I think with regards to our expectations/demands for VR in Odessy, we need to define what is a must-have versus what would-be-nice. These would be weighted differently for different individuals, but the expectations can be defined into "levels" of VR implementation, and each subsequent level would inherit the previous level's functionality. As such each subsiquent level will satisfy more of the VR playerbase.
1st Level - Pilots Seat only VR in Odessy
This would be the bare minimum VR approach for Odessy, and would essentially leave us with the same VR functionality, but be able to fly or drive under those coloured skies, this would allow VR Horizons players to continue as is, but gain access to the skies, and some Odessy content. There will be things like "new engineers" and "Sphere of Combat" from the release that could be partaken of in a ship / SLF / SRV and thus done in 1st level VR.
Where this gets clouded is what happens for on foot / Space Legs* content for VR level 1 players?
- Is this Space Legs* content disabled, like the exit SRV menu button greyed out when in VR?
- Is this Space Legs* content accessed by transitioning to flat screen, like click exit SRV brings up a black VR screen with a message "remove headset and press [BUTTON] to continue on foot"
- Is this Space Legs* content accessed by a virtual 2d screen rendered inside the headset?
2nd Level - WASD/ Gamepad Walking VR in Odessy
This level would "inherit" the flying and driving in VR from the first level, but would add to it by allowing the player to take to their feet while still in VR and have VR headlook while on foot. The game remains a "seated VR experience" and as such does not include use of hand controllers to track the players hands, as such this would be a wasd / gamepad control scheme, with things like [PRESS E or BUTTON 2 to plant charges] prompts as opposed to the player physically placing the charges with own (tracked by hand controllers) hands.
Considerations / problems that I can foresee would be:
This list of considerations is in addition to the list from 1st Level and relates only to the VR On Foot aspect
- Smooth Locomotion vs Teleporting?
- Smooth locomotion may cause nausea in some
- Teleportation is janky and could be used to cheat in FPS combat
- pinned down? Simples... Teleport to a new safer location, this would be an exploited in PvE combat and an infuriating cheat in PvP FPS combat.
- When running is there an element of headbob, which might cause nausea, so could this be smoothed for VR? Maybe via an option in graphics setting like "SRV Keep Horizon" setting?
- What happens when the player leans their real body forward / back / left / right?
- Would this be reflected by the "characters" and avatars?
- Would reflecting this movement by the player need new animations for the "characters"?
- Would the head be stuck to the neck and not movable at all?
- or would the head only movable within certain limits?
- Would hitting those limits induce nausea when the head motion stops changing the view?
- as in you can move your head say ~150° (vertical to chin on chest), and more with slight shoulder / torso movement, but if the avatar/character is limited to say 110°, so movements from 110° to 150° of the players head would not be reflected on the view screen representing what their character's head is doing, the disconnect is a potential nausea trigger.
- Similarly - care would need to be taken when entering or leaving the pilots seat, [Press X to enter/leave Pilot's seat] and an animation of your character getting up or sitting down disassociating the VR players view with their physical movements and or expected view changes arising from their control inputs into the game/simulation.
- Maybe this might be best served as an optional fade to black during the transition?
- Maybe cut to a third person view instead?
3rd Level - Seated VR with Hand-controllers in Odessy
Third level would "inherit" the flying and driving in VR from the first level, and continue to allow the player to take to their feet while still in VR and have VR headlook while on foot from 2nd level VR, but Add limited hand controls to the game, and remain a seated VR experience. In this sort of implementation the player would move their character using the thumbsticks on their hand controllers, and be able to perform tasks with them such as instead of the [PRESS "E" or BUTTON 2 to plant charges] from 2nd level VR, 3rd level VR would see the player move their hand to their hip, or press a button to "equip charges" to avoid punching their sears arms with their hand controller, take the charges from their hip pocket, move to the action point, move their actual hand towards the virtual action point and release the charges.
Considerations / problems that I can foresee with hand controllers would be:
This list of considerations is in addition to the list from 2nd Level VR and relates only to the VR Hand Controllers functionality
- There would be a lot of work associated with elbows, with a WASD/Joypad game, the developers have control over the movements of arms, hands and elbows, and can have predefined animations for them. With hand controllers they need to, on the fly, figure out the appropriate movement for upper arm, forearm and below to reflect the changes of positional data from the hand controllers.
- There MAY be a lot of work to implement hand interaction with assets in game, for things like pressing the button to open a door.
- There would be a need to draw a line somewhere on what can and cannot be picked up and interacted with using hand controllers.
- it would be cool if everything a player sees could be grabbed and manipulated as this would allow for things like throwing a pipe or a rock behind an opponent to distract them,
- When transitioning to / from the seat, player would need to put aside their hand controllers and grasp their HOTAS, or vice versa
- not a biggie, the VR Player would do this during the transition (fade to black moment or animation)
- If the player has made their bindings use hotas buttons and hand controller buttons in the same mode, like if the left hand-controller grip button is also used for shield cell bank, working with the two types of controllers concurrently would be cumbersome.
- not a biggie, the player simply needs to map more sensible control schemes and doing so is their problem not Frontier's
- maybe put in checks in bindings to prevent ship / SRV functions being bound to a hand controller' buttons / axis' ?
- Frontier would, however, need to ensure they don't create potential conflicts, by, for example making the open airlock button from the pilots seat one that needs "physically pressed" by using the hand controllers
- Clipping! If a player stands with their CMDR's toes against a wall and raises their arm 90 out in front of them could their arm "clip" through the wall, potentially allowing them to cheat by shooting through a wall if they raise a hand holding a gun. Or would their CMDR be bushed back from the wall? It's not insurmountable, but it will need addressing.
4th Level - "Room scale" VR in Odessy
4th level would "inherit" the flying and driving in VR from the first level, and continue to allow the player to take to their feet while still in VR and have VR headlook while on foot, and the hand controls from third level VR, but now becomes a "room scale" VR experience. In this sort of implementation the player would move their character using either the thumbsticks on their hand controllers, or by walking (within the confines of their room) they could also control stance by physically crouching etc. There may still be a reliance on some VR Hand Controller inputs for walking as the player only has a room not a holodeck. Continued over from 3rd Level VR the room scale player would be able to perform tasks with their hands through the hand controllers. As such instead of the [PRESS "E" or BUTTON 2 to plant charges] from 2nd level VR, Like 3rd level VR, a roomscale player would move their hand to their hip, take the charges from their hip pocket, move to the action point, move their actual hand towards the virtual action point and release the charges.
Considerations / problems that I can foresee with hand controllers would be:
This list of considerations is in addition to the list from 3rd Level and relates only to the "room scale" functionality
- Again, potentially a limit on the "physics" available to interact with, room scale players might see an apple sized rock that would be ideal to throw to distract a guard, and the could crouch down to pick it up, but would the game necessarily enable them to do that?
- Finding out what is and isn't interactive could distract the player from core gameplay.
- Adding more and more "physics" means an exponential growth in developer workload for diminishing returns in added gameplay
- Room scale is good, but its not infinite. The boundaries could be a problem, if they hit a boundary of their play zone and have to turn 180° IRL and counter that with a thumbstick input to retain their original heading to continue walking down their corridor, in a 300m long ship, that's going to get a bit tedious.
- Tracking of posture, stand up right, ducking slightly, fully ducking, crouch, kneel, prone all need to be tracked and calculated from head and hands alone.
- Out of sync return to seats. A player gets out of gaming chair IRL, walks within their playzone to where their virtual SRV hangar is located, boards SRV, but they are now 3m away from their seat...
- Do they walk back to their IRL seat and recenter avatar?
- How do they do that without clipping through bulkheads?
- First Person Combat, granted Room Scale would be good for enabling the player to go through stand / crouch / kneel, but how does that work with going prone? Or Cossack Crawling?
- Clipping (again) if a player centres VR on current location when they have a couple of metres in front of them IRL, but only a couple of centimetres in game from a wall, could they simply step forwards 2m IRL and walk through the wall that way?
- "Periscoping" - in a combat situation it might be possible for the player to crouch, reset VR, stand up, and have their view point from 3ft above their characters head somewhat akin to the way some players abuse third person in games like ARMA.
Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v7zoVIsIT2A
, but I acknowledge that you can't build anything solid on tumbleweed... But once we get those specifics, if there is anything that stymies the sort of "just plug it into the API" implementation i've been proposing, I'll be changing my tune and saying "now I know STUFF, I understand THAT would be a problem, but would a possible workaround be THIS idea?" - As in trying to provide constructive suggestions on how to work around issues with Odessy that render it incompatible with or suboptimal for VR.
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