Putting the 'role' back in role-playing games since 2002.
Donate to Codex
Good Old Games
  • Welcome to rpgcodex.net, a site dedicated to discussing computer based role-playing games in a free and open fashion. We're less strict than other forums, but please refer to the rules.

    "This message is awaiting moderator approval": All new users must pass through our moderation queue before they will be able to post normally. Until your account has "passed" your posts will only be visible to yourself (and moderators) until they are approved. Give us a week to get around to approving / deleting / ignoring your mundane opinion on crap before hassling us about it. Once you have passed the moderation period (think of it as a test), you will be able to post normally, just like all the other retards.

Incline RIP, id (Carmack has left id for Oculus Rift).

Dr Tomo

Learned
Joined
May 31, 2013
Messages
670
Location
In a library near you

Listen, bro, I know you're like... sixteen but try not to be taken into every shitty technology fad that comes down the pipe.

Not sure if it is going to be a fad as we know possibly why Carmack, Kojima, and possibly other designers have a big interest in the Rift lolz. Pretty sure most people hyped for the rift isn't for the ability to play in 3D world......

http://www.ign.com/articles/2013/06/17/oculus-rift-erotic-adventure-game-announced
http://www.gamepolitics.com/2013/07/26/bizarre-japanese-sex-game-gets-oculus-rift-support
 

DraQ

Arcane
Joined
Oct 24, 2007
Messages
32,828
Location
Chrząszczyżewoszyce, powiat Łękołody
After mega-texture engine in Rage, I hope he will try to make some immersive VR hardware. He really likes the idea, and can make a diffrence for Oculus as a company.
Actually, megatextures are shit idea.

They are shit for the usual reasons video game design paradigms are shit (because their ramifications effectively make them tightly coupled with specific design paradigm it's only fair to address them as paradigm rather than technology) - they emphasize content rather than its generation.

Techniques emphasizing content rely on just baking possibly large chunks of prefabricated content directly into the game. This generally means those chunks will be the less reusable the larger and more specific they are. This is a road straight to 4h linear derpcoasters because someone has to painstakingly craft each individual chunk of content, for example a huge-ass level spanning texture. If you have to redesign your level you have to redo all the relevant content too.

Techniques emphasizing content generation, OTOH emphasize systems that can be used to easily create large amounts of content. Pre-made content is usually broken into small, universal, reusable blocks. Those blocks may be combined and/or parametrized either by hand or algorithmically to create a broad variety of content. The actual amount of content you have to create isn't that substantial, but it's flexible and you can build higher order content out of lower order one.

Really, it's like the difference between incrementing some base integer and exponentiating it.

Tiling bothers you? Try to find a way to generate and/or blend textures in ways avoiding it being visible - scale, rotate, displace and distort multiple layers of modifier textures on top of your original one. Apply fucking decals. Generate low-res map texture automatically based on terrain type and shape then use its gradients to determine what actual detail textures use and what to do with them.

Whatever you do, don't fucking do huge texture of a level even if Carmack tells you it's awesome because he figured out how to stream it.
Carmack is the fucking dude that figured that shooting nondescript drab cyborgs who had serious trouble killing you *IF* you stood still and didn't shoot at them while running around nondescript industrial corridors, was more fun than blowing up faceless HPL-inspired monstrosities in warped gothic environments (seriously, Q2 was a dudebro GoW of its time). His judgement is just flawed.

Megatextures are fail because the underlying idea is fail. It was understandable in 1996 when you made that spiffy 3D game, but it had to run on a toaster and you still wanted pretty lighting so you made Azrael's Tear, but that was necessity. Overall the more reusable you make your content the further it will take you with the same workload.
 

Dexter

Arcane
Joined
Mar 31, 2011
Messages
15,655
Carmack is the fucking dude that figured that shooting nondescript drab cyborgs who had serious trouble killing you *IF* you stood still and didn't shoot at them while running around nondescript industrial corridors, was more fun than blowing up faceless HPL-inspired monstrosities in warped gothic environments (seriously, Q2 was a dudebro GoW of its time). His judgement is just flawed.
He has always called himself a software engineer and never a “game designer”, I don’t think he has ever been particularly conflicted or dishonest about that: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RMRG6LifdUY#t=18m30s

As such he was the forefather of “3D gaming” as we know it and the FPS genre itself.
Most of the engines that exist today, from Source to the IW Engine that Call of Duty is made on still have pieces of code sourced to what he thought of back in the day as lead programmer and is based on it:
600px-Quake_family_tree.png


http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/85/Quake_-_family_tree_2.svg

Even the Unreal Engine from 1998 onwards was largely based on the work he previously did.
I don’t know about you, but I still think that he deserves some sort of respect for all that.

Listen, bro, I know you're like... sixteen but try not to be taken into every shitty technology fad that comes down the pipe.
Social gaming was a fad, the Wii was a fad and Wii Motion a gimmick, Kinect is a gimmick, Guitar Hero was a fad, microconsoles are a fad (if even that), mobile gaming will turn out to be a fad, "second screen experiences" are a fad, tablet controllers for consoles are a gimmick.
In general I wouldn't consider things that are able to improve your experience markedly and actually tend to make things easier (like removing the abstraction of having to use something like a mouse to look around and move in a 3D space) instead of harder (like for instance by replacing a simple button press with waving your arms or voice commands) a "gimmick".

If I thought that in the long term the ability to explore virtual worlds instead of looking at them through a monitor will turn out to be “a fad” I wouldn’t have bought a DevKit this early and wouldn’t have dreamed of this thing for many years:
holodeck-ed.jpg

And if Carmack thought that he would have surely not given up his day job and jumped ship and it’ll not only have implications on gaming.

You kind of remind me of these people: http://www.nbr.co.nz/article/internet-thing-its-just-fad-weekend-review-dw-135266

Maybe you should at least wait and try it at least once before you knock it. :lol:

Cool story, bro. Let me see you do 180 degrees turns with this.
The only thing this shit would be usable for is Myst-likes or something. Even then, just a pointless gimmick.
Are you really that retarded? To turn 180° in a game you just have to turn your head from your left shoulder to the right and don’t even have to move… It’s really not that complicated, it’s basically meant to replicate your view as you perceive it in the real world as realistically as possible and put you into a different environment.

At least a year away from commercial release there is already promise for a great many genres working well with this:




There are also sure an awful lot of developers giddy and excited about this “fad” that comes from a KickStarter and hasn't even released to consumers yet in the PC world:
http://www.incgamers.com/2013/08/everquest-next-oculus-rift-support-hinted-at-in-new-video
http://forum.il2sturmovik.com/topic/168-developer-diary/#entry16943
http://www.theverge.com/2013/3/9/40...w-is-virtual-reality-the-holy-grail-of-gaming
http://www.ign.com/articles/2013/07/23/titanfall-may-support-oculus-rift
http://www.theverge.com/2013/6/6/44...-rift-partnership-program-for-unreal-engine-4
etc.
 
Last edited:

FeelTheRads

Arcane
Joined
Apr 18, 2008
Messages
13,716
Are you really that retarded? To turn 180° in a game you just have to turn your head from your left shoulder to the right and don’t even have to move…

:lol:
But.. say you're looking straight ahead and want to turn 180. You turn to your left shoulder.. then 180 to the other one. Guess what? You turned only 90 from your initial position and you could have just done that from the start.

But sure thing. Bob your head around like a moron, when you can get a better and more precise result with a mouse.
Popamolers gonna popamole.

If I thought that in the long term the ability to explore virtual worlds instead of looking at them through a monitor will turn out to be “a fad”

It was a fad several times already, and that's it will be this time too. Or who knows, considering the number of retards among gamers grows more and more, it might actually catch on.

I wouldn’t have bought a DevKit

:lol:

And what are you "dev"-ing? Or are you such a gadget fag that you couldn't wait for the release?
 

Gurkog

Erudite
Joined
Oct 7, 2012
Messages
1,373
Location
The Great Northwest
Project: Eternity
Turn 180? That involves moving your body instead of just your head, unless you all are owls or something? Turn your body and your camera viewpoint should adjust with it.

EDIT: By, "turn your body" I mean using movement controls to turn it, not physically turning in your chair or some shit.
 

Metro

Arcane
Beg Auditor
Joined
Aug 27, 2009
Messages
27,792
If I thought that in the long term the ability to explore virtual worlds instead of looking at them through a monitor will turn out to be “a fad” I wouldn’t have bought a DevKit this early...

Only thing that shows is you're a total rube.
 

chestburster

Savant
Illiterate
Joined
Jul 2, 2012
Messages
711
But.. say you're looking straight ahead and want to turn 180. You turn to your left shoulder.. then 180 to the other one. Guess what? You turned only 90 from your initial position and you could have just done that from the start.

But sure thing. Bob your head around like a moron, when you can get a better and more precise result with a mouse.
Popamolers gonna popamole.

Why is this even a discussion? What makes people think Oculus Rift is incapable of working together with a mouse?

I mean, when I play games, my eyes are fixed on the screen and I don't even look at my mouse. Replace the screen with my VR and I can still run and turn like a superman with my mouse. VR just adds more realistic perception of virtual 3D. Granted, the head bobbing and movement speed in VR need to be adjusted so people don't get motion sickness. But then weaklings had motion sickness when DOOM first came out.
 

DalekFlay

Arcane
Patron
Joined
Oct 5, 2010
Messages
14,118
Location
New Vegas
Not really interested in the technology but good on him for going where his passion is, rather than be chained to something he no longer enjoys.
 

Pika-Cthulhu

Arcane
Joined
Apr 16, 2007
Messages
7,424
Damnit, I thought it was just going to be a passing fad, is it still too late to become an ophthalmologist?
 

Crooked Bee

(no longer) a wide-wandering bee
Patron
Joined
Jan 27, 2010
Messages
15,048
Location
In quarantine
Codex 2013 Codex 2014 PC RPG Website of the Year, 2015 Codex 2016 - The Age of Grimoire MCA Serpent in the Staglands Dead State Divinity: Original Sin Project: Eternity Torment: Tides of Numenera Wasteland 2 Shadorwun: Hong Kong Divinity: Original Sin 2 BattleTech Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire
I hope he leaves id (read: Bethesda). Because that way we could finally do an interview with him. (Which I almost arranged last year but which got cancelled because of, well, Bethesda!)
 

FeelTheRads

Arcane
Joined
Apr 18, 2008
Messages
13,716
Replace the screen with my VR and I can still run and turn like a superman with my mouse.

I was talking about head tracking specifically. And how are you gonna use both head tracking AND a mouse? If you're gonna move either then you need to keep the other one in place. Otherwise: seizure simulator.
 

Dexter

Arcane
Joined
Mar 31, 2011
Messages
15,655
:lol:
But.. say you're looking straight ahead and want to turn 180. You turn to your left shoulder.. then 180 to the other one. Guess what? You turned only 90 from your initial position and you could have just done that from the start.
But sure thing. Bob your head around like a moron, when you can get a better and more precise result with a mouse.
Popamolers gonna popamole.
I can turn around almost 360° most of the time perfectly fine by just looking back over my shoulder to the left/right, since the thing is attached to your head and doesn't measure your body position you can also sit perfectly still for that to happen.
This even improves if you are either sitting in a swiveling chair or standing. The biggest problem with these two options right now being the cable to the OR box that is still needed for now:
Oculus-Rift-Dev-Kit-Connector-Box.jpg


Replace the screen with my VR and I can still run and turn like a superman with my mouse.

I was talking about head tracking specifically. And how are you gonna use both head tracking AND a mouse? If you're gonna move either then you need to keep the other one in place. Otherwise: seizure simulator.
You can move your mouse independent from your head or view since in a lot of cases you wouldn't even want your looking around to influence the direction you are heading in. In car/plane/starship/helicopter simulators/games for instance you mainly want to be able to freely look around and be able to manipulate instruments without changing the direction of your craft.

Around 12 minutes into this video they show off the various possible control schemes for a shooter like Team Fortress 2 using the Rift and Mouse+Keyboard.


The convar vr_moveaim_mode offers various options for controlling movement and aim.

Modes 0 through 4 are all interesting to try. 5 and above are probably not. Mode 3 is the default.
  • 0: Aiming and steering are coupled on the rift. The mouse steers as well. This is a good mode for use with a control pad.
  • 1: Aiming with the rift, steering with the mouse. This mode may be buggy and "drift" after a while.
  • 2: Steering has a dead zone. Inside the dead zone you aim with the rift and the mouse aims and steers simultaneously. Outside the dead zone aiming and steering are coupled for both the rift and mouse.
  • 3: Steering with the rift, aiming with the mouse inside a dead zone. Outside the dead zone the mouse steers as well.
  • 4: Relative camera control with the rift (no influence on aiming or steering, relative to your character's facing direction). Mouse is as mode 3 combining aiming and steering with a dead zone.
  • 5: Absolute camera control with the rift. Your reference is not tied to your character's orientation so steering with the mouse does not influence the direction in which you look. You must actually turn around to see where you're going if your character turns around. Aiming and steering is coupled and controlled with the mouse. This mode should play well with a wireless controller and could give you a good sense of direction within the map.
  • 6: Relative camera control with the rift. Aiming and steering is coupled and controlled with the mouse.
  • 7: Rift input is not used, so you only get stereoscopic vision. Aiming and steering is coupled and controlled with the mouse.
  • 8 or higher: If you accidentally set an incorrect value the camera may get stuck somewhere causing even the console to not display. It's there if you call it though, so use your blind typing skills to get back to a valid mode.
  • You can also cycle to the next value with the console command "vr_cycle_aim_move_mode"
 
Last edited:

chestburster

Savant
Illiterate
Joined
Jul 2, 2012
Messages
711
Replace the screen with my VR and I can still run and turn like a superman with my mouse.

I was talking about head tracking specifically. And how are you gonna use both head tracking AND a mouse? If you're gonna move either then you need to keep the other one in place. Otherwise: seizure simulator.

The same way ARMA does this.

in ARMA, you can move your head alone by moving your mouse WHILE holding a key (forgot which one), and if you move your mouse without holding the key, you move your body, with the head looking forward.

Now with VR, simply replace the "mouse + holding-a-key" part with "motion tracking + holding a key".

Seizure, maybe possible, initially. But then a lot of FPS paradigm needs to be completely re-established anyway with VR head tracking. Similar to when mouse movement and Z-axis were introduced.
 

Dr Tomo

Learned
Joined
May 31, 2013
Messages
670
Location
In a library near you
Not sure why we are arguing still that it is still a fad or not. Everyone on this thread knows it is going to take off as nothing makes a neck beard drool then using the rift for porn and waifu simulators as metro said. As they always said in business, sex sells lolz.
 

buzz

Arcane
Joined
Apr 1, 2012
Messages
4,234

KickR is this thing that you put on your stationary bike so that it can imitate real life resistance on the back wheel.
I don't know, I feel like I want Kinect and Oculus Rift to work, but not for video games. This technology would be REALLY useful for simulators that pilots/soldiers/firemen could use, but it seems redundant for me as a gamer.
The future of controls and our way of interacting with games should not be the holodeck, but the matrix. Our computer jacked into our brain, playing and interacting with things while staying still. Being limited by our own body kinda throws away the whole virtual reality and fantasy escapism part of it.
 

Runciter

Augur
Joined
Jan 17, 2012
Messages
188
You shitheads don't know what you're talking about; flight simmers have been turning their in-game heads 180 degrees with TrackIR for ages and trying to make this sound like a problem just shows what uneducated fags you are.
 

Metro

Arcane
Beg Auditor
Joined
Aug 27, 2009
Messages
27,792
Holy shit, you mean for $1,000 in equipment I can simulate riding my bike?!?!?! Fantastic! Also, Infi pimping for more random internet bloggers again.
 

buzz

Arcane
Joined
Apr 1, 2012
Messages
4,234
Meanwhile in Shitstania
gropi1.jpg


:( a bicycle simulator would actually be nice for me.
 

DraQ

Arcane
Joined
Oct 24, 2007
Messages
32,828
Location
Chrząszczyżewoszyce, powiat Łękołody
He has always called himself a software engineer and never a “game designer”, I don’t think he has ever been particularly conflicted or dishonest about that
Good. And that's why he should GTFO from game design and do things he's good at.

Even the Unreal Engine from 1998 onwards was largely based on the work he previously did.
Citation needed.
I don’t know about you, but I still think that he deserves some sort of respect for all that.
As a programmer? Yes. As game designer? No.

Are you really that retarded? To turn 180° in a game you just have to turn your head from your left shoulder to the right and don’t even have to move…

:lol:
But.. say you're looking straight ahead and want to turn 180. You turn to your left shoulder.. then 180 to the other one. Guess what? You turned only 90 from your initial position and you could have just done that from the start.
This.

Head tracking can be a cool way to expand possible motion range by allowing one to look independently of turning, but it won't replace other control methods for actual movement and turning.

As for it being the fad, I'm expecting it to stay periodically repeating fad till the technology arises that allows VR without making it a hassle involving cumbersome special gear and not being able to switch between it and RL/desktop.

@DraQ FWIW, Shamus Young has written about combining megatextures with procedural content generation: http://www.shamusyoung.com/twentysidedtale/?p=15022

Procedural content generation is a hobby of his:

If you could generate it, yes, but other than that the article, although enthusiastic, nails the same problems I did.
 

As an Amazon Associate, rpgcodex.net earns from qualifying purchases.
Back
Top Bottom