuff? Are they writing that new... that new... you know like the PROCEDURAL PLANETS that EVERYBODY can experience', and... so that's always been... that's kind of what's happened in those situations

But once all that stabilises of course we're gonna go and get that supported and when we're building things, you know, we're aware of like I said the DI... putting everything in the world itself, ah... which is quite friendly for VR or... you know... and moving your head around and TRACKING the same thing it's like... we track... ah... your HEADLOOK and actually, you know, I... I'd thought that we'd turned it on in 3.0 but it will be something that you can disconnect your LOOK from your AIM... as a PLAYER... ah, you know the AI can already do that...

Cos that's also something that's potentially useful where you're... you know... you're a CERTAIN way, you don't have to look around to like move your gun to look at it

sgel

Chris Roberts is a genius that stays up all night coding.

Solar_Prophet

rpmcmurphy said:

Chris Roberts:
YEAH on the VR FRONT, um, you know, the game's very much built to be VR FRIENDLY because, you know... like al-um... almost all the UI is DIAGETIC and the stuff that isn't we're putting more into being DIAGETIC and we wanna improve the whole DIAGETIC FEEL... ah... so... ahh... you know... our biggest HOLDBACK on the VR is really just we're still doing so much base level REFACTORING and the ENGINE and the RENDERER will, you know, be starting on you know, the X... the VULKAN, the X12 kinda REFACTOR as well, a-and we're doing so much OPTIMISATION that we sorta feel like, 'we've gotta get that done... FIRST', and... get the base level engine stuff more like FINISHED, not constantly working REFACTORING

And then we'll... we'll PUT VR...

Cos we had actual, you know, VR support quite a while ago but again as we CHANGE stuff it BREAKS and then your engine team, you go, 'are they gonna go fix the VR stuff? Are they writing that new... that new... you know like the PROCEDURAL PLANETS that EVERYBODY can experience', and... so that's always been... that's kind of what's happened in those situations

But once all that stabilises of course we're gonna go and get that supported and when we're building things, you know, we're aware of like I said the DI... putting everything in the world itself, ah... which is quite friendly for VR or... you know... and moving your head around and TRACKING the same thing it's like... we track... ah... your HEADLOOK and actually, you know, I... I'd thought that we'd turned it on in 3.0 but it will be something that you can disconnect your LOOK from your AIM... as a PLAYER... ah, you know the AI can already do that...

Cos that's also something that's potentially useful where you're... you know... you're a CERTAIN way, you don't have to look around to like move your gun to look at it

Octagon7711

rpmcmurphy said:

Chris Roberts:
YEAH on the VR FRONT, um, you know, the game's very much built to be VR FRIENDLY because, you know... like al-um... almost all the UI is DIAGETIC and the stuff that isn't we're putting more into being DIAGETIC and we wanna improve the whole DIAGETIC FEEL... ah... so... ahh... you know... our biggest HOLDBACK on the VR is really just we're still doing so much base level REFACTORING and the ENGINE and the RENDERER will, you know, be starting on you know, the X... the VULKAN, the X12 kinda REFACTOR as well, a-and we're doing so much OPTIMISATION that we sorta feel like, 'we've gotta get that done... FIRST', and... get the base level engine stuff more like FINISHED, not constantly working REFACTORING

And then we'll... we'll PUT VR...

Cos we had actual, you know, VR support quite a while ago but again as we CHANGE stuff it BREAKS and then your engine team, you go, 'are they gonna go fix the VR stuff? Are they writing that new... that new... you know like the PROCEDURAL PLANETS that EVERYBODY can experience', and... so that's always been... that's kind of what's happened in those situations

But once all that stabilises of course we're gonna go and get that supported and when we're building things, you know, we're aware of like I said the DI... putting everything in the world itself, ah... which is quite friendly for VR or... you know... and moving your head around and TRACKING the same thing it's like... we track... ah... your HEADLOOK and actually, you know, I... I'd thought that we'd turned it on in 3.0 but it will be something that you can disconnect your LOOK from your AIM... as a PLAYER... ah, you know the AI can already do that...

Cos that's also something that's potentially useful where you're... you know... you're a CERTAIN way, you don't have to look around to like move your gun to look at it

Funny video, gave me a sand worm flashback.

kikoodutroa8

sgel said:

Chris Roberts is a genius that stays up all night coding.

The vision!!!

Vrika

Aethaeryn said:

That seems like a logical decision.  I like to see the focus on optimization.  The problem with trying to build a game *while* people are playing it is that they have to someone work out bugs while they add features to make them good enough.  This would then get re-broken or changed / scrapped  and they have to then fix the new system.

It's not that large a problem, because most design are bad. They need to be tested, then iterated a couple of times, and only after the process of testing and adjusting you've got something that works.

So while building a working game at each step takes time, it's also a requirement and they'd need to have a working version for their own in-house testers even if they'd let no-one else into the game.

Babuinix

kikoodutroa8 said:

sgel said:

Chris Roberts is a genius that stays up all night coding.

The vision!!!

That's an awesome picture from around the day's that Star Citizen didn't even have a Persistent Universe or Star Marine and most of the goons and haters started to go really sour and chanting that CIG would collapse in 90 day's lol 3 years later and with more 100$millions in the pocket, persistent universe with star marine/fps, planetary landings, multicrew, trading/cargo, eva, clothing, weapons and multiple vehicles for land & space plus a great Squadron 42 vertical slice demo.... The Best Damn Space Sim Ever just gets better and better. Cant wait for the new ATV update on Crysis lvl planets! Get hyped!

kikoodutroa8

"clothing" and "space pus" are probably the best features in that list.

Is there an official SC VR headset available btw?

MaxBacon

Vrika said:

It's not that large a problem, because most design are bad. They need to be tested, then iterated a couple of times, and only after the process of testing and adjusting you've got something that works.

So while building a working game at each step takes time, it's also a requirement and they'd need to have a working version for their own in-house testers even if they'd let no-one else into the game.

There's that wrong perception a game like this will nail all of the design and plans before the design is even executed.

SC also added VR early on, then it quickly becomes obsolete as the game developed, I think Elite Dangerous did the same giving support to one early SDK, that got redone later for newer ones.

rpmcmurphy

MaxBacon said:

Vrika said:

It's not that large a problem, because most design are bad. They need to be tested, then iterated a couple of times, and only after the process of testing and adjusting you've got something that works.

So while building a working game at each step takes time, it's also a requirement and they'd need to have a working version for their own in-house testers even if they'd let no-one else into the game.

There's that wrong perception a game like this will nail all of the design and plans before the design is even executed.

SC also added VR early on, then it quickly becomes obsolete as the game developed, I think Elite Dangerous did the same giving support to one early SDK, that got redone later for newer ones.

With Elite they enabled VR for the initial alpha, later on they had to delay upgrading to the newer SDKs because they were incompatible or they were waiting for some feature (I forget which), this caused a bit of a problem for users who automatically upgraded their software but if you were willing to jump through a couple of hoops VR was usable from that 1st alpha right through to today.

Phry

VR is interesting in itself, but is it really worth investing resources in VR when the game itself is not yet complete? after all only a very small minority of players even have VR equipment so is it even worth it at this point?

Erillion

Phry said:

VR is interesting in itself, but is it really worth investing resources in VR when the game itself is not yet complete? after all only a very small minority of players even have VR equipment so is it even worth it at this point?

I know VR from E:D and its amazing.

But only a very small number of people use it.

Personally I would say CIG should concentrate on the main game development, with VR being in their minds, but with low priority.


Have fun

rpmcmurphy

Phry said:

VR is interesting in itself, but is it really worth investing resources in VR when the game itself is not yet complete? after all only a very small minority of players even have VR equipment so is it even worth it at this point?

There's a surprising amount of people that play Elite using VR but I think the difference here is that they built the game with VR in mind.

With Star Citizen they already have many, many things that are just not compatible with VR and trying to retrofit it at a later date with those things in place is only going to be problematic.
At the moment you have automated actions getting in and out of ships, they're going to implement fast versions of those actions as well and neither of those will work with VR, they will one of the most vomit inducing things you could have in a VR game.

I think it's good that they are thinking about having VR but I don't see how they are going to implement it.

Arglebargle

Erillion said:

Phry said:

VR is interesting in itself, but is it really worth investing resources in VR when the game itself is not yet complete? after all only a very small minority of players even have VR equipment so is it even worth it at this point?

I know VR from E:D and its amazing.

But only a very small number of people use it.

Personally I would say CIG should concentrate on the main game development, with VR being in their minds, but with low priority.


Have fun

I'd put VR in the very large 'bit off more than they could chew' bin.   But if CIG is going to try for VR, they should definitely look at what hooks to put in their development now, to make it easier to implement later. 

Erillion

Arglebargle said:

I'd put VR in the very large 'bit off more than they could chew' bin.   But if CIG is going to try for VR, they should definitely look at what hooks to put in their development now, to make it easier to implement later. 

Which CIG has already done ever since the Kickstarter. It is an interative process.

You will find a lot of discussion threads about this here in this subforum. The discussion about unifying 1st and 3rd person view, the discussion about MobiGlas displays, the discussion about cockpit design etc.


Have fun

Erillion

>>> There's a surprising amount of people that play Elite using VR >>>

As in ... thousands .... (=my personal guestimate). Less than 1 %.

That is not surprising. That is rather frustrating.

VR - despite being awesome - is not really taking off at the moment IMHO. Too expensive for mass market.


Have fun

rpmcmurphy

The percentage was quite high when they released the alpha but as the product has reached a wider market obviously the uptake precentage drops.

Erillion said:

As in ... thousands .... (=my personal guestimate). Less than 1 %.

No offence but this estimate is pointless, if it was just 1% it could be as much as 30,000 which in itself wouldn't be bad for a first consumer version of a very niche product in a niche space game.
It could be as much as 5% or it could be as little as 0.5%, none of us have an inkling of how many people use VR with Elite.

Erillion

rpmcmurphy said:

The percentage was quite high when they released the alpha but as the product has reached a wider market obviously the uptake precentage drops.

Erillion said:

As in ... thousands .... (=my personal guestimate). Less than 1 %.

No offence but this estimate is pointless, if it was just 1% it could be as much as 30,000 which in itself wouldn't be bad for a first consumer version of a very niche product in a niche space game.
It could be as much as 5% or it could be as little as 0.5%, none of us have an inkling of how many people use VR with Elite.

How many people do you know personally that play Elite with a VR unit ?

For me = 1

And its not me.  I experienced E:D in VR playing on his rig.

Anyone else I personally know = 0

Anyone else i know via mail = 0  (out of dozens that play space games, including E:D and SC).

Do you see a trend here ? And this is a group of people (simulation gamers) that tend to have a higher amount of money available for games and hardware. Higher than the average gamer.


VR gaming is still rare.


As i said, it is a personal guestimate, not a hard fact. But for sure neither pointless nor unlikely.


Have fun

postlarval

kikoodutroa8 said:

sgel said:

Chris Roberts is a genius that stays up all night coding.

The vision!!!

Joan of Arc had visions too.

Erillion

postlarval said:

Joan of Arc had visions too.

They still talk about her hundreds of years later ;-)


Have fun

sgel

Erillion said:

postlarval said:

Joan of Arc had visions too.

They still talk about her hundreds of years later ;-)


Have fun

They talk about Charles Manson too.