Question Virtual Reality

[RacerX]

Apollo 11 interactive tour from the smithsonian with VR downloads, 3d print models
http://3d.si.edu/apollo11cm/
If you haven't seen it yet its pretty cool :thumbup:

 

[unknown_orbiter]

I'm currently in communication with the developer of FlyInside (https://flyinside-fsx.com/), and it's looking like I can have a graphics client ready to go quite quickly and easily which COULD define its own camera.

 

[jarmonik]

I'm strongly considering developing virtual reality (e.g. Vive, Rift, etc.) compatibility with Orbiter.

Is there anything in the works for this already, or is there interest to start such a project?

Are those things D3D9 compatible ? Btw, what's the visible fov without moving a neck ?

 

[innovine]

Is anyone really using such devices?
Reminds me a bit of "3D glasses" from a few years back.

Once you put on a VR headset, how do you see the mouse and keyboard?
Orbiter relies on those.

Don't take me wrong, playing a bit of devils advocate here :hmm:

Why not reach out and touch the buttons?

https://www.leapmotion.com/

---------- Post added at 07:20 PM ---------- Previous post was at 07:12 PM ----------

I have been experimenting a bit with UE4 and my Vive headset, and have made a few simple cockpits in VR with interactive buttons. This is reasonably easy using Blender for modelling and UE4 for vive support and the button logic.

However, one thing UE4 is bad at is large worlds (over 20km), and the texture mapping for Earth is done so well in Orbiter beta..

UE4 allows for C++ development (which I haven't done much of). Would it possible to use the Orbiter SDK to render the external view to a cubemapped texture, and to get and set the vessels location and rotation, and just do the cockpit in UE4, using the Orbiter-rendered external view as a skybox?

 

[unknown_orbiter]

Are those things D3D9 compatible ? Btw, what's the visible fov without moving a neck ?

I'm not certain about D3D9, however the FOV is just shy of your natural FOV. There are of course limitations.

 

[jangofett287]

Would it possible to use the Orbiter SDK to render the external view to a cubemapped texture, and to get and set the vessels location and rotation, and just do the cockpit in UE4, using the Orbiter-rendered external view as a skybox?

Short Answer: No.
Long Answer: Not in any practical sense.
I thought you could re-write a texture on disk every frame, but that would saturate most disks, and you'd have sync issues.
Then I thought of making some custom code to send the frames directly, but re-writing a screen sized render texture (standard textures can't be modified at run time) would not be at all performant.
Besides, VR UE4 is already taxing enough on the GPU without having to run an entirely separate D3D7/9 renderer. I'm not even sure it could work. VR does weird things to graphics drivers.

---------- Post added at 20:38 ---------- Previous post was at 20:35 ----------

You could write a module to pipe transforms into UE4, but then you're back to the scale problem.

 

[Hlynkacg]

Pretty sure the only practical way to do this would be as a custom graphics client.

 

[jarmonik]

Based on what I have understood, Occulus Rift had DX9 support but not anymore. In the D3D9 client we can easily render a split screen stereoscopic view. Besides that, we would need to apply "optical" correction to left and right eye views. Without DX9 support from the device that correction would obviously need to be done on a client side.

So, the question is, If you play current Orbiter with the Vive or Rift then what do you see ? If you half of the view with Left eye and the other half with the right one, then there is hope. Other vice not much.

 

[jedidia]

Why not reach out and touch the buttons?

a) Requires even more hardware, signifficantly reducing an already small target audience.

b) the buttons have to be pretty big for this to work conveniently.

I did spend a day at a firends place who has playstation VR, and the motion controlls are really more for generalised actions, and when handling a virtual UI takes very deliberate movements and requires you to have enough time on your hands.

I did however also play the rogue-one VR tech-demo for battlefront, and found that the "look at switch and press a button on your controller" works reasonably well in a virtual cockpit when the actions are not too time critical. Muscle memory starts kicking in pretty fast too.

 

[jangofett287]

I'm not sure of the exact figure, but Vive's tracking is accurate down to <1cm. With good design a VR cockpit should be doable. The problem is getting the headset display. I'd guess you'd need a d3d11 graphics client first.

 

[Artlav]

Speaking of interface, here is something i've been toying with recently called Augmented Reality.
Headsets for such things are quite rare, but one should allow you to see the controls, while the image is overlaid to it.

I wonder if that gives anyone any fresh ideas.

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R0BLbn-M0X4"]AR test with spaceships and reference point - YouTube[/ame]

 

[Donamy]

That was sweet !!! Can you fly them around the room?

 

[Artlav]

Not really - the tracking is getting rather inaccurate at this scale, and it flickers too much for my sense of perfection...

 

[unknown_orbiter]

That's pretty awesome!

As for accuracy, I can say firsthand that the Vive's precision is mindblowing, and software already exists to allow you to flip itty-bitty virtual controls inside FSX cockpits using your hands (Google: leap motion).

 

[RacerX]

Speaking of interface, here is something i've been toying with recently called Augmented Reality.
Headsets for such things are quite rare, but one should allow you to see the controls, while the image is overlaid to it.

I wonder if that gives anyone any fresh ideas.

AR test with spaceships and reference point - YouTube

Dude!!! I want one :thumbup:

 

[SilverStar]

Is anyone really using such devices?
Reminds me a bit of "3D glasses" from a few years back.

Once you put on a VR headset, how do you see the mouse and keyboard?
Orbiter relies on those.

Don't take me wrong, playing a bit of devils advocate here :hmm:

Since October 2016, I have bought the Oculus Rift CV1.
I use it for DCS world, Prepare3D and Elite Dangerous which is a space game.
When flying a complex spaceship, I use the Saitek X-56 joystick/throttle.
Together they have 60 buttons/options to controle your ship, which is more than enough. So when I fly in space with the Oculus Rift, I intuitive find my buttons without the keyboard or lifting the rift....

 

[jroly]

I bought a new phone along with the Google Daydream. I would like to make some VR or 3D videos with Orbiter but unfortunately there are not any options to enable stereo view, cylindrical view or increasing FoV past 90. I did make a video recording of cylindrical view orbiting the Moon in Space Engine, only problem with Space Engine is it does not allow you to select both stereo view and cylindrical view at the same time.

 

[Topper]

Are there any news regarding the "vr support for orbiter" topic?
Is there any change to get Orbiter working in VorpX?

I found this games which seems to be funny:

 

[Juanelm]

Wouldn't it be possible to just show the computer screen on the VR headset (without stereoscopic vision, just using the headset as a monitor), and that way bypass the fact that most VR systems don't support D3D9?

Regarding the camera movement, the API only allows for rotation in polar and azimuth axis, but I would think that's not a huge issue. One does not normally rotate the head side to side. If you do, it wouldn't respond to that movement, but I would think it could still feel realistic.

EDIT:

Holy crap, I just found this video on youtube which was published literally last Monday. He is using the TrackIR plugin for tracking, but using some software to get the position/rotation data from the Occulus itself instead of a TrackIR device. Then he uses SteamVR to show the image on the headset; and it even works in stereo??

So it's already working?? This seems way too good to be true.

 

[wadim-al]

Holy crap, I just found this video on youtube which was published literally last Monday. He is using the TrackIR plugin for tracking, but using some software to get the position/rotation data from the Occulus itself instead of a TrackIR device. Then he uses SteamVR to show the image on the headset; and it even works in stereo??

Hi, I'm the author of the video.

The current situation is promising.
First, the stereo mode works using the TriDef 3D software, but it is paid and no more sold.
Second, today I've started tinkering with the free Vireio injector and was able to create a partially working stereo profile (shader and config entry). The problem is that I can use only the integrated videocard for now so I have 1 fps. It seems that vireio stereo mode works, but it looks weird and needs tweaking.
If someone wants to make FOV, stereo separation, and UI fixes for the Vireio profile, I'm posting my config entry and the shader file in the attachment.

Vireio perсeption v216 was used.