Oculus Rift + vireio Perception + KSP within reach.

[Archimid]

Hello. KSP has become one of my most played games. I got an Oculus Rift last week. Vireio perception released drivers that are somewhat compatible with KSP. Here is what happened. I got to orbit in stereoscopic 3D!! I can honestly say that KSP and the Oculus Rift were meant for each other.

Here are some screenies to tell the story...

Getting to the launch pad was not easy. The mouse is out of sync with the distorted view used for the rift. It is in sync with the original view. Once I realize this, I was able to fumble my way to the launch screen. The settings are set to no shaders, but it was still beautiful because of the depth perception. The screenies don't do it justice.

In the screenshots you can see the HUD, but with the Rift you can not see the stages at all, the navball is distorted and you can not see your altitude. But this is kerbal space program, who needs fuel gauges... we'll do it by sight and ear.

There is no head tracking, but you can use the mouse to look around. Again, no justice from the screenshots.

The IVA was nice, it works as good as in regular KSP. No problems to report here. Jebediah needs to chill.

The EVA was also very nice. It was not as usefull as I though it would be, but it was much more precise and fun. The sun looks ok in the picture, but in game it looks like its part of a skybox.

The map view also works, however it looks like a solar system inside a box.

Perception 2.0 is the software that makes this possible. It was released the 28th of November so there is a lot of work to be done and a lots of bugs to iron out. I find myself with some spare time so I'm trying to make it better. So far I have done a profile for KSP, but to make it playable it needs a lot of work. I am learning the ropes and I thought this would be the best place to find information on how to make it better. Is there anyone else with the Rift? what is the position of the Devs on this matter? Is anyone else interested?

Edit:

The settings I used. It's not much but its a start.

Graphical settings:

Vireio Profile: (paste to profile.xml)

<profile game_name="KSP" game_exe="KSP.exe" shaderModRules="KSP.xml" VRboostRules="Default.MTBS" minVRboostShaderCount="19" game_type="500" rollEnabled="false" worldScaleFactor="1" convergence="3" swap_eyes="false" yaw_multiplier="25" pitch_multiplier="25" roll_multiplier="1" hud_3D_depth_mode="2" hud_3D_depth_1="0" hud_3D_depth_2="0" hud_3D_depth_3="0" hud_3D_depth_4="0" hud_distance_1="0" hud_distance_2="0" hud_distance_3="0" hud_distance_4="0" hud_key_swap="0" hud_key_default="0" hud_key_small="0" hud_key_large="0" hud_key_full="0" gui_3D_depth_mode="2" gui_3D_depth_1="0" gui_3D_depth_2="0" gui_3D_depth_3="0" gui_3D_depth_4="0" gui_size_1="0" gui_size_2="0" gui_size_3="0" gui_size_4="1" gui_key_swap="0" gui_key_default="0" gui_key_small="0" gui_key_large="0" gui_key_full="0" />

Edited December 3, 2013 by Archimid
Images broken, added settings

[rbray89]

I was thinking a bit about creating a plugin to add native support. Wouldn't be too difficult in my opinion. You should note that images linked to drop-box accounts cannot be viewed in-place. You should be moving them to an image service (like imgur).

[Archimid]

Hello, Thanks for the tip, I have fixed the images now. Native support could be much better than any 3rd party drivers. If you decide to do it and need someone to test or something let PM me I'll be more than willing. I don't care what approach is taken to achieve compatibility.The vireio drivers seem like an elegant hack, they are free and it will probably work well given enough effort. It is also a learning experience for me and it seem like the easiest way for me, since I've never modded in KSP.

[localSol]

Even with limited support right now , KSP in the Rift is totally awesome.

Any kind of plugin to help would be great!

I got a Rift Dk1 last week too and tried a bit today with Tridef 3d ignition. I got lucky and caught the cheaper sale if you've got an AMD card. Also you can use it for 14 days free.

Here are the settings I used (press numpad zero to bring the tridef gui up, then num 8, 2, 6, 4 to move, and num 5 to enter) :

Generic Profile

World Scale 0.15

Force Output FOV 110, Force Game FOV 110 ('Both' mode)

Press Numpad + to Switch to safe FOV to shrink the screen as a toggle to read GUI that is too far out on the edges.

Can't see the navball or much GUI with this FOV but it looks so real and HUGE!, much closer to measured sizes of meters wide....I constantly find myself trying to touch stuff and pickup objects but my hands don't appear!

I was wanting to pat the fuselage I spent so much time building because it's way cooler to see and fly in the Rift. "Yeah, this thing will do zero to 1600 mph in 1.5 minutes!"

Here's a few of the stuff I tried with tridef, only the first is rift viewable..without a utility possibly..I think? :

First Picture :

Album, download full resolution of first picture to see it in 3d on the Rift DK1:

http://imgur.com/a/DWcMi#0

Yeah just tried, you can view this realtively well in semi fullscreen if you pick full resolution at fullsize, and better downloaded in a fullscreen image viewer with no borders, on the Rift. Subject to minor variation in IPD difference I guess but it looks good for me. I'm using default of 64mm.

Edited December 3, 2013 by localSol

[rbray89]

Yeah, I was thinking that a couple cameras could be cloned from the existing cameras, and an Update call would sync them to the proper locations, and they can be set to draw only to one-half of the screen, so in all, it wouldn't be much effort I would think. Though, I don't have one to test.

[localSol]

Wow, well I hope you have time to try if you like. I'm available to test for sure. I want to try Vireio 2.0 with KSP too, it's a good package and works with a few things I've tried that TriDef doesn't right now, and vice versa.

Would you like to give settings you use in Vireio here, Archimid? I'll try playing with Vireio 2.0+ now in the mean time.

I viewed your screenshots in fullscreen with Irfanview, the solar system one has the most depth as far as I see it, all are comfortable to view. The EVA one does make the pod+kerbonaut look like it's floating above the planet and the IVA view makes the instruments stand out too.

Edited December 3, 2013 by localSol

[Clouds]

it was still beautiful because of the depth perception. The screenies don't do it justice.

No kidding - the two sides of those screenies are (not counting JPEG compression artifacts) pixel-for-pixel identical. There's no depth perception to be found in them. (I did the old opposite-of-cross-eyes maneuver hoping to see for myself but when it looked totally flat, I confirmed in an image editor.)

So...what happened?

[localSol]

No kidding - the two sides of those screenies are (not counting JPEG compression artifacts) pixel-for-pixel identical. There's no depth perception to be found in them. (I did the old opposite-of-cross-eyes maneuver hoping to see for myself but when it looked totally flat, I confirmed in an image editor.)

So...what happened?

Really? I swore I could see small differences in certain parts when I used my Rift to look at these. But there seems to be something weird going on with Vireio 2.0 for me right now, I was not able to get the World Scale option to seem to do anything, going all the way from tiny units of 1 game unit = 9.2568 * 10^-12 , up to the maximum of something like 1344, no change. If I understand correctly, the left eye edge of whatever object you're using to align with the GUI marker is supposed to appear to move/warp in the horizontal so you can use the gauge to tell the difference. I couldn't get it to budge from the second left marker from the center. Convergence also seemed to do nothing going from maximum to minimum. There seemed to be a small amount of 3d anyway, though I could be wishfully thinking? The SPH ran at ~1FPS though, no idea why. Same thing happened for me in Portal, both World Scale and Convergence seemed to not function. I'm using Catalyst 13.9, the latest official. Might try 13.11 beta if I can't think of anything else..Plus re-read the documentation, see if there's anything..This is on a Radeon 6850, I'm not concerned about FPS hits at this early stage in development but 1FPS in that certain scene seems like something not working as intended for the moment. Edit : Distortion Scale works though, about 0.74 is good.

Edited December 3, 2013 by localSol

[Archimid]

I really don't know what to tell you. Could it be that I'm creating the 3D by unintentionally crossing my eyes in the rift? Right now, the Perception is not detecting the projection matrices. I need to find the names used by KSP to call the projection matrices. Can anyone help me with that? What are the constants used to call the projection matrices?

Edited December 3, 2013 by Archimid

[localSol]

Don't know how to help specifically, I got as far as looking in Assembly-CSharp needed to compile mods for KSP. I was looking around SGT - MatrixHelper, {}UnityEngine, UnityEngine, and various KSP code including the name Camera..still not much idea.. Also went to : http://docs.unity3d.com/412/Documentation/ScriptReference/Camera-projectionMatrix.html and http://docs.unity3d.com/412/Documentation/ScriptReference/Matrix4x4.html

[DMagic]

Archimid's pictures look the same, the right image is just horizontally shifted a bit. It's pretty obvious in the IVA view, you can see the same amount of the Kerbal's face in both images.

But localSol's image looks correct. It seems to me that the right image is both horizontally shifted and at a little bit of a different angle.

I busted out the old stereo-pair viewers and localSol's looks like it has some depth. I could just be fooling myself, but there seems to be something there.

My other question/comment is, can you change the resolution, or maybe force some kind of border around the edges? Something so that the UI elements would be forced in from the edges of the screen a little.

And also, have you tried making wiggle gifs from the two images. They aren't perfect, but they can at least give an idea of what the images look like without resorting to eye-crossing or stereo viewers (which I assume almost no one actually owns).

I'm not sure if the cross-eyed thing will work in any case here. For that the images are supposed to be switched, the right-eye image on the left and vice-versa. You can still see it in stereo without any kind of viewer, you just have to do the far-away focus thing, not the up-close, cross-eye thing.

Edited December 3, 2013 by DMagic

[Clouds]

I busted out the old stereo-pair viewers and localSol's looks like it has some depth. I could just be fooling myself, but there seems to be something there.

Yes, agreed, that one screenshot truly does have eye-separation.

you just have to do the far-away focus thing, not the up-close, cross-eye thing.

That's what I was doing. I'm a master of that.

[localSol]

I busted out the old stereo-pair viewers and localSol's looks like it has some depth. I could just be fooling myself, but there seems to be something there.

And also, have you tried making wiggle gifs from the two images. They aren't perfect, but they can at least give an idea of what the images look like without resorting to eye-crossing or stereo viewers (which I assume almost no one actually owns).

Good link about wiggling, those are fun, I only tried them this year. But, oh I really think that KSP in the Rift with good setup, even DK1, would knock your socks off and send them into orbit as far as the amount of depth. It really feels like you're on the nacelle-ish parts looking across the wing. With this FOV you can't see much further past the velocity indicator and the rest is peripheral. The sense that it wraps around you is fantastic and that's something the rift does that nothing else I know of does. Oculus is planning for a consumer version of an even better 'Rift in 2014. That will take your socks, now orbiting kerbol, into interstellar space. Apparently Valve will also announce something HMD-wise in January.

[DMagic]

I made a gif from your images localSol. I had to cutoff the left side and align the image using the left wing. I think it came out fairly well, you can get a little sense of depth.

[Unistrut]

Is there a way to create the stereo pair screenshots without the fisheye distortion? I have one of those old Victorian stereo viewers and like to make cards for it. I've tried to make a few KSP cards by simply rotating the camera to one side and taking the screenshot, but depending on how fast you're orbiting something that can introduce some weird artifacts in the planet below.

[DMagic]

Is there a way to create the stereo pair screenshots without the fisheye distortion? I have one of those old Victorian stereo viewers and like to make cards for it. I've tried to make a few KSP cards by simply rotating the camera to one side and taking the screenshot, but depending on how fast you're orbiting something that can introduce some weird artifacts in the planet below.

I've been playing around with wiggle gifs using regular screenshots. It's possible to do it manually, just take a screenshot, then move a little left or right and take another, but it's not very easy. Sometimes I can get it to work pretty well, and other times I get no depth at all. It has also required using a bunch of screenshots and then picking out the pairs or groups that work best, it obviously isn't a solution that's easy to scale up.

[Kerba Fett]

Since you're into space games and just got a Rift, you might want to have a look at Lunar Flight on steam. It's got native support including head tracking.

Just curious, how much are those things?

[jduchock]

<post removed>

Edited December 13, 2013 by jduchock

[localSol]

I've got lunar flight too (more interested because I heard it was getting extra good support) and used it on the Rift. The interior including all of the various functional panels inside are all very much made-for-rift and it shows. The head tracking, and 3d effect are also top-notch in Lunar Flight. Dev kit rifts are not being priced for general mass consumption right now, but oculus has repeatedly said that the consumer version price will go down quite a bit. Even the dev kit at its current price was more than worth it to me. Completely amazed. You know the videos of people using rifts with mouths gaping open, staring out at things, I find myself doing that a lot when I use it. Seeing in 3d is just that different to me from a monitor I guess, unless there's some other weird long-named greek-latin neurological medical term for that..

Edited December 19, 2013 by localSol

[Skamp_X]

I found it weird that I DO have headtracking for the past several months and cannot find any info on anyone else having it,

but yesterday I had another go and it din't work, search for a few hours and nothing

but few minutes ago , I relized a difference in my pc setup, my mouse was attached to the front case usb port,

and remembering from older windows versions that keyboard on certain usb ports din't work, I changed it back to previous setup.

Mouse at the back top usb port, and the rift on the front case usb port, and it works again!

Hope this helps anyone else trying to get head tracking to work.

The mouse being out of sync is a reall pain , forget about building stuff, or even making a node in orbit , but I landed on mun 4 days ago fully with rift on from iva , was pretty cool

Connecting steering wheel and pedals next , time to take a cruise around KSC

[ronnie4444]

(Sorry for the bump!)

I got my hands on a DK2 just recently, and I'm having a lot of trouble.

I pasted the profile text into the profiles.xml file (the text from the bottom of the original post), but I still need the KSP.xml (shader file) and default.MTBS (VR Boost file). Could someone please upload these files? Obviously people have gotten KSP to work in the oculus rift DK2, but I'm not going to pay $50 for software that serves a purpose which could be accomplished for free.