Forum Discussion
"Simple" Sphere Created by a Beginner
Hi,
I want to develop a (comparably) simple world and since I am an absolute beginner on that topic I have a few questions.
My world:
My goal is to create a sphere (with a "few square meters" diameter) which is built around the avatar. The sphere should have one color, but shadows (as if there is a light source somewhere). Along the sphere's surface I would like to draw a grid (horizontal and vertical circles) and some small balls (for example front, back,...) to provide the user some orientation within the world.
The avatar should be any symbolic human, without any special details. The figure's position (the head is always in the center of the sphere) will never change - but the orientation (yaw & pitch) will! Nevertheless I cannot use the integrated head tracker for that because I need the person's absolute position for some other calculations, I will use a different tracking system!
But: my orientation parameters have to transferred from a different computer (via UDP or any other protocoll) to my world to rotate the avatar.
My experience:
I went through the C++ beginner's tutorials on https://developer.oculus.com/wiki/Tutorials.
I played around with the demos in the SDK, changed a few properties in the Tiny Room.
I have some knowledge in VB.net... but not a lot in C++ and no experience in Unity, Blender, game designing...
My questions:
Which development software (preferrably freeware) can you recommend to create such a world, considering my experience and that I will need some parameters sent from a different computer?
And can you recommend any tutorials to get familiar with that software?
Thanks in advance for any recommandations...
I want to develop a (comparably) simple world and since I am an absolute beginner on that topic I have a few questions.
My world:
My goal is to create a sphere (with a "few square meters" diameter) which is built around the avatar. The sphere should have one color, but shadows (as if there is a light source somewhere). Along the sphere's surface I would like to draw a grid (horizontal and vertical circles) and some small balls (for example front, back,...) to provide the user some orientation within the world.
The avatar should be any symbolic human, without any special details. The figure's position (the head is always in the center of the sphere) will never change - but the orientation (yaw & pitch) will! Nevertheless I cannot use the integrated head tracker for that because I need the person's absolute position for some other calculations, I will use a different tracking system!
But: my orientation parameters have to transferred from a different computer (via UDP or any other protocoll) to my world to rotate the avatar.
My experience:
I went through the C++ beginner's tutorials on https://developer.oculus.com/wiki/Tutorials.
I played around with the demos in the SDK, changed a few properties in the Tiny Room.
I have some knowledge in VB.net... but not a lot in C++ and no experience in Unity, Blender, game designing...
My questions:
Which development software (preferrably freeware) can you recommend to create such a world, considering my experience and that I will need some parameters sent from a different computer?
And can you recommend any tutorials to get familiar with that software?
Thanks in advance for any recommandations...
13 Replies
- Hi
i would use unity. Its really easy to learn and you can script with C# which has similar syntax as C++. For beginners this is the easiest way to develop something for the rift.
Good luck - Unity is going to be the easiest thing for you to get started with. It's not free (or cheap), but we are providing 4-month trials which should be long enough for you to experiment. UDK is another option, and is free for non-commercial use. Otherwise you would be looking at learning C++ and using something like Torque or OGRE.
- Thanks for both replies!!!
In case I want to stay with C++ (because of financial reasons), can you recommend any tutorials to learn how to create simple objects?
Again thanks in advance for any recommendations.... - The learning curve for C++ might be quite steep - depends on how quickly you want to put something together.
From the Unity perspective you can put a textured sphere around a player/camera object in about 20 seconds, with FPS style controls. You only need the pro version if you want to use the Oculus camera/plugin - so for testing your concept, you'll be able to use the free version up until the point you want to use it with a Rift. (And even then, there are a few solutions in the forums to produce rift-style behaviour with the free version).
Horses for courses. With Unity, you'll be able to have something running incredibly quickly. With C++ it'd likely take you several weeks to get to grips with the language and DirectX stuff. - I have to plug benvanik's vr.js library yet again: https://github.com/benvanik/vr.js
It's totally free, JavaScript is easy to learn, and three.js makes WebGL easier. It won't be as easy as Unity, I'm sure, but it's easier than C++ and it's free.
I did this basic demo in 1 week, starting from zero WebGL knowledge: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ko5OdLE2Msw - Or another solution, find a group of developer friends to help pitch in with the cost to purchase unity pro. You may have to share it, but it's better than not having it.
- If you want a crash course in 3D game development using OpenGL you can hit this site, I found it interesting years ago when I wanted to learn some basics ...
http://nehe.gamedev.net/ (samples in most languages c++, c#, java, etc)
That said, download Unity, you can have a program with a simple sphere in about 5 seconds. Unless you are very comfortable with programming, I would stick to the game development platforms like Unity or UDK. These platforms take a lot of the heavy coding out of game development (engine design, scripting engine, physics, event handling, etc) and abstracts them out. You will need to know how to program, but it will be more scripting and game logic driven coding that you will spend your time on. - Thank you everyone, I received many helpful replies. The thing is that I am working on a research project and there is never a high budget for expensive software... Maybe I will try out the OpenGL tutorials and the free version of Unity...
Thank you all so far!!! - If you are planning to integrate the Oculus Rift in your project, the free version of Unity won't allow it.
If your research project is for an undergrad school semester or something like that, then the 4 month Unity Pro trial that comes with the Rift might be enough.
Otherwise, check out the alternatives. - Love T3D give it a shot, git has been on fire lately with development as well, (hope they do put in that support for negative light values)
The new release has all the editing tools built into the "game" rather than separate tools for everything so a lot of the old tutorial vids you will probably find confusing at first.
OGRE is awesome, but it is a bare bones 3d engine, no sound, nothing, just 3d, you will need a fair bit of C++ to make something with it but it will give you the most versatility imo, the big problem with it is you will most likely need to build in editor capabilities or a separate editor as hardcoding the environment (like the tiny room demo) is way to slow to be practical... well I say that with a grain of salt as randomly generated levels or gameplay that does not revolve around complex environments (space sims) may be done fairly simply this way. Or if you are reading existing data and just want it interpreted, global hightmaps etc.
Support the Open Source :D
Wook.
