Author Topic: Oculust Quest VR version  (Read 5867 times)

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Offline simh

  • 22
Oculust Quest VR version
Hi!

I am new here and not a developer at all but I came across this old thread ( https://www.hard-light.net/forums/index.php?topic=94136.0 ) that says there is working APK version.
DO you think there is any chance to develop VR version for the Quest? I mean... playing FS2 in VR should be one of the best experiences out there. Untethered, standalone (and relatively cheap) headset that you can setup in seconds on any chair should be perfect for this.

Skimming through the forums I found info that devs are not interested due to lack of devices to test, expensive headsets and long setup. Maybe the community can help with that? I would be more than happy to chip in if there would be chance to have it done.

 

Offline simh

  • 22
Re: Oculust Quest VR version
A little self bumping but since noone replied let me give some more context.

Recently I bought Starfighter Arduxim for Quest 2. The game is rather poor in terms of content, only a couple of missions, empty space, single ship. But daaamn was it great sitting in my chair, looking around the asteroid field and blasting some baddies in space. Frickin awesome.
Now... Imagine Freespace in VR. Mind blown...

 
Re: Oculust Quest VR version
It's not happening without a big, dedicated effort that would take a ton of time and expertise. The kind that doesn't often show up and work on a volunteer basis. The engine is just nowhere near being able to add VR. I mean, I can't guarantee that John Carmack won't randomly decide to add it for a laugh, but in practical terms VR in FSO is a "when pigs fly" prospect.
The good Christian should beware of mathematicians, and all those who make empty prophecies. The danger already exists that the mathematicians have made a covenant with the devil to darken the spirit and to confine man in the bonds of Hell.

 

Offline EatThePath

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Re: Oculust Quest VR version
A lot of FSO developments sound, from what I piece together in retrospect, a lot like things people thought were never going to happen until someone showed up and did them suddenly, so I'd never say never entirely, but....

To get VR we need at least developer who:
  • knows the graphics pipeline or graphics programming in general well
  • is really excited about VR
  • has the hardware to test with
  • and has nothing else they'd rather spend the time on.
We might have people who hit two out of the four, but I don't think more than that. And I doubt any of them can get very excited about developing for Facebook's platform.
« Last Edit: October 11, 2021, 07:30:17 pm by EatThePath »
Name your damn turrets and sounds! Numbers alone aren't helpful!
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Offline simh

  • 22
Re: Oculust Quest VR version
The main reason why I thought it might be possible is because I saw this YouTube video by ksotar https://youtu.be/ckwYK9Bmot4
It is related to his post here in the forum but it looks like he's no longer active here.
Anyways, it looks like it is possible and not so far fetched.
Of course it won't happen without interested and capable developer. And hardware. It was mentioned that VR is a nono because of the cost and hassle with the hardware and setup and i think Quest can help a lot.
As for the Facebook side of things... Yes, that is less than ideal. But maybe it's not a deal breaker. Between SideQuestVR and Oculess maybe it's not that big of a deal actually.

If anyone has any chance to experience something like that poor Starfighter Arduxim in VR (i think multiplayer is even free) i would encourage to do so. For me it was a game changer. Maybe then more people will be interested.

 
Re: Oculust Quest VR version
There's also something else to consider:
FreeSpace is a control-heavy game, so unless you can use a joystick/gamepad and a keyboard with the Quest standalone, I don't think a Quest version of FSO would be feasable.

But if you want untethered PC-VR with the Quest, you can either use AirLink or VirtualDesktop.
On the other hand, as FreeSpace and space combat sims in general are a sitting experience, I don't mind the cable much.
(I'm a member of the team behind XWVM and play it a lot in VR.)

Personally, if I wanted to implement VR-support within FSO, I would make use of OpenXR in order to support as many headsets as possible if not all.
I wish I had the skills to actually implement it.

Should any efforts to implement VR ever take traction, I'd be happy to do some testing with my original Oculus Quest.

(By the way: The XWA Upgrade team somehow managed to implement VR support without any source code and it works and looks fantastic.)
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Offline m0rgg

  • 20
Re: Oculust Quest VR version
There's also something else to consider:
FreeSpace is a control-heavy game, so unless you can use a joystick/gamepad and a keyboard with the Quest standalone, I don't think a Quest version of FSO would be feasable.
You can use Bluetooth keyboards and controllers.
Also, the motion controllers can have similar inputs to a gamepad.

Quote
But if you want untethered PC-VR with the Quest, you can either use AirLink or VirtualDesktop.
On the other hand, as FreeSpace and space combat sims in general are a sitting experience, I don't mind the cable much.
(I'm a member of the team behind XWVM and play it a lot in VR.)
I think the native implementation on Quest is more about convenience and the barrier of entry of having a gaming PC than the cable itself.
That said, I agree that implementing VR on PC would be the first logical step.

Quote
Personally, if I wanted to implement VR-support within FSO, I would make use of OpenXR in order to support as many headsets as possible if not all.
Indeed, OpenXR is the way to go, both on PC and Quest. If someone manages to implement VR in PC, that part should work the same in standalone (Quest or other Android headsets).
The other building block is to have an Android port that works with OpenGL ES, or ideally Vulkan. I think there is some functional fork already?

Quote
I wish I had the skills to actually implement it.

Should any efforts to implement VR ever take traction, I'd be happy to do some testing with my original Oculus Quest.

(By the way: The XWA Upgrade team somehow managed to implement VR support without any source code and it works and looks fantastic.)
I am collaborating with the VR mod for XWA, and indeed not having the source is very challenging, but there are many other mods that manage to do it. You need to understand the rendering part of the engine and modify the right addresses in memory to modify the 3D transformation matrices.

In XWA all the 3D calculations are done in software (CPU) and the drawing uses a legacy API (DirectDraw). In fact blue_max and others in the community managed to do a 2D->3D reconstruction in a ddraw.dll wrapper. Once you can capture the draw calls and have the 3D primitives, it's a matter of applying 2 separate view-projection matrices and render to each of the eyes. But that's just the easy part, then you need to fix things that break because they were not designed/implemented for stereo view.

I have been working on an OpenXR implementation for XWA but lately I focused on solving other issues in the SteamVR implementation.

I have good very good memories of playing Freespace 2 so maybe one day I will give it a go.
Maybe doing it with source code will even seem easy in comparison 😁

 
Re: Oculust Quest VR version
I am collaborating with the VR mod for XWA, and indeed not having the source is very challenging, but there are many other mods that manage to do it. You need to understand the rendering part of the engine and modify the right addresses in memory to modify the 3D transformation matrices.

In XWA all the 3D calculations are done in software (CPU) and the drawing uses a legacy API (DirectDraw). In fact blue_max and others in the community managed to do a 2D->3D reconstruction in a ddraw.dll wrapper. Once you can capture the draw calls and have the 3D primitives, it's a matter of applying 2 separate view-projection matrices and render to each of the eyes. But that's just the easy part, then you need to fix things that break because they were not designed/implemented for stereo view.

I have been working on an OpenXR implementation for XWA but lately I focused on solving other issues in the SteamVR implementation.

I have good very good memories of playing Freespace 2 so maybe one day I will give it a go.
Maybe doing it with source code will even seem easy in comparison 😁

That's amazing what you've accomplished.
I don't imagine it being any easy.

I'm looking forward what you'll have in store for us for SteamVR and OpenXR.
And also to your implementation for FSO should you ever do it. :)
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German translator of WC: Hostile Frontier:
http://www.ciinet.org/kevin/wchf/

My Youtube Channel:
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Offline simh

  • 22
Re: Oculust Quest VR version
I wonder if the controllers would really be that big of an issue but yes, you can have bluetooth mouse and keyboard. I am not sure if even USB with splitter is not possible.
And my point is exactly that Quest 2 being standalone, it's not only untethered but in general, a mobile, hassle-free setup. You could play FSO while flying (if we ever get back to that luxury on a bigger scale ;) ).

I wonder if this would really be such an enormous task (for sure it's not a small project) because from what you wrote, there are plenty of capabilities even without the source code. Just... wow.



I have good very good memories of playing Freespace 2 so maybe one day I will give it a go.
Maybe doing it with source code will even seem easy in comparison 😁

For sure it would be amazing :)

 
Re: Oculust Quest VR version
In the meantime, I hope we'll get proper support for modern OpenGL from VorpX soon.

I did have some partial success with VR in FSO using VorpX recently.
With the TrackIr DLL, you can have some proper tracking.
But only one eye renders and there's no 3D just yet.
(However, I'Ve read that earlier FSO versions like 3.6.12 and 3.7.0 work fine as they use an earlier version of OpenGL.)
Audio Converter of Enigma Campaign 2666:
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German translator of WC: Hostile Frontier:
http://www.ciinet.org/kevin/wchf/

My Youtube Channel:
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Re: Oculust Quest VR version
Great news everyone!

Thanks to Lafiel, Freespace 2 Open now has a VR-test build acessable via Knossos.
OpenXR is supported through SteamVR and Oculus:
https://fsnebula.org/mod/vr_build

Lafiel tested this on his Reverb G2 and it works fine as of now. However, you'll have to set SteamVR as your standard OpenXR runtime as Windows Mixed Reality doesn't support OpenGL properly like SteamVR and Oculus.
I on the other hand am having a skewed image when rotating my head on my Quest 1.
A Quest 2 user has noticed a major fisheye-effect on his device.

There are still some features to implement and minor issues to solve. For instance, there's currently no way to re-center VR-view by pushing a button. Apart from that the VR-feature is coming along nicely.

So if you have any VR headset, please give this VR-build a try and report any issues you have so that they can be fixed.

Again, thank you very much Lafiel for making this dream become a reality. :-)

Update 1st October 2023:
The image skweing on the Quest 1 has been fixed.

Also, I've recorded some VR-footage of FreeSpace 2 and Diaspora - Shattered Armistice:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gzwJE-Uva1A
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eHVIjbQQbVM
« Last Edit: September 30, 2023, 08:31:21 pm by FekLeyrTarg »
Audio Converter of Enigma Campaign 2666:
http://enigma.de.to/

German translator of WC: Hostile Frontier:
http://www.ciinet.org/kevin/wchf/

My Youtube Channel:
http://www.youtube.com/user/FekLeyrTarg?feature=mhee

 

Offline Treelor

  • 24
Re: Oculust Quest VR version
Great news everyone!

Thanks to Lafiel, Freespace 2 Open now has a VR-test build acessable via Knossos.
OpenXR is supported through SteamVR and Oculus:
https://fsnebula.org/mod/vr_build

...

So on a whim I decided I'd google "Freespace 2 vr" and found that youtube video. Checked it out on my Index and was impressed. Didn't see a forum thread elsewhere so I guess that makes this the de-facto location for discussion.
The sense of scale is completely off for me. I didn't see an .ini file anywhere or any way to configure the different bits and bobs that usually come with a VR mod, like virtual IPD and resolution mask. I was hoping to just fix the scale myself. I felt like a tiny ant inside of a massive cockpit. The VR Ready cockpit mod helped with this but other craft also felt simply too large.
Also, a recenter button really would be nice - I need to lean forward to start and I load so fast I can't properly center myself before the mission starts...
hi

 
Re: Oculust Quest VR version
The sense of scale is completely off for me ... other craft also felt simply too large.

I feel like I've noticed this as well, although slightly differently: other ships felt much closer in distance than they did on a regular monitor