cancel
Showing results for 
Search instead for 
Did you mean: 

Orbulus - hands free Photo Sphere Viewer

unclebob
Honored Guest
Hi all

Posted this in the SubForum above but think it belongs here as its stand alone, hands free, causes no nausea, runs fast and is a bit of fun.

So here is Orbulus. http://www.vrcraftworks.com/



Its a fun Photo Sphere viewer with 50+ of the best Photo Spheres to enjoy from the inside. The picture above shows the selection screen. Its up to you to explore crypts, the northern lights, Lake Como, the Sydney opera house, dinosaurs, fractal worlds and the inside of my washing machine (clean I tell you!!).

We made this with the pieces we are building for a larger project. Run it at 1920x1080 and use Graphics Level 6, one up from fantastic! There should be no FPS issues and please let us know how you find it.

Bear in mind the texture limitations of Unity and of the Rift, these aside the experience is quite compelling and surprisingly good.

If anyone wants a Mac build or Linux let us know.

Credit goes to the Photo Sphere creators full attribution in both the readme and the application, Oculus, Unity, Playmaker and the community here and at mtbs3d.com for their help and assistance.

If you live close to any of the Photo Sphere owners and want to show them what its like being inside one of their photo spheres that would be much appreciated the list is in the readme.

DK2 version to follow - of course. Version 2 will have 3d Photo Spheres and local file and internet browsing for those that have their own collections or who are part of wider Photo Sphere communities. We can't wait for the DK2 as having tried one we know what the step will mean for even this little fun application.

Have fun and let us know what you think, what can be improved and what is just plain dumb.

The VRcraftworks team.
Feel free to drop by....http://www.VRCraftworks.com and contact us
6 REPLIES 6

Boff
Honored Guest
Thanks for sharing your work - looking forward to being inside a washing machine!

Quick question - are the photo spheres 3D, or is it a 2d photo on the inside of a sphere?

Will let you know how I get on with the demo!

unclebob
Honored Guest
This is 2d.

We have 3d working but their are limited Photo Spheres out there in 3d.

We did some work on the resolution so despite Unity's limitation of 4k, and the Rifts obvious limitations things look real pretty.

As an example here is:

One of a number of spectacular Northern Lights Photo Spheres (with snow sounds)



And San Fran China Town



There are around 60 unusual spheres to visit and we will be releasing a 3d version next week with a limited number of spheres or will release with DK2 support first.

Its the control system we are interested in. Whether it works, whether the lack of controller helps with the immersion factor. Like, losing yourself in a good book.

Let us know what you think. Having demoed it people really seem to enjoy the experience.

Cheers
Feel free to drop by....http://www.VRCraftworks.com and contact us

MrGeddings
Explorer
nice concept but needs some work. dont let the camera rotate a bit when you are selecting a sphere thats disorienting, not really sure what the purpose of the head selection is. its actually a bit difficult to have to look streight down to exit the spheres as thats kinda hard to do in the rift without holding it maybe have the option of a key press or a button on the xbox 360 controller to go back also even at fantastic settings the resolution detail is pretty low make sure your using anti allasing (you can set it all the way up to 8x) otherwise interesting just needs a tad of work.

unclebob
Honored Guest
Hi Mr Geddings.

Thanks for the feedback.

dont let the camera rotate a bit when you are selecting a sphere thats disorienting

Great suggestion mate will do for the next release.

not really sure what the purpose of the head selection is

It was suggested that in SDK 4 we would have access to different profiles for different IPDs, each "head" corresponds to the average for a woman and a man and an extreme for wide faces or narrow ones. Its more the ability to give a comfort factor in the future and having a process in place to do that.

Its actually a bit difficult to have to look streight down to exit the spheres as thats kinda hard to do in the rift without holding it maybe have the option of a key press or a button on the xbox 360 controller to go back.

Understand will look at a different method either an angle measurement or a tweak on how the raycast works..essentially going for a complete hands free experience so not going down the controller route at all.

also even at fantastic settings the resolution detail is pretty low make sure your using anti allasing (you can set it all the way up to 8x)

You should be able to set it at Level6 which is below fantastic on the Splash Screen. It needs to be played at 1920*1080. There should be no shimmer, jaggies or blockiness. If you have these could you post your specs so that we can see what we can do.

Also if you are using a DK1 I suggest using this http://www.reddit.com/r/oculus/comments/249jiw/calibrate_your_dk1_and_enjoy_better_visual_quality/.

This makes a huge difference in everything.

Thank you again for your feedback. Much appreciated.

Unclebob
Feel free to drop by....http://www.VRCraftworks.com and contact us

ANDUUS
Honored Guest
Would you consider to add support for comic books? (.cbr & .pdf-files) ??

unclebob
Honored Guest
"Anduus" wrote:
Would you consider to add support for comic books? (.cbr & .pdf-files) ??


That is a given mate, its on a feature list we have.

If you would like to suggest a comic we can give it a whirl? Or if you have some ideas in terms of what presentation could be cool that would be good!

My tastes run from Constantine, Transmetropolitan through to Sandman which is probably quite cerebral as far as the genre is concerned.

Once we get the hands free browser sorted, then tweaked so people are happy, anything like that on your hard drive would be fair game.

It will be the presentation that is key and should be simple, "non immersion breaking" AND fun.

Let me know if you have any thoughts. 🙂

Cheers

Unclebob
Feel free to drop by....http://www.VRCraftworks.com and contact us