15:55 Oculus at E3 Speculation
17:05 Browser Apps and Productivity Apps
19:00 Music Games and VR
26:25 “Concert Attendant Hero”
26:55 VR and Stage Fright
32:20 Donkey Kong VR
38:23 Planet 1 Play test
47:18 First Law Play test
1:02:40 Notch Cubes Play test
1:07:20 Rift Amp Play test
1:12:00 Rift Runner Play test
1:19:38 What I am looking forward to with the Rift
1:23:00 Is the Rift Consumer Ready?
1:28:50 Malfate’s Castle Play Test
1:32:05 Rift Software Resources
1:36:18 Head Bob or no Head Bob?
1:43:10 Heli Hell 2 Play test
1:56:12 Rift, 3D, and Eye Strain
2:00:55 Watching a SBS 3D movie in Media Player
2:06:12 Single vs. Double Screen HMDs
I also will be putting a Torque 3D play test on my YouTube Channel. I am thinking of switching over to Torque from UDK, I will keep you posted on that status.
Still working on tutorial writing, trying to make time!
Here we go with another VR Dev journal entry. Not a whole lot to show off here – this past week was a crazy one! I have been helping test alpha builds, writing articles for Road To VR, making videos, and even doing an interview or two. Whew!
In this video, I show off the Kismet toggle switch. A great place to learn how to do that is the 3DBuzz tutorials:
Also, I have begun working on the key functionality of the Holodeck – taking you somewhere else. My first test is to gradually take the player from the holodeck room to the epic courtyard. In my first attempt, I simply made the walls invisible when opening the door. DOH!
Game development requires a lot of determination, and sometimes things don’t progress as quickly or as smoothly as we hope. Don’t give up!
Its strange to know that I have only had my Rift dev kit for 7 days, with everything that has happened. One first impressions vid turned into two, which turned into a ridiculous number of videos, views, and comments. Oh, and an article on PCGamer.com:
O_O
A huge THANK YOU to all the folks who have watched my videos, subscribed, left feedback and encouraging words. Words fail to express how moved I am!
So, a different type of blog entry this time around. I wanted to discuss some impressions and observations after week 1 of Rifting. Discussed in this video are:
Getting Acclimated
-Looking around before beginning the game experience really helps. Force the player to do this, but nest it inside of the game narrative… kind of like Halo?
-Recommended game order: Tiny Room > Tuscany > Microstar > Dear Esther > Mirror’s Edge > TF2 > Skyrim
-Stay hydrated! Water, Ginger Ale, and frequent breaks are good.
Visible Area
-Not looking at a lot of the screen at all!
-FOV : 108 – 112 feels great, depending on the game and what lens cups you are using.
-“Rift Peripheral Vision”, when you are able to see a little more looking straight than to the side. Gameplay application for this?
My best estimate of the RPV (Rift Peripheral Vision) of all three lens cups, A, B, and C: http://i.imgur.com/iUiwRl7.jpg
Control
-Giving the player options are key
-Controller hierarchy: Hydra > Controller > Mouse & Keyboard
-Learned behavior: using the mouse/analog stick to accelerate turns. Analogous to spinning around the body?
The Game Narrative
– Camera “head bob” is not such a bad thing! In fact, I prefer it. Glide motion still makes me dizzy, even after a week of play.
– Cutscenes are probably best Half Life 2 style – let the player keep control. However, slow and steady camera movements work well. Avoid fast motion and radical rotation.
– Transitions are best when there is a fade to black or fade to white effect. Clean cuts are not as jarring as I expected them to be, but fade outs are better.
-Sound cannot be overstated. Make the environment immersive with high quality, realistic stereo sound.
-Horror implications? Rift peripheral + sound exploitation = NOPE. XD
So that pretty much covers it. This next week will be more on my own development progress with my game project. Also, I plan on a regular bi-weekly video release schedule for gameplay stuff on my YouTube Channel.
Honeymoon’s over, time to do the REALLY fun stuff – creating a world of my own!
