Allow the VR '2D screen' to be disabled?

[VR Golgot]

This is already a solved problem and it's been a solved problem since multicrew in ships.

Assuming Odyssey is using the same solution. Which we don’t actually know. The handling of camera / avatar / head animation etc could easily have changed to accommodate the new gameplay, and rendered that solution redundant, or fit for ship only.

(Although we can test the ship application at least, now that Multicrew has been added to the alpha today )

We realise that it will be a "rough" VR experience, that's why we're asking "please make a simple non-supported version in the interim, through a config file"

I think we’re talking at cross purposes. That’s what this thread is advocating, yep

The post you’re replying to was about Jay’s thread though. (Which doesn’t touch on those areas, and I think it should )

Derail Valley manages it after all, with a company of only 5 people (probably of which only two write code).

Derail Valley is a VR-first title (which also supports the full spread of VR inputs, including motion controllers etc). It’s not really a great template for what we’re dealing with here.

 

[Franc Kaos]

You realise that just adding headlook alone would signify a rough experience, far rougher than the current cockpit one? (With UI stuck to our faces, likely uncomfortably close, for example.)

Does headlook / Tobii eye tracker work in Odyssey, so that the interface moves separately for the player and the background? Because if the entire legs DLC was designed only on flat screen (which was their original intent), then the UI probably is stuck in place which would be unsettling for the brain (moreso in Tobii / VR where you can glance down without moving your head)...
Not sure I'm explaining it properly...

 

[VR Golgot]

Does headlook / Tobii eye tracker work in Odyssey, so that the interface moves separately for the player and the background? Because if the entire legs DLC was designed only on flat screen (which was their original intent), then the UI probably is stuck in place which would be unsettling for the brain (moreso in Tobii / VR where you can glance down without moving your head)...
Not sure I'm explaining it properly...

If I’m understanding you correctly, then it’s currently stuck in place (staying in a forward-facing orientation no matter where you look), and has some other teething issues. Seems robust otherwise.

Jump to the bottom of this post for a vid and write up:

This stuff may prove of use:

FPS Headlook support in EDO:

It's getting favourable reviews for its smoothness, but there seem to be issues with the HUD UI staying fixed, the NPC UI drifting, and interaction with the reticule requiring fine head positioning:

 

[PUGS16]

+1 from me. Please FD...

 

[jojon]

It's kind of... cute... how the hidden area mask is applied to the flat screen frame...

At least it seems the ill-fitted animation when you stop jogging has been removed in phase two. Instead of the character bracing to absorb their inertia (which I do want in the animation system), it looked more like they first stopped dead, and then a second later began to sit down, but were propelled back up by a thruster embedded in the seat or something, halfway through the action -- all without any apparent blending between animations, nor contact nor friction between feet and ground -- funnily enough it was part of the transition to slower from jogging, but not from sprinting, where you just stopped as it is nothing - no inertia there. :7

 

[VR Golgot]

It's kind of... cute... how the hidden area mask is applied to the flat screen frame...

Yeah seems to vary between headsets, I don’t get it on a CV1.

Still plenty of QoL needed even for their target VR stuff going by phase 2. SRV and landing radar have some strange artefacts. Think the station hologram might not be stereo rendered, as with the taxi.

Would be good if someone could test if the VR head replacement is still there in Multicrew. Haven’t had a chance yet.

 

[VR Jay Le Chardon]

I've updated one of my threads in the Alpha section with some information I thought could be pertinent here as, imho, it substantiates the need for VR-Headlook on foot such as this is asking for to "become a thing". It turns out that In addition to the concerns I raised about the ViRtual flatscreen, it seems others are finding the transition somewhat cumbersome:

More thought need to be given to the VR transitions, I don’t mind changing to a flat screen mo it or when I disembark, but it does need to be a smooth process rather than having to reset all my display setting every time.

could we have a toggle command between VR profile and flat screen profile? If you currently switch in the menu is you the have to reset your display quality and size manually which is a slight pain.
Also in the alpha planets appear to be lower quality as you approach compared to horizons.
I will try and add a beep at some point.

I was just about to write from the same subject.

Two profiles for VR and flatscreen and a keyboard binding to switch between them would help a lot. Similar to the Microsoft Flight Simulator.

Perhaps this is more evidence to suggest it would be better were we able to pick a VR mode and stay with it, such as VR headlook for both on foot and in cockpit sections of the game? Given that if the player needs / prefers the ViRtual flatscreen, they can use that mode exclusively by selecting HMD CInematic in the Graphics Settings, wouldn't it be fair if there were also an option for HMD headphones / HMD speakers to mean that VR Display mode all the time? Even if it were only an experimental mode?

The current "Halfway house" / "Hybrid" settings profile which is applied when HMD headphones / HMD speakers is selected, which consists of HMD Headlook "proper" VR in the cockpit but ViRtual flatscreen on foot could, be retained and renamed HMD Comfort (Headphones) HMD Comfort (Speakers).

 

[VR Golgot]

Given that if the player needs / prefers the ViRtual flatscreen, they can use that mode exclusively by selecting HMD CInematic in the Graphics Settings, wouldn't it be fair if there were also an option for HMD headphones / HMD speakers to mean that VR Display mode all the time? Even if it were only an experimental mode?

I suspect any call for an exposed experimental setting will meet the same response we got last time (only enabling on foot VR when it’s a quality experience etc). And that the 'fairness' argument won’t move the needle much from their POV.

But call for it by all means. The more noise for VR foot support the better

 

[jojon]

Yeah seems to vary between headsets, I don’t get it on a CV1.

I don't believe Oculus ever promoted the hidden area mask thing quite like Valve did (even though even the Rift CV1, which had so rather narrow a field of view that one can see all the edges of the screen, still has 14% hidden area, which could constitute saved fragment shader work (although I don't know whether the masking itself adds any overhead)), so maybe FDev simply never implemented it for their Oculus Runtime branch, even though they (eventually) did for OpenVR (after much coaxing from users)...

Both implementations are of course ancient, and will not have picked up on any remotely recent API features or recommendations. :7

(Full screen overlays, such as the pause/options menu, and AR icons, are not masked, by the way, and spill out into the black. :7)

One would think, of course, that the mask wouldn't be anywhere near being applied here, since we're dealing with the non-VR view frame buffer from the brand new, shiny build, which couldn't possibly be VR anything, captured and mapped to the virtual screen.

 

[[Cancelled Consoleer] boppa_]

No.

No dev time for VR niche cases, until the entire player-base have access to Odyssey.

No PC-only VR dev time until PSVR support is added for PS5. PC VR niche-ists have monopolised Dev time for long enough.

 

[VR Golgot]

No dev time for VR niche cases, until the entire player-base have access to Odyssey.

Hello friend, this thread is asking for the lowest dev solution possible. IE literally access to a semi-broken VR view via the backdoor of a config file entry. (With the community filling in the gaps via ingenuity and third party solutions ). Something that could sit within the VR dev support FDev have set aside for EDO launch.

It wouldn't slow down a console release

No PC-only VR dev time until PSVR support is added for PS5. PC VR niche-ists have monopolised Dev time for long enough.

That makes even less sense. The PCVR dev acts as a testbed for any PS5VR release. On EDO design, optimisation etc. Stopping one would stop the possibility of the other in many ways.

 

[VR Jay Le Chardon]

No.

No dev time for VR niche cases, until the entire player-base have access to Odyssey.

No PC-only VR dev time until PSVR support is added for PS5. PC VR niche-ists have monopolised Dev time for long enough.

As Golgot said, without PC VR there will never be any PS VR. Simply put, what gets developed on Pc gets ported to console, nothing is made specifically for console or any other platform.

 

[mossfoot]

I wasn't able to get my VR headset to work in Phase 1, but it works... presumably as intended... in Phase 2.

While I understand that you've explained that you can't support VR at launch, what we actually get in VR is worse than what I've seen in other non-VR games. At least with other games I can adjust the size of my flatscreen (so it fills as much of my vision as I'd l like) and doesn't have that weird oval view thing that seems utterly pointless. Why is that even a thing? It's like I'm wearing ski goggles... on top of my ski goggles!

Please get something slightly more playable for VR users.

 

[Kemo]

Just had my first dabble with VR in ED:O (Rift-S - 2080Super, 9770K, 32GB, SSD)

I could only get VR to actually function, as in any image on the HMD, if I chose VR Low or VR Medium, anything above that, or any custom setting (ie VR Medium and trying to amend the sampling rate down!) caused me to only see a black screen in the HMD - at this level, it looked horrible, it was like going back 3 years. The planets were horribly aliased with that nasty fuzziness you get. Pop-in on the planet surface, the new flora etc is also massively evident. That said, I also see that in the 2D monitor version, so hopefully this will be addressed in a future update, its painfully magnified in VR.

There are quite a few art assets that are not aligned properly (as in see the landing pad graphic when docking in a station) - hope they get fixed.

The 2D/on foot section I thought I was going to actually hate and find it jarring, but, whilst the implementation (grey backdrop, not able to size etc) is bare bones and comes across as the absolute minimum they could do, I kinda found it bearable, it was the 'working' VR aspects that causes me the most concern.

FD have specified that the Alpha does not support VR, and the Alpha itself is graphically not optimised so I take the issues identified in that light, with the hope that they will be correcting these before release. I really hope they do, because if the VR release is like my first experience, that will probably be me done with ED. I've tried playing on the monitor, and it is so far below what I love about ED in VR, actually being IN the game, that I don't think I would continue, which depresses me no end

Fingers crossed.

 

[dawud]

It´s really weird, to get back to Elite WITHOUT VR, i own my third hmd by now, and Elite was one of THE, go-to-tiltles for me, when it came to VR!
And even if that VR-flat-screen-thingy is properly implemented.. i just can´t..
Guess i´ll have to either wait for full implementation, or something like a mod/vorpX.

 

[VR Golgot]

I've tried playing on the monitor, and it is so far below what I love about ED in VR, actually being IN the game, that I don't think I would continue, which depresses me no end

And even if that VR-flat-screen-thingy is properly implemented.. i just can´t..

Yeah this is where I'm at. I've been digging the actual game mechanics provided on foot, even having some properly tense and exciting moments. But it still pales in comparison to the fun I could be having in a VR game. 2D gaming just doesn't cut it any more for guys like us. We've been ruined

The thing that bites the worst though is: Stuff like low-G jet packing and sneaking around living settlements would be fricking ace in VR!

ED genuinely could be a particularly excellent VR title. Let's hope they really do get to a proper release down the line. (And give us long-term EDVR fans something to tide us over in the meantime )

 

[Sirlance]

Yeah this is where I'm at. I've been digging the actual game mechanics provided on foot, even having some properly tense and exciting moments. But it still pales in comparison to the fun I could be having in a VR game. 2D gaming just doesn't cut it any more for guys like us. We've been ruined

The thing that bites the worst though is: Stuff like low-G jet packing and sneaking around living settlements would be fricking ace in VR!

ED genuinely could be a particularly excellent VR title. Let's hope they really do get to a proper release down the line. (And give us long-term EDVR fans something to tide us over in the meantime )

I've been blowing up r/EliteDangerous with my disappointment , so much that I'm being downvoted lol

 

[Cyclinguy]

I also cannot get the free cam working in VR, its just locked to the regular fixed presets

Someone has posted a bug report, lets try get this fixed by supporting it:

Issue tracker : Free camera bindings are not registering

 

[VR Golgot]

I also cannot get the free cam working in VR, its just locked to the regular fixed presets

Someone has posted a bug report, lets try get this fixed by supporting it:

Issue tracker : Free camera bindings are not registering

Nice one. I'm guessing this is by design, but added to that report just in case. Would definitely be good to have it.

 

[VR Golgot]

Interesting thread going here on head tracking bugs:

Track IR Combat Fix

I raised a couple of Issues on the Issue Tracker InGame Labels Moving with Headlook: https://issues.frontierstore.net/issue-detail/24137 LDS Zoom: https://issues.frontierstore.net/issue-detail/26404 Target Recticle Drift: https://issues.frontierstore.net/issue-detail/27151 The Target recticle...

forums.frontier.co.uk

The main issues seem to be:

• LDS + Gun Target wanders out of calibration constantly
• Z Axis does not have a max Zoom for Weapon Look Down Sight
• Head Look Pitch Yaw makes NPC Icons move out of context

The first one sounds like the most problematic for any VR re-use via Opentrack etc. It seems like its underlying cause is:

the X, Y axis movement are not being handled correctly by the on foot game... so when you naturally move about during the game the X and Y axis are being thrown off centre which is vital for aiming

Hopefully some of this stuff gets ironed out by launch.