vorpX impressions

Diary - Day 15:

‘HP Support have taken the bridge… and the second hall.’
‘We have barred the gates… but cannot hold them for long. The ground shakes. More Reverbs arrive.’
‘Drums… drums… in the deep.’
‘We cannot get out. A shadow moves in the dark. Is it Zuckerberg?’
‘We cannot get out…’
‘They are coming!’

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If some theoretical person happened to have both TA1 and Vorp-X, I think it would be interesting to see what would happen if Vorp-X was accidentally left running in the background. It would be interesting to know what would happen wouldn’t it?

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You should review VorpX with a ‘MYSTERY APP X’?

Also, more sound legal advice from me…

https://imgur.com/Rjkk9J1

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Out of curiosity, I gave vorpX a whirl with S.T.A.L.K.E.R: Shadow of Chernobyl this evening, a game I had only dabbled in many years ago. I applied the Starter Pack Mod to it, which is a fantastic download and replace files revamp the graphics and gameplay a bit, but according to my Deep Internets Research™, keeps the game true to the original.

Simply launch WMR, launch vorpX, and launch the game through Steam. vorpX “hooks” to the game automatically (I had to run vorpX in Admin mode on this one) and you get taken into the game in VR. I found the default vorpX profile settings to not be to my liking - I was seeing ghosting in the VR image. I changed a few things - took all of about 60 seconds using the vorpX overlay, so the changes happen in realtime…no need to reload the game. The result was very good. It looks great. Being that this is game with edge of the screen menus, you will have to occasionally use the “edge peek” feature of vorpX, which by default is mapped to the center mouse wheel press. This zooms out the image slightly and allows you to look side to side at the edges of the screen without the image/game moving with your head. Sounds weird, but it works very well.

These are “through the lens” shots…

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Success! Strike Fighters 2 - Vietnam is awesome!!! I did a re-install of the SF2 Vietnam Ground War Expansion Pack and added Stary’s awesome updated Green Hell 3.5 and it looks fantastic. Green Hell 3.5 has much more subtle colors and definitely feels more realistic.

A total re-install of the mod is…well…definitely a process, but well worth it:

Strike Fighters 2 Vietnam
SF2 Vietnam Air & Ground War Expansion Pack v2.0 Gold Part I
SF2 Vietnam Air & Ground War Expansion Pack v2.0 Gold Part II
SF2 Vietnam Air & Ground War Expansion Pack v2.0 Gold Part III
SF2 Vietnam Air & Ground War Expansion Pack v2.0 Gold Part IV

Once you have those four installed, they need to be updated:

SF2V Air & Ground War Expansion Pack v2.0 - Terrain Update
SF2V Air & Ground War Expansion Pack v2.0 - VPAF Add-on
SF2V Air & Ground War Expansion Pack v2.0 - Sep. 2014 Update

Then you can add Green Hell 3.5:

Green Hell 3.5

And finally, update Green Hell 3.5 with an enhancement package specific to the SF2V Air & Ground War Expansion…

Green Hell 3.5 Enhancement Package

Yes. It’s a dance. But well worth it in the end.

Will post some through the lens shots tomorrow…but I did record my monitor view as I was flying in VR…

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Komemiute pinches his nose bridge

So, wait- you want us to BUT vorpX or NOT?!
Getting conflicting messages here…

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:joy::joy:

Buy it, it’s fantastic and great fun but for the love of god dont you dare buy it!!

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Which vorpX profile are you using to get the SF2 working? From your posts I understand that you get also 3D effect, right? Is it Z3D (depth buffer based) or G3D (geometry based)?
Thanks.
Milan

I’m not using any - it defaulted to the 2D immersion mode or whatever, and I just used the DEL key menu to change it to 3D. I won’t be able to look at the specific settings until tonight when I get home. I’m pretty sure it was G3D based. I haven’t messed with the field of view settings within SF2 ini settings in order to get a perfect 1:1 pixel and zoom level that fills the whole Reverb, so what I have is more like a slightly letterboxed view that is 3D. To bad I can’t put a helmet mask around the letterbox to make me feel like I’m wearing a helmet like you can do in VTOL VR. I’ll get you the specific settings tonight.

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Thanks, don’t worry about detailed settings. I was unable to find a SF2 specific profile and that’s why I asked :+1:

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Hmm… for apps without a profile in vorpX, I get a blue warning that the app will default into Immersive Screen and 2D only. I am then unable to change the 3D setting in vorpX in-game menu (DEL key).

Sorry to bother again, but could you please check?

Thanks! :+1:

Will be happy to this evening…unless I end up in California, which is looking increasingly likely… Again, flying getting in the way of my flying… :rofl:

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So I reinstalled SF2 today to check how it is in the Oculus Rift :slight_smile:
Sadly I have zero success so far.
I installed vanilla SF2 base game and updated to the final 2013 patch. Checked that it is running at all without vorpx, so far so good.

Now with enabled vorpx it tries to attach to the .exe but nothing ever happens.
The game will still run fine on the monitor, but shows a “vorpx API not supported” error.

Hm. Disappointing.
Anyone luck with an Oculus headset, vorpx and SF2?

EDIT:
Ok somehow got it to work. I have no idea how, but it does.
For me “Immersive mode” is the only one that makes sense.
“FullVR” mode has the super annoying effect, that if you look down in the cockpit, the game will stop moving the head at one point, but of course your real-life head can move further. When you then start looking up again, you view is vertically off center…
But still, good stuff :slight_smile:

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I haven’t forgotten about this. I did get sent to California, so that was two days gone and now I’m back, but might not be able to get back to testing vorpX until tomorrow morning. Apologies for the delay…

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So yeah, when I launch into SF2 (regardless of weather it is a modded SF2 or not), I get the same message that I’m in Immersive Screen mode. But if I pull up the vorpX settings menu I’m able to change the Play Style to Full VR mode, or Cinematic, or Letterbox (or whatever those other settings are). 1:1 works fine, but I do need to edit my actual aircraft ini files for the proper field of view AND tracking constraints. Interestingly, I was able to fiddle with the Geometry settings when running SF2: War for Israel and switch it between the various 3D Reconstruction modes (Z-3D, etc…), but found that NONE actually seemed best. When I tried the same with SF2: Vietnam, I was unable to tweak that 3D Reconstruction setting though (not that it mattered). If you are fiddling, and have already “saved” a profile under the Configure vorpX utility, you may want to go in and delete those profiles as you try and try again.

Pics taken through the lens…

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Yes, I’ve seen the same thing. For instance, in the A-6, if I try to look behind the left wing, it will reach a hard limit where further craning of the neck does nothing, but it does reset the center so that as you come back toward center, you actually start looking to the right. I believe this can be fixed in each aircraft’s individual .ini file to allow for full 360 panning, as well as setting a field of view that works better in VR. I haven’t tried editing that though…probably will give it a shot today on the A-1 Skyraider…

Definitely got this sorted. If you go into the aircraft’s INI file, for instance, the A-1H I’m flying has that file under:

D:/ThirdWireMods/Thirdwire/SF2V/Objects/Aircraft/A-1H

Find the XXXXCockpit.INI file, open it with a text editor (ignore the blue in the following, the forum software sees this as a link I suppose), but I’ve commented out the default stuff by add the two slashes, and changed the MaxYaw, MinYaw, MaxPitch, and MinPitch Front/Rear to 360 and 180 settings. Now I can use 1:1 movement throughout the cockpit with no restrictions. Linda Blair approves!

[CockpitSeat001]
ModelName=F-8C_pit
Offset=0.0,-0.10,0.0
Position=0.0,-0.26,1.20
//Position=0.0,0.0,0.75
ViewAngles=0.0,0.0,0.0
MaxYaw=360
MinYaw=-360
MaxPitch=180
MinPitchFront=-180
MinPitchRear=-180
//MaxYaw=180
//MinYaw=-180
//MaxPitch=90
//MinPitchFront=-90
//MinPitchRear=-90
LightRange=1.5
LightInnerConeAngle=50
LightOuterConeAngle=60
LightAngles=0.0,-35.0,0.0

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So hunting for field of view, that is in VIEWLIST.INI in the FLIGHT folder of your mod folder. Going to do some messing with that next…

OK, so VIEWLIST.INI does hold the key to overall game field of view settings. Interestingly though, it wasn’t my experience that the FOV value changed the in-headset FOV. It was OffsetDistance that seems to widen and narrow the field of view in the headset. So you’ll have to tinker with the OffsetDistance and the vorpX overlay menu to find the setting that both fills your entire view in the headset, and doesn’t appear to be too zoomed in. One slight artifact of messing with OffsetDistance is that there appears to be a slight 3D distortion perhaps…hard to explain, that you quickly recognize after the change, but quickly goes away as your eyes and brain adjust to it.

I haven’t settled on these settings, but I’m getting close. The takeaway in this ini listing is the OffsetDistance change to -.175 (negative value).

[ViewClass002]
ViewClassName=CockpitViewClass
ViewType=FIXED_VIEW
ViewGroupID=1
DefaultView=CockpitFront
AllowFromDiffGroup=TRUE
SnapView=FALSE
InsideView=TRUE
FocusObjectOnly=TRUE
FOV=120.0
//FOV=60.0
PitchControl=CAMERA_PITCH_AXIS
YawControl=CAMERA_YAW_AXIS
RollControl=
ZoomControl=CAMERA_ZOOM_CONTROL
JumpToViewSameGroup=FALSE
JumpToViewDiffGroup=TRUE
SmoothAngleTransition=TRUE
SmoothPositionTransition=FALSE
SmoothFOVTransition=TRUE
RememberAngle=FALSE
RememberFOV=TRUE
LimitPitch=TRUE
LimitYaw=TRUE
LimitRoll=FALSE
ZoomFOV=TRUE
ZoomScale=0.01
PanScale=0.00160
MinSpeed=100.0
MaxSpeed=10000.0
Acceleration=2000.0
AngleRates=480.0,360.0,360.0
FOVRate=60.0
MinAngles=-135.0,-20.0,0.0
MaxAngles=135.0,110.0,0.0
MinFOV=15.0
MaxFOV=120.0
//OffsetDistance=0.06
OffsetDistance=-.175
TrackIRUseAbsolutePos=TRUE

Video through the lens…was clearer and sharper than what is shown here, just trying to mash my phone up into the eye piece…

Here you can see my vorpX settings. Important settings:

Full VR Mode
Pixel 1-1
Image Zoom .75

The .75 works against the FOV setting to make it so that you can’t see the edges of the screen in the headset. It feels pretty close to right. I think this would be headset dependent though that would vary with horizontal and vertical FOV…

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Wow, thanks for the investigative work, mate!
Highly appreciated! I am gonna try those edits too, when I come back from my 4day trip.

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