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Blade Runner VR - for Oculus Rift

 
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Feuyaer
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PostPosted: Thu Sep 11, 2014 11:20 am    Post subject: Blade Runner VR - for Oculus Rift Reply with quote

(Hey guys! Long time no see. This just might be the last legitimate "forum" I still participate in. Everything else has been so consolidated into subs on Reddit that I don't visit boards anymore, except for this one! Just came back and it's awesome to see so many regulars still active.)

Has anyone here had the pleasure of trying out an Oculus Rift?

They've released two development kits so far, and I own both. To those unfamiliar, they are virtual reality headsets, but a far cry from the disastrous and highly-expensive ones in the past.

Using special lenses, a head-mounted screen, and software written by some of the smartest people on the planet, the illusion is perfect: positional tracking and accelerometers create a flawless illusion that you're inhabiting a different space.

It's really quite something, and it's impossible to explain. To spew a cliche, you really do have to see it to believe it. It's fantastic and highly immersive.

From the moment I tried the first developer kit, I knew someone would eventually make a Blade Runner environment for it. I've spent the last 9 months in Unity3d, tinkering around and making small demos for myself.

Developer kit 2 shipped last month, and it's an incredibly leap. Rich colors and great contrast. Fed up that nobody had recreated anything Blade Runner-related, I decided to begin making an experience myself.

Here is a short video of where I was at last weekend:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nlNogBYVJDU&feature=youtu.be

In case it's not obvious, the Rift is a headset that covers your vision. The depth is infinite and your eyes can focus on these fake 3D objects just as naturally as in real life. Your heads pitch, roll, and yaw is reflected in-game, and so is your position within the world, so within a limited distance, you can take a few steps, crouch, lean, peek, etc. It's very lifelike.

This is an unpolished "alpha" just to test an interior and an exterior. I'm going to put a lot of work into sound design and have been ripping sound effects straight from that last 4-disc soundtrack release.

The hardest part is tweaking the amount of ambient fog vs scripted fog vs ambient lighting vs rain particle emitters vs distant rain emitters vs falling fog emitters.

I could make it look so dense and amazing, but optimization is currently an issue: if you dip below 75 frames per second at all, the gameplay stutters and does not match the fluidity of real life -- the illusion is ruined and it makes people sick to their stomachs. Maybe once I get a new video card!

My current progress is a tiny bit further along than the video shows and I've improved the rain and fog effects a bit.

Let me tell you, where I'm at now, it's very satisfying just to stand there. The effect the Rift provides is so intense and real, that suddenly, you don't really need gameplay. Even a well-built environment is immersive enough to just bask in. And that's what I'm going for here!

I'm too busy to spend time on it every day, but it's slowly building up. I may end up getting some great resources from this passionate community later down the road - mostly paper props - to fully deck out the interior, which is intended to be a sort of run-down detective's office/apartment.

When you're in the right mood, the lights are off, this headset is on, and when wearing headphones at high volume, the experience is sometimes staggering. For fleeting moments (this is a development kit!), I am entirely and believably immersed in Blade Runner's world.

I hope to post more video here as I make progress!
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andy
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PostPosted: Thu Sep 11, 2014 2:18 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Okay, now this is really cool. Coming from someone who worked at a 3D company (3DIQ), and even had a small part in the Forte' VR headset, I am very interested in this.

Andy
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joberg
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PostPosted: Thu Sep 11, 2014 6:32 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Hey, Feuyaer is back! Prob is that I re-read your post twice and I still not getting it Confused But wait, must be for gamers and the likes.
Cool vid btw Cool
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andy
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PostPosted: Thu Sep 11, 2014 10:19 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Modern day Virtual Reality. Stereo imaged.

Andy
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Feuyaer
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PostPosted: Thu Sep 11, 2014 11:16 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

andy wrote:
Okay, now this is really cool. Coming from someone who worked at a 3D company (3DIQ), and even had a small part in the Forte' VR headset, I am very interested in this.



Thanks! Hey, that's pretty cool! This is a giant step up from anything you've last tried most likely - very cool stuff to work with. I highly recommend getting the consumer version whenever that comes out. It's just unbelievable.


joberg wrote:
Hey, Feuyaer is back! Prob is that I re-read your post twice and I still not getting it Confused But wait, must be for gamers and the likes.
Cool vid btw Cool


It's a headset you buy with an inner-mounted screen that distorts 3d imagry in such a way, then feeds it into the left and right eyes with special distortions for each, that, to your brain, whatever you're rendering 3D looks physically in front of you, and you can look around for 360 degrees of surrounding virtual reality. It's very convincing!
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joberg
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PostPosted: Fri Sep 12, 2014 8:16 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Oh I get it now...a little like "Brainstorm" Wink which was directed by Douglas Trumbull who was...you know Wink
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Feuyaer
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PostPosted: Tue Sep 16, 2014 10:54 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

joberg wrote:
Oh I get it now...a little like "Brainstorm" Wink which was directed by Douglas Trumbull who was...you know Wink


Wow! Never heard of it, so I Google'd it, and it sounds a lot like Strange Days. I'll have to watch it!

Basically, it's like putting on a pair of semi-uncomfortable ski goggles that allow you to look into a different dimension. Put it on your head, and you can see the 100% real depth of, say, the demo scene of a rustic house in Tuscany and a field around it. Take them off and you're back inside a cramped computer room. The sense of scale it relays to your brain is completely believable. As real as real life -- your eyes can actually focus on near/distant items the exact same way it does to real, existing objects. It's really bizarre.

My friend flew in last week and he's been itching to try one for ages. Even with his wild expectations he was blown away. I put him on a virtual carnival ride, and as he writhed around in my office chair he kept saying, "I KNOW THIS IS FAKE, THIS ISN'T REAL, BUT MY BRAIN IS SO CONFUSED". It makes your stomach drop and makes your body anticipate G-forces you know you're not going to get. It's wild.

So, then, literally anything you experience in the Rift has this baseline level of immersion. It's tangible. It's there. So it's possibly the closest we'll ever come to inhabiting a Blade Runner environment. Really amazing technology and definitely the future.
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joberg
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PostPosted: Tue Sep 16, 2014 4:31 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Indeed! Cool
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Feuyaer
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PostPosted: Mon Sep 22, 2014 9:46 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

I've added a ton more detail and changed the cityscape around. Decided I'd just pound detail into it and worry about performance later when I have a video card that's more up to date with what the other VR enthusiasts have.

Worked more on ambient sound too and how it's mixed depending on where you're standing.

My other project, shelved until I get a better computer, was a learning experience in regards to how to play with low-pass filters to realistically occlude sound. Will most likely bring this back so that when you're standing in the living room, the city sounds / blimp announcements have their treble clipped to add some tangibility to the walls separating you from the main windows.

I've found some really cool models online that I am having trouble using though. There's exactly ONE Spinner model online that I can find, and it's an .LWO. Lacking Lightwave, converting this with a free online coverter left me with a disorganized mess of texture-less materials. Same with an Esper machine, but that's salvageable.

If anyone's reading this, let me know if you have any access to BR-related 3D models in formats like .3ds or .obj, or something Unity3d can readily import.

Likewise I may come back here later asking some of you folks for permission to import paper prop/sign textures when I'm in the final detail-adding stages.
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joberg
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PostPosted: Mon Sep 22, 2014 7:30 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Curious of what you'll produce next
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Feuyaer
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PostPosted: Mon Sep 29, 2014 11:17 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

So I finally added a page for this project on my site: http://www.rift-vr.com/bladerunner

And have began working on the back-room. Deckard-eque light table, esper machine with video & sound from the movie, and a cozy chair to sit in. I fixed some lighting problems I've been having and added more to the city exterior. Working neon signs too - I've finished some code that changes bulb color (hey, it's the future) and then a linked light object emits the same color. Lights up the nearby fog and rain too so it's super atmospheric.

So far it sounds GREAT with bass-rich headphones. It's glitch-ridden and WIP, but there were a few moments there when it "clicked" and felt incredibly immersive, like I was there. Now that the layout is done (though I need to add a main door, and if I'm feeling ambitious, build Deckard's kitchen), it's time to find smaller details like paper props to hang up and scatter around the rooms!

Despite my last video being early into my building of the city, it still looks 10x better in the Rift. And looks even better now! .....at like 30 fps Sad
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Bendzhamin1967
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PostPosted: Tue Sep 30, 2014 1:54 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

awesome!!!!
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Bendzhamin1967
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PostPosted: Tue Sep 30, 2014 2:12 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Quentin Lengele is on Youtube and is hoping to use his amazing BR renderings in this format as well.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WMJfYm4Nr6E
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PostPosted: Tue Sep 30, 2014 7:15 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Good work Feuyaer! Cool
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Feuyaer
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PostPosted: Tue Sep 30, 2014 10:03 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Yeah, he just posted on Reddit! Quite the coincidence that after over a year since the first Rift dev kit, no BR-related projects were announced, and then suddenly after I announce mine, his pops up!

Thanks Joberg!

Beginning detail on the back room...
http://i.imgur.com/12eJ259.png
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PostPosted: Wed Oct 01, 2014 4:00 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Good stuff!
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Bendzhamin1967
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PostPosted: Thu Oct 02, 2014 11:08 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

PM me if i can help flesh out the apartment layout
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PostPosted: Thu Oct 02, 2014 2:05 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Ben has done his homework on the Apartment layout. Until we find set plans his is the best out there. I would love to see our members work together on stuff too Wink

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Feuyaer
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PostPosted: Thu Oct 02, 2014 4:20 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Thank you very much for the offer Ben!

Though mine is a bit different - I'm not making Deckard's apartment specifically, but just a similar-feeling one in the same world. It shares an Esper machine and those Ennis-Brown tiles but that's it so far. I will be using so many similar assets, visually, though, that it might as well be an alternate-Deckard's because it's quite obviously a detective's apartment too.

That being said, out of BR-fandom alone, I would of course love to see what you have in terms of floor plans/layout, because despite watching the movie 100 times, it's always been a bit vague to me and I've never looked further into it. It might even inspire how I make the rest of the dwelling!

On another note, I was trying to capture a screenshot in-game without the Rift-specific stereo distortions applied, and was again shocked at how dull it can look in 2D. As with anything in the Rift, there is no comparison between flat-screen 2D and Rift 3D. Low-poly untextured models still look and feel "real" because of that inherent tangibility I mentioned previously. Games that are very visually poor can still be a treat for the eyes in the Rift.

So it's kind of hard to explain or translate...if anything I release here (or that other guy's awesome Oculus Rift project!) ever looks "meh" or like the textures or models are poor, it's probably because we're tailoring for VR...we're testing in the Rift every time we make a change to ensure that items have a real-world scale and that the game is comfortable to move around in, because sim-sickness happens very easily and scale is very important to nail. That's where I put a lot of my attention. Of course visuals are vital as well, especially when trying to convey a very special mood like BR's...but I've lost count of how many times I've seen someone playing with my DK1 with the screen mirrored to my main monitor, and I'm thinking, "Wow, that looks incredibly dull and very poorly made." And then you put the silly thing on your face and your attitude is entirely different because it's right there in front of you and it's real and suddenly, with your brain thinking it IS real, it's no longer noticing things that break immersion so much easier on a monitor (v-sync, blotchy textures, low-poly models, etc).

I'm sounding like a broken record here, but you really have to see it to believe the hype.

It's an absolute treat for hobbyist developers like me because I can focus attention where it really matters and still have this baseline of impressiveness bleed through.

Oh! I began to model some simple mid-ground buildings last night. You know, those bizarre column/support-like ones we get a good glimpse of when Deckard is on his balcony.
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