Ditching diffuse maps for performances
Hi guys! I'm part of a small dev team producing (and releasing in the next weeks) a game for Oculus, i thought that little article, even if really technical, might interest some of you. I'd be glad to get some feedback's or critics! Cheers! https://www.indiedb.com/games/mrhack-jack-robot-detective/news/how-we-ditched-diffuse-maps-in-our-vr-game-mrhack-jackSharing John Carmack's advice for using 3D panoramas as game environments (e.g. Defense Grid 2)
When discussing with John about the implications of his current research on RGB-depth 360 panoramas in mobile VR (TL;DR: perf cost to render is too high), he provided the ff. advice for implementing an advanced optimization technique for achieving the visuals seen in OTOY's synthetic stereo 360 photos in a game context: You can bake view dependent offline rendering onto crude geometric approximations to improve on the simple sphere or cube of standard stereo 360s. (link to Tweet) A similar optimization can be found in Hidden Path Entertainment's Gear VR port of Defense Grid 2. AFAIK it's the only published title on any VR platform to even attempt such a technique. While the results are mixed, the decision to pursue this technique should be highly praised from a developer's standpoint, and its value to the dev community cannot be overstated.