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@lagora
VR: Zero Input Diegetic Interface
Disclaimer
I have a PHD in nothing, at the unUniversity of WAUTA (What.Are.You.Talking.About). Iām currently equipped with the HTC Vive 5 (a bit better than the 3, and a much better than the 4, go figure), and have a career of 300 years in VR. And I come from the future.
If you got the ability to discern humour, I hope you understood what I meant.
TL;DR: I know nothing about VR, and I just own a Google Carboard (and a nexus 5x). Iām just thinking loudly here. And asking question. Consider this writing as purely theorical.
First
I try to resist the urge to possess anything (I perceive) remotely better than the google cardboard. Yet, with (at least) one hand holding the cardboard, I was wondering about how could I interact with a VR world ?
Zero Input
I said one hand, but I could as well say two hand. So no way to click a physical button in my hand. The irony of being in a VR world but not being able to do anything except just look. Which is, of all, already incredible.Ā
With no input whatsoever, how can I interact with the world ?Ā
Contextual Interface
What about a diegetic interface ? A representation of possibles interactions in a VR world:Ā Look a door knob, and a tooltip appear, asking you if you want to open the door (or not), look for āyesā for a ābriefā amout of time, and the door open.Ā Idem with a NPC. The main limitation I think of is (was ?) the first/most common problem of VR world/games: navigation. Maybe navigation should be revised as to move in places relatives to other objects (I see a chair, with a contextual option to move near it.Ā
A measured approach should then be needed, to avoid contextual tooltip hell, where any glance anywhere would trigger the rise of abundand forest of bubbles asking you anything and everything.
Diegetic InterfaceĀ
Perhaps you wonāt be alone in a game made like this. What of your very personal butler, whose personal role is to be your main interface: Want to see your inventory ? Your game options, anything ? As for the novelty ofĀ āmy character look at interesting object so I know where to searchā, maybe this role will be his/her. So your butler look at a piece of paper, ask him/her to have a look. It should boost development in AI, if anything.Ā
This seems well adapted to the point & clic kind of games. Damn, Sherlock Holmes VR ! Or the next Ace Attorney ! :D
Maybe being in a VR world means that immersion should be distinct from open world.
Finally, I want to try these options, as I find it adapted to low-end VR solution (cardboard VR)
VR: Low cost helmet (need a phone though)
So I receive this (cheap) helmet I was looking for, and...itās crap. Sure, itās nice to be able to tweak some stuff on it, yet, the phone is too far from my eyes, so everything is blurry.
I intended to start from it, but I back to square one, with my google cardboard, which is good, donāt get me wrong, but now what ?
Well, I will put some money apart, waiting to afford something better, like, really better. Still donāt know what, because Oculus/HTC Vive is still quite expensive, and Iām not ready to commit to PSVR if now serious hack is available (I need to look for it, it seems toĀ āstartā, but, meh).
Right now, the ācheapestā alternative is samsung VR + second hand galaxy S5.
*sad*
VR: Teleportation, Blink and immersion
Disclaimer
I have a PHD in nothing, at the unUniversity of WAUTA (What.Are.You.Talking.About). Iām currently equipped with the HTC Vive 5 (a bit better than the 3, and a much better than the 4, go figure), and have a career of 300 years in VR. And I come from the future.
If you got the ability to discern humour, I hope you understood what I meant.
TL;DR: I know nothing about VR, and I just own a Google Carboard (and a nexus 5x). Iām just thinking loudly here. And asking question. Consider this writing as purely theorical.
How FPS became FPX ?
Right now, not having testing anyĀ ārealā VR helmet (I intend to), Iām not really sure Shooters is a good game type for VR. It could be fun, of course, but, as I felt that shooting non-existing humanoid not really engaging as I grew older, I also felt it to be more and more of the same thing. The only thing that made me a bit interested was theĀ ātactical coverā gameplay mechanic. And then it was all over (again). You can argue thatĀ ātactical reloadingā is a thing, but I think itās far less important than cover.
So I can shoot people in games, yeah. Iām not making any talk aboutĀ āviolent gamesā or anything. Iām just a bit tired to do the same thing, in what also seems to be theĀ āsameā settings: battefields, from theĀ āpastā (WW 2, 1?) to theĀ āfutureā (COD). Right now, the two most commons (or visibles) FPS game type are shooter andĀ āsurvivalā. Those types could be more intense in VR, but I seriously doubt they will be more interesting. And where you have to move a lot in shooters, you can really stay static in horror games. I said horror to make a link with survival, because in a lot of case, you either must litterally escape an horrible fate, or prevent it while staying in place.
First Person Shitter ?
I may be wrong, but I feel like a lot of indie/cheap VR games (on steam) rely on an horror setup. And boy, as FNAF (Five Nights At Freddyās) did prove you can have success with the same recipe (not talking about quality), Iām a bit afraid of an overflow of cheap horrorĀ āgamesā as the most common game type for VR.
And Iām team #brownPants (I must mentally prepare myself for the RE7 demo), so, you canāt tell meĀ āVR is the best when you shit yourself with cheap jumpscareā. Sure, I would have died for a VR Silent Hills (even with PT having some jumpscares). But now, I want to play game looking for another kind of experience.
So, I really wish āgamesā can make a transition from FPS (kill everything with a limited input experience) to FPX (eXperience anything really engaging from the First Point of view).
So moving in VR can make you sick.
That is, moving at anĀ āartificialā pace, using the left stick, when your physical body move not accordingly with your VR body. The solution found was to teleport from and to any location, without transition, so you stayĀ āstaticā each time. I find that rather cool. To be honest, the first time I saw a title about it, I thoughtĀ āWhat the hell VR has to do with quantum teleportation ?ā and then I wasĀ āohhhhhh, ok. Niceā.Ā
When looking atĀ āallā (99.999% ?) FPS game, you move a lot. And as I said earlier, I a bit sick of shooter (still loving somes, but, meh).Ā
Teleporting from point A to point B
I remember a game where this could be really interesting: Sentinel. Itās a really old game, with a remake on PsOne (I think), that was already in 3D back then. Itās the perfect game for VR, and, not having done any research, perhaps itās already on steam (or anywhere else). If itās not already done, it should be done in VR.
In this game, you must go to the highest point of the map, occupied by the sentinel, looking for any anomaly like you, to destroy. You do this by taking the place of various other objects on the map, until you get the place of the sentinel.
Teleporting should be instantaneous, or at least, it should feel like it. I wonder if it is the case in multiplayer VR games. Do I see player 2 popping here and there ? Could this be adapted with more traditional gameplay, where you must move your character continously ?
First, I havenāt tested anyĀ ārealā VR helmet, so I donāt know about the sickness that seems to strike you. I only tested the demo from aframe.io with my phone and cardboard, and I didnāt feel sick. Maybe Iām immune ! :D I heard your body have to adapt over a period of time. I should see.
Blink and move
But I think (until I test otherwise), we could blend classic FP movement with the teleportation method. The teleportation method seemsĀ āsafeā, but the limit to where you can go is artificial: Why limit the range of teleportation ? It look like the invisibility power of one character in the movieĀ āMystery Menā: Awesome on principle, but quite strangely limited in application.
So could you move freely ? No, should you teleport only a few steps each time ? Not quite. Maybe you could teleport really quickly and simply, while blinking. Iām not talking about blinking under your VR helmet. The helmet wonāt know anything (yet) about your eyes. I talking about simulating a blink of you VR character while you move. The duration of the blink link to the range of the teleportation. And a blink is fast, but I think there is a good range of speed and distance between blinking too quickly (screen flickering) and blinking for too long (is the game frozen ?)
That was my 2cents...Ā
New year resolutions ? Too low in VR
I wasnāt sure this pun could be renewed with VR, but still. Anyway, as for every year, on a lot of blogs, the good resolutions no one keep. I wonāt look at those from last year, I donāt want to be depressed.
The usual suspects
- lose weight
- stop smoking (I really want this to work)
- get better at [insert anything here, itās not really important since youāll already started last year and thus, youāll be already better, OR, youāll never quite put any time worth to start getting anything]
The old ones
- Make (readĀ āfinish start makingā) a game goddamit
- Do read the 10/100 books/games you never started
- Blog nearly every day: Well, if Iām really honest, I donāt really think, at all, I could do that, yet, I should post a few articles each weeks, and overall, not wait for too long before posting anything (because then, I lose interest/motivation)
The new ones
- makeĀ āsomethingā in VR, while not having a real equipment
- move to a bigger flat: I canāt stand my flat anymore. I donāt know yet where Iāll go, and I hope I could stay in the same price range, but I have to go.
- Allow myself to love someone again (yeah, a bit sad and poetic, but, whatever)
I still think itās important to make new year resolution list(s). It, somehow, underline what seems important for us for the upcoming future. Perhaps itās more about what have changed, from years to years, rather thant what was in fact, done.
2017 whislist
- To meet Kojima, Musk, Notch
- A new laptop
- A sweet HTC Vive and the PC to run it
Well, some of those should be pushed to 2018 maybe ?
Hello world (2016 edition)
Hello again
Iām still not dead, which is nice.
The past few months were really intense. And as the year will come to an end, I realise, again, just as the previous years, that Iāve yet to release anything in fact.Ā
Having reduced the scope of my ambitions, I wanted to make only small demos instead of full games (whatever could it mean). It didnāt changed anything, because zero minus 90%, is still zero.
The struggle is real for me, between sexy AF library, and damn deep middlewares. I must break the circle. It goes as follow:
- Have an idea for concept/gameplay
- Enrich AF said idea with lore/justification about said gameplay idea
- Existential crisis about it being too wide/simple/complex/whatever
- Self hyped while thinking about desired aesthetics/gfx/shaders/etc
- Look any libraries/middlewares showcases while thinking about the project
- Fiddle a bit until things get hard.
- Give up but think of it as āfrozen projectā
- Until one morning, someone, somewhere make something either remotely similar, or just exactly like itĀ
- Now I hate myself for not being able to finish what is my passion, and telling so much people thatĀ āmaking video games is my passionā. Keep dreaming to be the next Notch (as so many indie dev)
- Feel like a fraud because youāre not a writer if you donāt release a book
- Try to have next idea as more humble, simpler, faster to do.
- Rince and repeat. And keeping wishing for a magic wand/tool that will make lot of things so much simpler (keep founding it).
So !
So, regarding the aesthetics of my projects, itās either retro pixel, but with scenes that are highly dynamics, with lots of stuff moving here and there, a certain density. Or simple and elegants low poly (Super Hot, Mirrors Edge). The thing is itās hard for me to make lots of assets when Iām not comitted to a style. From this kind of position, nothing can really emerge: Iāll make crappy assets because Iām not 100% in the style, and Iām not 100% in the style because I only make crappy assets. Iām hyped by screenshots from other peaople. But I donāt want to emulate a style, I want my own.
Promises ?
I found that, upon looking showcases for some library/framework/middleware, it somehow motivate me because I think my projects could look like. For hardware related novelty too: I had (and still have) ideas working with kinect, leap motion and whatnot.
Recently Iāve been really hyped by VR. But, pal, I have neither a war machine nor a PS4. And I canāt really spend at least 800⬠on this. The lowest setup I could have should be a samsung VR and a second hand galaxy S5. But itās still really expensive, and for what Iāve seen, games arenāt there (except for āBudget Cutā).
I think the indie scene has a card to play in VR, but rather in low tech VR. And thatās where aframe.io spawn: Proc.Edu.Ria was what kept me on for a long time, but as sweet as WebGL is, I lost myself.
I want to make some small games/demos with it in 2017. Maybe starting with a reboot of Proc.Edu.Ria, in VR. My setup is rather simple: My phone (nexus 5X), a plastic helmet (15ā¬), and maybe a bluetooth controller later.
VR ?
When I think about Proc.Edu.Ria, I see a First Person Adventure, with an universe to explore. Not an open world, expanding for a gazillion KM. Rather a smaller, intimate, close landscape, with a lot of stuff to do. Like the maps from Assassinās Creed, with all the secondary quests, but in a way that feel immersive and interesting.
And I think thatās what VR games should be. Put me in the shoes of a detective, in Chicago, and Iāll want to roam the streets. You wonāt have to make a bullshit story about anything. Just put me there, and youāll see me staying and staring long hours at the map you made, the details your talented team made during this couple of years.
Anyway, merry things and happy stuff to you
at Brochant
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