A few things I am not happy with

"ThomasPasieka" wrote:
Hey there everybody,

First off, I love the Rift and I think it's the future. I am also aware of the fact that we are in the early days of VR/Rift and that many things aren't working as expected. However, I think that the SDK/Unity integration is progressing a bit slow for my taste. There are a few issues that I think which are known but yet still don't work.

The best way to look at the OVR SDK is that it takes you to the unity starting line.. I wouldn't look to the OVR SDK to provide 'game development' functionality as that would be reinventing the wheel Unity already has working well.

"ThomasPasieka" wrote:

• The current OVRPlayerController won't let you "Jump"

Instead of using the OVRPlayer Controller, try using the OVRCamera Controller.. Link that to a gameObject dummy- and google how to make a camera move and jump in Unity.. You then can apply the script to the dummy and get the motion you desire.

"ThomasPasieka" wrote:
• Why is the OVRMainMenu tied to the controller? When deactivating I can't use mouse-look anymore? Why is mouse look int the OVRMainMenu?

You don't have to use OVRMainMenu, and if you do you can modify the code. Focusing on just a simple bare-bones OVR Camera Controller to start might be a good path.

"ThomasPasieka" wrote:
• Skyboxes - I've seen many threads here on the forum dealing with this issue. I haven't been able to create a skybox that looks right yet and I tried many solutions.

There is a skybox script on the forums that works.. although you'll have to dig and commit to some trial and error to find it. A straightforward way is to texture the inside of a sphere/hemisphere, make it HUGE (like 50,000 units), and then adjust your cameras far clipping planes from 1000 to 100,000.

"ThomasPasieka" wrote:

These are a few things that rub me the wrong way at the moment. I am only a beginning programmer so keep that in mind as well. Again, I know it's early but I think these things are crucial/important to many developers. It seems as updates to the Unity integration/SDK are rather slow.

Focus on just making a Unity experience- I wouldn't even worry about the Oculus yet. The only real major technical difference is replacing the standard Main Camera, with an OVR Camera.. and of course the subject of your content! After that, game development issues are really addressed by unity and unity alone.

good luck!

Thanks for your reply antigravity,

I have in fact developed two games beforehand so I am not entirely new. However, I am mainly a 3D artist so anything "code" is rather new to me. I am learning C# at the moment and was in fact able to create my own bare bones Rift controller. However, that is not the main problem here. The issue is that Oculus delivers a rather convoluted/half working Unity Prefab. The camera and fps prefab both need work and frankly the Skybox issues should have long been resolved.

Making a "Unity" experience isn't the issue (the art side of it isn't) - making one that I can test early is painful at the moment due to limitations or bugs in the current prefabs. I am not sure who to blame, Oculus or Unity?

"ThomasPasieka" wrote:
ence isn't the issue (the art side of it isn't) - making one that I can test early is painful at the moment due to limitations or bugs in the current prefabs. I am not sure who to blame, Oculus or Unity?

What bug in the current prefab?

"ThomasPasieka" wrote:
I am not sure who to blame, Oculus or Unity?

Blame? Are you trolling?

Oculus are providing a great starting point for any serious developer. If you want to be spoon fed all the code so you can make your game with very little coding effort on your part, then you are going to be disappointed. That being said, if you need help with specific components you can just post them here and just as antigravity did, you will get help with it.

You've also mentioned the skybox a couple of times, but Oculus provide a Skybox example in the Tuscany demo which is very easy to replicate and works perfectly. If you perform a quick search on these forums you'll even find someone has packaged the skybox to make it even easier to import to a new project.

I agree that the integration is missing many things, but it's not designed as a turn-key, no coding required, kind of solution. It is more of a starting point or basis for future development.

I think the jump code is still there (just commented out) which was done because it can sometimes cause discomfort for some people. It's not very difficult to grab the generic Unity FirstPersonController and place an Oculus OVRCameraController inside of it. This solves some of the problems you are talking about.

The skybox thing is an issue with the Unity engine itself and we are not able to fix it. The solution is to just create your own skybox and not use the built-in Unity one (it's not hard, it's just a cube).

To your credit, I have no idea why the mouse look functionality is on something called "main menu". That is a legit issue and doesn't make much sense.

Hi there Cybereality,

Thanks for your comment. I am mainly an artist (for the past 20 years) and have created my own games - one which was featured by Apple and just recently started learning C#. With a bit of time, help and tutorials I managed to write my own Controller which does include jumping, running, etc. so I am rather pleased with it at the moment. As for the original OVRFirstPersonController, I think it's a bit convoluted and as mentioned some things just don't work (jump is actually not commented out so why isn't it working?).

As for the Skybox, I am perfectly able to create my own Skybox with images/materials etc but that's not the really optimal either. I guess this is something to talk to UT about.


@diablosv21 - As mentioned above, I am an artist first. I have created/finished 2 of my own games and have helped many companies (Disney, Warner Brother, Intel to name a few) and individuals with their games and interactive applications so I believe I have a bit of "dev" experience. To come on here and call me a Troll is a bit rude and uncalled for. Please be a bit more thoughtful and respectful in the way you address me and others. Thanks.

The Unity integration beyond the camera controller is definitely just a starting point and and an example implementation. I spent a fair amount of time working with Robin Schmidt's character system which is a great universal character controller system, and also now supports Mecanim. I used this in LOST LOOT.

I only used the OVR camera controller with it. I have done a lot of subtle modification to the character system code, mainly in the swimming area for VR. I am also very interested in playing with the climbing system in it through VR, but I never seem to get enough time with my day job. Anyway, I am still making improvements to it while working on an update to LOST LOOT, attempting to make movement smoother while still taking advantage of the full body and the interesting aspect of having the camera attached to the bone structure and being exposed to the motion in the animations.

I guess what I am getting at is that there is a great deal of experimentation going on and the stuff Oculus provides is really just a sample basic way to make it work.

I also do wish skyboxes would work out of the box since there are so many great prebuilt resources out there already. As another alternative, I read somewhere that UniStorm (a procedural sky dome system) works ok but have not tried it.

I also have some issues in other areas. One example is when terrain trees sometimes switch between billboards and meshes at different times in the two cameras - that messes with your brain big time.

Overall, Peter is a sharp guy and I do believe there is a good connection there between Oculus and Unity to help make some improvements in the engine to support the Rift. We all just need to keep prodding them!

Hey guys, on a related noted, I have been looking through OVRMainMenu trying to find where it implements mouse look. Does anybody know where I can find it? I want to maintain the same mouse look behavior while eliminating most of the other unnecessary bits.

Thanks.

You do realize guys you're not supposed to actually use these prefabs? Those are cheap simple placeholders, you're supposed to develop your own specialized player entity.

You're right but don't forget that most people here are hobbyists and these prefabs provide at least a very good starting point.