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benquesnel
New Participant
October 27, 2017

Why can't I change the camera's FOV from 60 to 100 for my S7 + GearVR using Unity?

When I change the camera's field of view from 60 (default) to 100, build the Unity project, and finally view the VR app on my S7 mounted in the GearVR, it ignores the 100 value and defaults to 60. 

This is a very frustrating limitation because:
  1. The user feels too close to objects in the scene
  2. It makes the 360 photosphere scene feel too small
  3. It significantly devalues the products I'm showcasing for a client in the Gear VR headset
  4. It used to be do-able via scripting in Unity, but this was removed late 2016/early 2017
Perhaps I'm overlooking something, but why would Oculus limit the ability to make a scene feel more realistic than the current mega close-up FOV? All of my testers have said the same thing... "I feel way too close to the object in the scene".

I've scoured ~20 different articles pertaining to this issue, and they have all resulted in dead-end answers. It's a very debilitating bug. Can an Oculus staff member please assist? 
This topic has been closed for replies.

4 replies

deftware
Inspiring
October 27, 2017
It's not Oculus limiting it. Oculus creates the hardware and the APIs for interacting with that hardware. Unity/Unreal are responsible for the behavior of their engines and how they interact with the Oculus APIs.

Case in point: I can draft up a program in C ontop of the SDK APIs for PC or mobile which runs at any FOV I want. It doesn't even have to have a perspective projection, I could draw something completely arbitrary that has nothing to do with perspective.
deftware
Inspiring
October 27, 2017
In other words: it sounds like you missed a setting in the engine's configuration. 60 isn't even a viable FOV for a 2D screen, let alone VR.
benquesnelAuthor
New Participant
October 27, 2017
Hey @deftware

Thanks for the quick response. My understanding is that you can "zoom out" the FOV (but not TOO FAR) and the image looks more realistic (depending on how close/far you are from other objects in the scene). 

Are you saying this is impossible with Unity right now?

Would increasing the size of the sphere help, perhaps? Haven't done this myself, but I am curious.

In regards to 60 not being viable for a 2D screen... I'm sure this is true. But why? It seems that when I change the FOV in Unity, and view the scene in 360 (on a 2D screen), it looks amazing and exactly what I would want for the output... On desktop or GearVR.
deftware
Inspiring
October 28, 2017
I don't know what the situation is with Unity. It's a bit of a hunch when I say that I think you're overlooking something like a toggle setting. I have never used Unity/Unreal (as I'm a life-long homebrew nuts-and-bolts kinda guy) so I don't know how things are situated in those engines.

I'm surprised nobody else has chimed in by now with knowledge about your situation. I'm 99% sure it's a configuration issue of somekind - one which clearly transcends and overrides the FOV setting that you've already discovered has no bearing on what's happening.
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