I'm making 30 VR projects in 30 days to learn

Same query again but with 'iphone' this time (to represent the mobile space and its size compared to VR): https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?q=vr,psvr,%2Fm%2F0k...

Re: I'm making 30 VR projects in 30 days to learn

#6

Post by avaer » Sat, Mar 18, 2017, 9:13 PM UTC

zerr wrote: post #4

Can anyone explain what's radically different in "VR dev" compared to "3D dev" (from the graphics programmer perspective)?

You render twice per frame: half the "screen" rendered with a camera at ([-eyeOffset, 0, 0] * cameraRot) and the other rendered with a camera at ([+eyeOffset, 0, 0] * cameraRot). The main thing is this has some surprising performance implications (such as geometry complexity being more important than shader fillrate).

You also need to keep an untraditionally high frame rate without dropping frames (90 FPS on the desktop headsets), which also has significant performance/app architecture implications.

It's actually not that radically different in terms of graphics; a game programmer should feel right at home.

The harder part is the UX implications when you realize "controlling the camera" is no longer in your hands. That might require fundamentally rethinking how your game and/or app functions.

Re: I'm making 30 VR projects in 30 days to learn

#7

Post by janekm » Sat, Mar 18, 2017, 9:34 PM UTC

zerr wrote: post #4

Can anyone explain what's radically different in "VR dev" compared to "3D dev" (from the graphics programmer perspective)?

In this instance, nothing afaict. I looked at a few of them which are generic "here's how you make a 3D scene with a shark" type tutorials for three.js (a popular browser-based 3D engine based on webgl).

The cynic in me thinks that perhaps "VR tutorial" gets more clicks these days ;)

Re: I'm making 30 VR projects in 30 days to learn

#8

Post by jsheard » Sat, Mar 18, 2017, 9:35 PM UTC

avaer wrote: post #6

zerr wrote: post #4

Can anyone explain what's radically different in "VR dev" compared to "3D dev" (from the graphics programmer perspective)?

You render twice per frame: half the "screen" rendered with a camera at ([-eyeOffset, 0, 0] * cameraRot) and the other rendered with a camera at ([+eyeOffset, 0, 0] * cameraRot). The main thing is this has some surprising performance implications (such as geometry complexity being more important than shader fillrate). You also need to keep an untraditionally high frame rate without dropping frames (90 FPS on the desk…

There is one major difference in terms of graphics programming - deferred rendering doesn't work well in VR since it's incompatible with proper multisampled antialiasing, and the edge-detect and/or temporal AA methods typically used instead are too blurry when combined with the low perceived resolution of today's VR headsets.

For this reason there's been a trend back towards forward rendering, with some modern twists to efficiently handle many dynamic lights like deferred does. UE4 for example:

https://docs.unrealengine.com/latest/INT/Engine/Performance/... | https://youtu.be/6kfMVxNSowM?t=3046

Re: I'm making 30 VR projects in 30 days to learn

#9

Post by peter303 » Sat, Mar 18, 2017, 9:48 PM UTC

zerr wrote: post #4

Can anyone explain what's radically different in "VR dev" compared to "3D dev" (from the graphics programmer perspective)?

You have to careful adding objects at the right size. Too large or too small they will feel out of place and unreal.

Re: I'm making 30 VR projects in 30 days to learn

#10

Post by feiss » Sat, Mar 18, 2017, 10:14 PM UTC

blurrywh wrote: post #5

Slightly OT: Google Trends on VR search queries: https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?q=vr,psvr,%2Fm%2F0k... (interesting here is the decline after the peak) Same query again but with 'iphone' this time (to represent the mobile space and its size compared to VR): https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?q=vr,psvr,%2Fm%2F0k...

"Vive" means "lives" (verb) in spanish, so I guess that's why it shows more popular in spanish speaking countries.