VR News

A great fun ‘puppet’ thing, in that you provide the voice/actions for characters in a scene. It’s sort of like a 3D moviemaker. My kids absolutely loved it. Free.

The trailer, made in MindShow of course:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ggF9d7cvQc

Some people’s submissions are great (NSFW language in this one but worth it):

EDIT: It works fine with Rift + Touch as well, just remember the joysticks on each Touch controller are pressed down when it asks for ‘pad’ presses on Vive controllers.

Has anyone taken a look at NoloVR? They claim to offer 6DOF that can be added to existing VR headsets, i.e. Pimax 4K. My hope is that it provides a way to retrofit older sims into VR, like Il-2 1946 or RoF.

NoloVR is an odd solution, and it isn’t really that obvious what it is. There’s a decent review here:

http://www.twistedreality.tv/nolovrreview/

So for your $99 you get a base station, a couple of controllers and something to stick on your HMD. The unique selling point is that you can take a mobile VR solution like GearVR, stream from your PC the display and provide a compatible SteamVR set of inputs for the hand controllers.

I haven’t personally used it, but my 2 cents would be:

Pros

  • Cheap
  • Fits on to mobile solutions like Google Cardboard or Daydream
  • Some SteamVR compatibility, although it seems lots of titles don’t work.

Cons

  • Streaming video to a mobile phone causes latency (as in your still need a powerful PC nearby to run the game), latency is no fun in VR
  • Physical occlusion from having a single camera solution and a HMD / two hands controller set-up, i.e. you’ll lose tracking and your hand controllers will glitch often just from the physics of your body blocking things to a single point of reference.
  • If you have a Rift with no touch controllers then it’s cheaper just to get property tracking, so this is really a ‘I have to use a mobile solution’ thing.
  • In terms of mobile, Apple will be doing their thing real soon, so wait.

An interesting idea for sure, and I guess might be ok if there isn’t any other way forward for a Pimax etc.

For older sims, it looks like getting them on DirectX 11 is the best shot - and it seems like Cliffs of Dover/TF are going that route. It would be great if Falcon and Rof followed suite, but not sure what sort of blockers exist for that, as in if it’ll make people rebuy stuff enough to make it viable commercially.

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I’d rebuy Rise of Flight in a heartbeat if it was made VR compatible (or the aircraft and maps were ported to the BoX engine). It would be an absolutely awesome experience in VR.

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Me too!

I have had a direct response from Jason Williams regarding RoF VR, he said he would like to do it, just that it would take quite a bit of work and some money to bring it into the BoX engine and DX11. But, we keep pressing for it with almost everyone universally agreeing they would re-buy a VR version so maybe one day. I would think it would be cheaper than a ‘new’ title since all the art assets could be brought over and campaign and mission work all done already. I really hope they do it and see that they could make a profit off it. I pointed these facts out to him. Basically, just copy the existing title, do not add anything new to it to reduce the effort on the team. One day… I say KS the deal!

I have the Nolo setup and it really is to add 6DOF to hardware, not the titles themselves. So it gives GearVR or Pimax 6DOF or other devices without 6DOF natively an add-on solution.

Any title that supports 6DOF VR then can be used with them using the Riftcat software that you basically need for it. I have not tried it yet, but for instance I could apparently run DCS using my GearVR and have it work fairly well. In fact some who have done it have reported a better pic quality than using their Rift or Vives.

There is a large hole in the Sim Market with no WW1 VR sim. I’m with you fellas, I would pay in a heartbeat to fly RoF in VR. Heck, is there a biplane in VR right now?? Am I going to have to fly WT… No, I’m not that desperate. :slight_smile:

Aerofly FS2 has a Pitts S2 :slight_smile:

Currently BoX series has it’s first 3rd party developer working on assets for the series and one of the first 2 planes they are currently creating is a Po-2.

So if they meet Jason and Teams requirements you will have a biplane in VR to fly.

Still need to get him to see the benefit in a RoF VR compat remake though…just sayin.

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I have been out of the loop…
A Po-2…?
Let fly the Night Witches!!! :ghost:

I keep hoping the SAS/CUP/BAT folks will figure out how to bring Il-2 1946 into VR because of the sheer mass of content already present. Also, the graphics are dated enough that they won’t really suffer being seen through the screen door of current VR headsets.

Don’t get me wrong, Il-2 BOX is great, but stock Il-2 1946 has at least 10x the content, playable at astronomic frame rate. It already has native 6DOF and just needs a way to export the video in 3D.

Yep check it out.

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I don’t do Civilian sims. I got so much money in FSX and never got the performance I wanted so I quit.

The Po-2… Ahhhh… Why do people want this? Anything more than 10 km away will require an auto pilot and an alarm for me. Its SLOW. And I do mean very slow. Maybe throwing grenades with your hands will be simulated… that could be fun.

Because of its historical significance.
Die Nachthexen, as the german troops called them, will always have a special place in aviation and war history.
Gliding in over enemy troops, in a slow moving biplane, dropping your bombs and making your escape at treetop level…at night…

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Update on the VR Covers velour pads. Working well, but one big caveat - kiss goodbye to the useful nose gap!

Yup - really struggling to see my keyboard now - in fact, I’m having to lift up the headset just to press any key - which is very disappointing! Other than that, no complaints - does what I wanted and is comfy enough (though still not as comfy as the ‘leather’ ones).

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We need a 3rd party Tracking System…

I can Build a 4K HMD for $230 ish,

HDMI-> MIPI Board + 4K Screen + Cheap HMD Screen Enclosure.

Issue is there is no Tracking.

Nolo?

I’d be happy to use Track IR… :confused:
Yeah, I’m that sad.

I cant do trackIR anymore, the 1:1 Head Tracking in VR + Depth is worth every penny and frame per second you give up.

Can’t blame you… but I can afford just that. :stuck_out_tongue: