Free Orion in VR

For what's not in 'Top Priority Game Design'. Post your ideas, visions, suggestions for the game, rules, modifications, etc.

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Johorc
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Free Orion in VR

#1 Post by Johorc »

Hi there everyone!
Long time since my last time on this forum. So, as the title says, what do you think about a virtual reality version of free orion?

I personally started working on a VR project last October, I produced a 15 minutes demo based on the novel Treasure Island, it was a nice "first time" for me for many reasons, now I think that a game like free orion set in a vr space would become easily a must play. Just imagine some great 3d visuals, the galactic map all around you, the windows for managing the planets, designing the ships and R&D movable, resizable, playable around just by "hands".

If someone is interested I'd love to talk more about this and maybe also start doing something for making it real!

Cheers
J

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adrian_broher
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Re: Free Orion in VR

#2 Post by adrian_broher »

I'm not quite sure if this is trolling to an account takeover.

Anyway; to say it Geoffs words:
geoffthemedio wrote:not a supported feature
Resident code gremlin
Attached patches are released under GPL 2.0 or later.
Git author: Marcel Metz

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Geoff the Medio
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Re: Free Orion in VR

#3 Post by Geoff the Medio »

To put it a bit more diplomatically, feel free to implement your own FreeOrion client with whatever visualization features you like, but the existing / established contributors / developers will probably not devote any time to rewriting the whole interface any time soon.

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Bromstarzan
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Re: Free Orion in VR

#4 Post by Bromstarzan »

Something like this? [defcon VR]
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afwbkbc
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Re: Free Orion in VR

#5 Post by afwbkbc »

It looks like freeorion devs don't care about stereo 3d mode - https://github.com/freeorion/freeorion/issues/1350

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Vezzra
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Re: Free Orion in VR

#6 Post by Vezzra »

afwbkbc wrote:It looks like freeorion devs don't care about stereo 3d mode
Well, let me phrase it this way:

Sure, having a VR UI with all the bells and whistles that technology offers sounds nice. The "coolness" factor would probably be high (assuming it's actually possible to design a VR interface in a way that it not only provides stunning visuals, but also a smooth interface experience - what use are even the most stunning visuals, if operating the interface becomes a nightmare).

But if you look at the current UI and the standard of our graphics/visuals, you must have noticed that we're not even close to be on par with current standards. The reason for that is not that we don't like or don't care to have great visuals and stunning graphics (heck, we were aiming for full 3D tactical combat for a very long time). We simply lack the manpower/resources to pull that off.

And I very much expect a full blown, good (!!!) VR interface to require far more effort and resources than a graphical up-to-date with current standards UI would. So, if we can't pull off the latter, aiming for the former would be... megalomaniac?

Personally I'd see that as a a huge waste of resources anyway. There are type of games for which VR absolutely makes sense. A 4X turn based strategy game IMO isn't really one of them. Even if we had ten times the manpower we have now, I'd rather invest that into making the actual game better, making a terrific AI, optimizing performance etc. The number of games out there that have stunning visuals, but poor design and gameplay are legion. It is most certainly not our goal to add yet another fail to that ever growing list. ;)

However, as Geoff said, to anyone who feels the urge to implement a VR client for FO, go ahead and take a stab at it. Just be aware that we can't offer any serious support, we really need our limited resources for more important things. A small open source project like ours has to cut corners and set priorities, and a VR interface definitely isn't one of them.

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afwbkbc
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Re: Free Orion in VR

#7 Post by afwbkbc »

Speaking of VR..
Closed helmets ("VR helmets") like Oculus Rift, despite all the hype, actually suck balls. The (unsolveable?) problem is that screens are too close to eyes while visuals try to create effect of depth, so eyes try to focus on far objects while in reality objects are at near-zero distance. That causes blurred vision (because focusing happens incorrectly). Also, there are numerous reports of VR helmets promote uncomfortable feeling because brain sees motion but not feels it (exception are games when motion is only displayed when you actually move your head and/or body).
So, Nvidia 3d vision is much, much better for stereo 3D.
So, don't go on VR path, aim for nvidia 3d vision support. And all you have to do for it is draw everything in 3D correctly, then nvidia driver takes care of everything else.

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Bromstarzan
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Re: Free Orion in VR

#8 Post by Bromstarzan »

I know, this might be a dead horse, but

regarding VR and focus (eyes to close to screen): That is just not true, it works perfectly well
regarding VR and "uncomfortable feeling": That is true to some extent, BUT depends heavily on what games you use it for. Racing games works really good, as do Elite Dangerous. It is also a matter of training your brain. I felt a bit "dizzy" the first few hours of gameplay with VR. After 10+ hours my brain has "learned" to cope with the lack of g-forces to the extent I feel absolutely no nausea (and can play racing games/ELite Dangerous/DCS-series for unlimited timeperiods).

That said, I do not think FreeOrion should focus resources on a VR-implementation. FO is a "text/image"-game that would be very annoying trying to navigate with a VR-interface. Just like Vezzra said.
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