I wonder how many would pay for an Odyssey VR upgrade
- Thread starter CMDR Darth Vater
- Start date
I'm not even slightly interested in 'why' it rotates with my head. It shouldn't so it's a bug. Good luck persuading anyone here that this was intentional.
Recall the old MS joke: How many Microsoft Engineers does it take to change a light bulb? None, they just redefine 'Darkness' as the standard.
The only thing I can think of that's in the power of a user to affect, would be to reduce render FOV down to the point stereo overlap becomes 100% (I seem to recall SteamVR added a setting to draw in the black margins, so to speak), but that is an absolutely terrible sacrifice to make.
As for the billboard sprites for smoke-etc particles, I will agree that their screen-buffer-locked orientation behaviour is not a bug, (EDIT: ...nor is it uncommon), but it is also not something that has to be that way -- they could perfectly well be made to swivel appropriately for each use case and axis, to face the camera (not the same as being parallel with the view plane, which is also a problem), whilst maintaining rotation consistency with their emitter.
(EDIT2: ...and the game's "sprite engine" may well have the functionality to do it without needing to itself be updated: You could e.g. have a look at a nearby star -- it has an overlayed lens flare sprite that rotates in this ugly way, but behind it -- if you occlude the centre of the star disc, so that the flare stops rendering, you will see another one much like it, but with smaller radius, representing the star's corona, and that one does not behave that way -- it stays put relative to the star when you roll your ship; I don't know that the two are neccessarily produced by the same code module, but it does not strike me as impossible.)
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It is a testament to the rather basic VR implementation. It isn't a bug per se as more an artefact of an implementation not meant for VR.
I know it is a few years old by now, but the Alyx dev commentary explains this in detail. From my memory:
In many, if not most, games distant smoke and explosions are / used to be 2D sprites, because using or creatimg a particle system for it is / was too expensive in terms of rendering. Using a 2D sprite is a working solution because the camera is never meant to rotate by itself. In more modern games smoke seems to be done more and more as a particle system, which creates true 3D smoke.
I am guessing you will find this behavior of rotating smoke in a few games where VR was either an afterthought or added by third parties.
I am also guessing this isn't easy to fix as Frontier would need to re-do their smoke FX completely.
Regarding the particle sprites - there was a brief period during a beta years ago when the smoke from cockpit fires had its rotation locked to the ship and not the VR helmet and it was much better.
The report submitted yonks ago was closed as “invalid” but I think it would be improved by locking sprite rotation to the ship - in iL2-Sturmovik all the sprite based trees turn to face your aircraft like Elite’s sprites do, but because rotation is locked it is hardly noticeable that all the thousands of trees are slowly turning to face your plane. Looking at Elite’s particle sprites, turning your head side to side and vertically gives a slight motion that you can see if you look for it, but rotating your head gives an immediate whoopsie-daisy-that-looks-crap.
The report submitted yonks ago was closed as “invalid” but I think it would be improved by locking sprite rotation to the ship - in iL2-Sturmovik all the sprite based trees turn to face your aircraft like Elite’s sprites do, but because rotation is locked it is hardly noticeable that all the thousands of trees are slowly turning to face your plane. Looking at Elite’s particle sprites, turning your head side to side and vertically gives a slight motion that you can see if you look for it, but rotating your head gives an immediate whoopsie-daisy-that-looks-crap.
I've seen a good few made-for-VR titles which have the sprite problem, alas - some made by developers who definitely "should know better".
Meanwhile Skyrim, a by now ancient game, mostly keeps its particle sprites properly oriented in world space. :7
EDIT: ...and yes; Assuming the sprite/particle frameworks do have the appropriate tracking behaviour flags and parenting links for each axis, somebody at FDev would still need to update each particle system asset for the better behaviour.
Meanwhile Skyrim, a by now ancient game, mostly keeps its particle sprites properly oriented in world space. :7
EDIT: ...and yes; Assuming the sprite/particle frameworks do have the appropriate tracking behaviour flags and parenting links for each axis, somebody at FDev would still need to update each particle system asset for the better behaviour.
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rootsrat
Volunteer Moderator
Pretty sure FDEV is not even slightly interested if you think it's a bug or not either, so...
...so you say FDev are not even slightly interested in what their paying customers consider bugs. You should probably think your remarks through if you want to be a Mod.
rootsrat
Volunteer Moderator
Not at all! You clearly misunderstood. What I meant is that I am pretty sure FDEV has quite an opposite opinion to yours when it comes to that particular issue. (I do think it's an issue as such.)
You can test it by logging it as a bug on the Issue Tracker. See if it gets accepted as a bug (and maybe even fixed
). Link: https://issues.frontierstore.net/Good luck!
rootsrat
Volunteer Moderator
Someone logged it a few years ago, but it didn't get enough confirmations from other playersIn that case I retract my previous comment
Issue Tracker
issues.frontierstore.net
(Also, just to make things clear - I am not speaking for FDEV, this is my personal assumption).
…probably because it was already confirmed a few weeks earlier - though it was eventually marked as “Invalid”Someone logged it a few years ago, but it didn't get enough confirmations from other players
Issue Tracker
issues.frontierstore.net
There was also a similar report on rotating starlight that got closed for as “By Design” - screen-aligned effects:
Issue Tracker
issues.frontierstore.net
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Out of curiosity how high did you have to push SS to get rid of the aliasing issues?I bought a 5090Might even pay the damned thing off of my credit card this month.
Yup….me too!
I personally would be happy with just doing away with the rectangle of disappointment. I’m not asking for room scale or even motion controls. I mean I’m already getting around on foot seated using my HOTAS, so why not make it so that I can look above me or to the side? Sure, all of those features would be sweet but I agree, it would actually be a bit of a pain in the ass to have to get up and switch controllers etc. People are already doing workarounds with detaching the camera inside the holo-me’s skull, so it’s not like it’s a tech thing. Obviously there’s no interacting in camera mode so it’s completely aesthetic and not at all a functional method. But cmon it must be so easy! Theres plenty of popular vr games that don’t use room scale and motion controls, especially in the modding community, so I really don’t think it’s a stretch that people would be happy (at least happier!) with that solution. I would.
I play ED exclusively in VR, as I do with most other games. So for me it’s really disappointing switching to on foot when cockpit and SRV modes are soooo immersive. I feel the odyssey expansion has a real potential to flesh out the world in a completely different way, make it so much more human(!), but every time the sadness square pops up it completely breaks that feeling.
As to the original question of this post though - I agree that we certainly shouldn’t have to pay for it, but if that was the only option I’d be reaching into my pockets and sending my galactic credits to frontier immediately
I play ED exclusively in VR, as I do with most other games. So for me it’s really disappointing switching to on foot when cockpit and SRV modes are soooo immersive. I feel the odyssey expansion has a real potential to flesh out the world in a completely different way, make it so much more human(!), but every time the sadness square pops up it completely breaks that feeling.
As to the original question of this post though - I agree that we certainly shouldn’t have to pay for it, but if that was the only option I’d be reaching into my pockets and sending my galactic credits to frontier immediately
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