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SokkasInstincts
Participant
May 4, 2016

Developing for Rift without a headset

Hi so I am trying to get the Oculus SDK up and running on my computer while waiting for my headset and saw in a past tutorial that there is (or was) a method for using a virtual headset to test your code. No sensor input or anything, just a window showing the current view. Is there a way to do this now days?

Thanks!

    13 replies

    Ybalrid
    Inspiring
    May 4, 2016
    You can. You'll probably need at least an Xinput compatible controller (Xbox 360, Xbox one. You can emulate one from a regual controller with some software too). You obviously need a pc that can power the rift (graphics card like a 970 and up to date drivers)

    1.  Install the Oculus runtime from here : https://www.oculus.com/en-us/setup/ (obviously you skip the part about plugin the rift and sensors)
    2. Download Windows SDK from here : https://developer.oculus.com/downloads/ and Unzip it somewhere convinient
    3. Open the OculusSDK\Tools\OculusDebugTools.exe app
    4. Select something on this setting http://puu.sh/oFUuk/7e437a8708.png
    5. This window tend to crash, but it will set the thing correctly, now the Oculus Service thinks a Rift is plugged on the computer.
    6. Open the Oculus App, in settings, general, authorize "Unknown Sources" to use the rift (like this http://puu.sh/oFUAi/16822cbef7.png)
    And you're basically done.

    If you know OpenGL or DirectX, go check the PC developer's guide. If you want to look at what is displayed on the virtual headset, you need to retreive the "mirror texture" from the SDK and display it on a window in your code.

    If not, I can suggest you to go look for a tutorial about Unity or Unreal (Unity seems easier to pick up as a total beginer ;-)) and their Oculus Rift integration.

    If nothing is displayed on you "rift mirror view", it's probably because the runtime is displaying a Health&Safety warning on the "virtual" rift. Just press A on a Xinput controller to acknoledge the message.

    Happy VR deving' :smiley: 






    CV1+Touch; Running on GTX980 - 4770K - 32GB DDR3 Developer at LIV
    Anonymous
    May 4, 2016
    Very useful information ! I was wandering how to do exactly the same (we have only one CV1 and we do R&D on 5 PC) ...
    SokkasInstinctsAuthor
    Participant
    May 4, 2016
    Thanks a ton Ybalrid, your solution seems to be working. Now I just need to fix this pesky "D3D12CreateDevice failed" runtime error and I will be golden...
    Ybalrid
    Inspiring
    May 4, 2016

    SokkasInstincts said:

    Thanks a ton Ybalrid, your solution seems to be working. Now I just need to fix this pesky "D3D12CreateDevice failed" runtime error and I will be golden...



    Sorry, I'm more of an OpenGL guy (and actually I'm using OGRE to take care of the big mess :wink: )
    CV1+Touch; Running on GTX980 - 4770K - 32GB DDR3 Developer at LIV
    SokkasInstinctsAuthor
    Participant
    May 4, 2016
    Same here, but I am having issues getting Visual Studio to link to my OpenGL libraries so I thought I would try the DX12 route just to verify that everything was working on the Oculus end. Maybe I should just go back and figure out how to get the OpenGL samples running.
    Ybalrid
    Inspiring
    May 4, 2016
    Going to try to build them. What Visual Studio version are you trying, 2015?

    Edit : I just opened the VS2015 Sample.sln file, tried to build the Oculus Room Tiny (GL) project and it seems to work
    CV1+Touch; Running on GTX980 - 4770K - 32GB DDR3 Developer at LIV
    Anonymous
    May 4, 2016
    I had tested this and it does not work. The mirror windows is always black. Pressing A on the joypad doe snot help. I had tested this with both my applications and Oculus Home applications (Lucky Tales). Some hidden secret ?
    Ybalrid
    Inspiring
    May 4, 2016

    husakm said:

    I had tested this and it does not work. The mirror windows is always black. Pressing A on the joypad doe snot help. I had tested this with both my applications and Oculus Home applications (Lucky Tales). Some hidden secret ?


    mh... If you are on your own code (or code you compile yourself), try find if the app check fro the value of "ovrSessionStatus.IsVisuble" and/or "ovrSessionStatus.HmdMounted", and replacing their value with "ovrTrue".

    The "Debug HMD" thingy seems to be buggy as hell right now, it's possible that the oculus compositor just "don't write" to the mirror texture when a frame is rendered...
    CV1+Touch; Running on GTX980 - 4770K - 32GB DDR3 Developer at LIV
    SokkasInstinctsAuthor
    Participant
    May 7, 2016
    Yeah, I got the openGL tiny room test running but I'm getting a black screen as well. Looking through the code I didn't see any uses of .IsVisible or .HmdMounted. I even tested defaulting several of the if statements to true but nothing changed. Maybe I'll start a new thread and see if I can get any input on that. Thanks a ton for your help though!
    Anonymous
    May 10, 2016

    Following call:

    result = ovr_SubmitFrame(m_hmdSession, m_frameIndex, nullptr, &layerList, 1);

    always returns

    ovrSuccess_NotVisible

    Pressing joypad A/2 button have no influence.

    In addition there is no way how to set CV1,DK1 emulation mode. Oculus Home detects only DK2 emulator. They should disable the Health and Safety warning l test for debugging in emulation mode (if this is the reason of the emulation malfunction) ...

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