VR: Developer Alpha

Updates!

Live:

  • Humanoid name/health rendering in VR
  • BillboardGui rendering improvements for VR (includes chat bubbles and developer BBGUI)
  • Fixed moon turning when you roll your head
  • HTC Vive support

We will ship controller tracking support for HTC Vive this week; this comes with some API updates that I’ll follow up on.

4 Likes

Awesome!

How will players playing through Vive interact with the game? From the experiences that I’ve had only games crafted specifically for the Vive’s movement tracking area felt playable. While the controllers have thumbstick-like touchpads, they are (at least on the dev kit that I’m using) not very suitable to use as sticks for movement due to the lack of any feedback. Or is the plan to use Xbox or Playstation gamepads with the Vive as well?

Gamepads will work with Vive without any issues. The question is - what if you don’t have a gamepad.

Our current short-term plan is to use touchpads for movement. It’s not the best way but it’s something we can start with.

Are there any plans to fix controllers on mobile for anyone who creates a hackish solution / has a DIY system for using a NVIDIA tablet to use with a “Google Cardboard” system?
If not, could you guys still try to fix controllers? I can’t plug my tablet into the TV and my room and not have the controller close to me for GUIs

Yes, we expect to have controllers work with mobile for VR. Not necessarily as a primary input method, but as one that’s available if you have the controller. Are you experiencing issues with gamepad on mobile? If so, please post them in the Bug Reports section and we’ll take a look.

Already did so. Only found 2 issues.

Support for HTC Vive hand tracking is live, along with new APIs:

Enum UserCFrame
EnumItem UserCFrame.Head
EnumItem UserCFrame.LeftHand
EnumItem UserCFrame.RightHand

CFrame UserInputService:GetUserCFrame(UserCFrame type)
Event UserInputService.UserCFrameChanged(UserCFrame type, CFrame value)

Hopefully the APIs are self-explanatory.

UserInputService.UserHeadCFrame is still available but is deprecated in favor of the above for consistency and performance.

Both UserInputService.VREnabled and UserInputService:GetUserCFrame / UserInputService.UserCFrameChanged are considered stable and will not be changed/deprecated in the foreseeable future.

Shipping next week:

  • HTC Vive button support (no new APIs, uses existing gamepad support)
  • VehicleSeat camera improvements in VR
4 Likes

Better get rid of it next week, while it isn’t widely used yet.
(less cluttering the API with deprecated stuff!)

In addition to other items we’re shipping this week Oculus is in retail so we have upgraded ROBLOX to be compatible with the new public runtime. Here’s what you will need to do on Thursday to keep using your Rift with ROBLOX (Player/Studio):

  1. Uninstall existing runtime if any (uninstall anything that begins with Oculus…)
  2. Install Oculus Home: https://www.oculus.com/en-us/setup/
  3. In the Oculus settings (gear icon), enable General -> Unknown Sources: https://support.oculus.com/878170922281071

Both DK2 and CV1 (codename for shipping Rift) work with new runtime. As far as I know DK1 doesn’t work and there’s no way to make it work.

3rd step is unfortunately currently necessary; this may change in the future but for now this is how it is.

1 Like

I need someone to make a game that utilizes the Vive. Like, imagine a sword fighting game with the Vive.

Updates:

  • Upgraded Oculus SDK to 1.3. As mentioned above, you have to install official Oculus Runtime and enable Unknown Soruces for ROBLOX to work.
  • Implemented controller input for Vive (we currently treat buttons/touchpads as gamepad buttons/thumbsticks).
  • Backpack UI in VR is now in 3D

We’re working on migrating other parts of core GUI to 3D and polishing the backpack.

Backpack video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qgFtSUqw_Cg

4 Likes

10/10 for funky music.

Was working on refining the input a bit and made this to test:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5qM7Ha6RYn0

4 Likes

Awesome! Is that published somewhere? I have a vive kit at my disposal today and would like to try it out.

1 Like

guns.rbxl (40.5 KB)

Only works in Play Solo because I’m lazy.
I made this with Oculus Touch but Vive should work as is (maybe placement of the guns will be a tiny bit off, I did not take the time to match the cframes between the two)

2 Likes

I want to try and make a first person HTC Vive experience, where you can see your Roblox character’s arms in first person, and you can move them around with the remotes.

What I need to figure out is how I can transform the proportions of a person to the proportions of a Roblox character.

1 Like

I have some stuff I would like to experiment with… but… I don’t have a budget for an HTC Vive or Oculus Rift. I am thinking about upgrading my laptop this year from my Lenovo Y510P, because the CPU cooling and GPU are both bottlenecks, so two large purchases like that aren’t exactly something I am up for.

I want to try and make a first person HTC Vive experience, where you can see your Roblox character’s arms in first person, and you can move them around with the remotes.

You should not want to do that.

I’ve been working with it for a few weeks and have played a lot of demos. The controller tracking is extremely precise, up to the point where I could catch the controller being throwed towards me while wearing the Vive headset. This makes for extreme immersion when you replace the controller model with an item/gun/gear. The Vive does not track your arm and thus representing the players arm will always result in the uncanny valley effect as it instantly breaks the effect of being the player character (instead of controlling it). It is much better to leave out the objects/limbs that are not tracked, which is why every demo I’ve played so far consists only of floating hands.

Be aware that both the HTC Vive and the Oculus do not work with 99% of laptops, and that it will also require the purchase of additional hardware (new GPU) in a desktop rig to smoothly run content.

Why is this?

The laptop I am hoping to get has a GTX 980m. Is that still not enough power to run Roblox (or Minecraft, or any other less demanding game) in VR?