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.
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:
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):
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.
I need someone to make a game that utilizes the Vive. Like, imagine a sword fighting game with the Vive.
Updates:
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
10/10 for funky music.
Awesome! Is that published somewhere? I have a vive kit at my disposal today and would like to try it out.
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)
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.
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?
Back when I used the Oculus Rift it would straight up refuse to work with any mobile GPU chip (that is, the m (mobile) variant of any GPU), although I believe that is no longer the case. There are some high-end laptops out there that have “full size” non-mobile GPU’s aboard, and they are the ones that will cost you 3 to 5 thousand euros/dollars… Out of the 200+ students following the game development track I’m in only 1 had a laptop powerful enough to run Oculus demo’s at full resolution in 90 FPS.
From a cost perspective, realize that you are buying a laptop that has the bare minimum required to run VR. The technology is still in its baby phases and it is extremely likely that the required hardware for VR games will be pushed even further. If you are in possession of enough money to buy yourself a laptop and a Vive kit just to experience ROBLOX or Minecraft, you should probably not buy a laptop and a Vive kit and take a minute to dive into this experimental world to figure out how to get the best and longest duration of fun out of your investment.