Google Cardboard on an iOS device?

Development Platform & Builds XR Development
1

Hey there, just wondering if there’s any good tutorials out there for UE4 to Google Cardboard on an iOS device?

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2

Looks like iOS isn’t supported

even in 4.13 :frowning:

see here at 01:04:05

3

Hey guys:

Both of the links point to my question, so let me share what I have found thus far and hopefully, this thread can help us come up with good workflows and show the importance of this feature.

After finding out that GoogleVR plugin did not work for iOS devices to use cardboard, I was told that they were working on it and would hopefully have it in the next version (4.13.0 Preview 1). I have now tested this on PC and Mac machines for iOS devices to use cardboard and found interesting results.

iOS (Mac machine):
With 4.13.0 Preview 1, the GoogleVR Plugin does work for iOS packaging! This is great, but there are still a lot of issues with the final app. For instance, the textures seem very blurry only when the plugin is enabled and, of course, there is an issue with video on mac machines in 4.13 preview at the moment (this is said to be working on and fixed in the next preview). Does anybody have any ideas of how to achieve better quality textures in cardboard for iOS?? The default is DXT1 format. Also, another large problem with this output, the app crashes when there is about 10-20 secs of down time. Anybody find a fix for this yet?

iOS (Windows machine):
With 4.13.0 Preview 1, the GoogleVR Plugin fails to package for iOS. The error that immediately arises when packaging for cardboard using GoogleVR plugin for iOS on windows machine is this:
“Program.Main: ERROR: AutomationTool terminated with exception: AutomationTool.AutomationException: Unabled to build Project C:/Program Files/Unreal Engine/4.13\Engine\Source\Programs\IOS\MobileDeviceInterface\MobileDeviceInterface.csproj. Project file not found.”
As stated the .csproj file is indeed not located here. Epic, maybe this can be a hotfix?

If anyone can give answers on iOS cardboard workflows and texture improvements using GoogleVr plugin, that would be great. Its very exciting to see Epic make improvements on this and its coming along and close!!!

Thanks,

4

Indeed I see initial support for Google Cardboard for iOS in 4.13 branch so I hope it will be polished and improved in the near future :slight_smile:

5

Well I eventually I took the Youtube 360 video path.

Here’s my go with my test file…

Although I find youtube really kills the quality of everything even when this is a 4096 x 4096 file :frowning: even if i fiddle with their quality settings whilst playing the movie.

Anyhow my process in the end was…

Following Stereo Pano Camera Tutorial for UE4 - YouTube but at 4096x4096 avi,

open in HandBrake, export as mp4 (Preset > Normal),

follow https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/6316263?hl=en&ref_topic=2888648 (but only tick the first option in their 360 Video Metadata app)

wait an hour or a day for high quality version to be produced by youtube.

6

Has anyone gotten this to work? I tried packaging a test project in 4.13 also and cant get it to build.

7

For 360 video or do you want some interactivity?

8

Interactivity. I have made the youtube videos with the stereo panoramic plugin and those are pretty cool, but I want the user to self direct where he is walking so I need the iOS VR to work.

9

Yeah sorry I never got it working :frowning:

10

Any updates on this ?

11

If you enable GoogleVR Plugin in 4.14 following Epic’s instructions on https://docs.unrealengine.com/latest/INT/Platforms/GoogleVR/ and ignoring any Android specific configuration it will work when running in an iOS device. However, the magnetic trigger will not work, you will need a Cardboard v2.0 to work with iOS devices.

Cheers

12

Is this on Mac or Windows? I got both and made a lot of succesful VR-architecture based apps for Android, but can’t seem to get it working on iOs yet.

13

Mac

I can successfully build it on Mac :slight_smile:

14

Can you help me with this? I’ve been trying to do this for the last 1,5 week but can’t seem to get a succesful package. Is this in a blueprint project (with C++ added) or purely C++? Also, packaged in UE4 or opened in XCode?

15

I’ve managed to do this myself as well. Been trying a long time to do this since the release of 4.14, but there’s a bug with 4.14 which doesn’t let you package it using the Remote-Build with Mac. Tried with 4.13.2 today and managed to get a succesful package.

16

To fix the blurry Textures trying opening up the Device Profiles and adding or adjusting the following CVar.

+CVars=r.MobileContentScaleFactor=2

Try setting it to 0 or 1 and see if that helps to fix the issue you are having. You can read more about Device Profiles using the following link.

17

Build it on Windows, with Remote-Build with your Mac(Book). This works properly for me using the GoogleVR plugin. One thing is, I didn’t managed to get it work with 4.14 and XCode 8, but it did with 4.13.2.

18

Does anyone know, at this point, how to make the capacitive touch button on Cardboard v2.0 work as input? I’m not sure how to go about this. I want to make the capacitive touch button on my Homido V2 headset make the player walk forward when pressed once, and stop walking when pressed again.