Hi there! I know it may sound pretty silly and stupid but please keep reading…
I’m just starting out in ue4 after many years as a 3d artist with the goal of developing content for VR. After upgrading my rig and pre-ordering my rift I think I’m in trouble… the shipping date for my HMD is around June, which is too much time and I can’t wait that long to start testing my projects, so my question is, can I develop content for VR without actually using a HMD? and potentially release that content?
Please excuse me if this is an extremely stupid question but I just wanted to make sure
You could develop content without the kit…but it is going to be very difficult to determine if that content is going to work properly/look good. I found that after testing in VR mode the first time I had to change a lot of the text sizes etc so it was actually readable. Also normal maps seem to be a problem with VR (not sure if this has been sorted out yet or not).
You will be taking a gambit if you release content without testing first, if it doesn’t work properly people will probably down vote your stuff and potentially kill it…worst case scenario.
Well, that makes sense… hopefully we will see some people offering this optimization services in a near future. Thanks for you reply!
Really? Where do you live? I pre-ordered mine and it should start shipping late March (should arrive early April). I assume you live outside of the US?
You can, but I would recommend either doing alot of research beforehand, or actually trying out VR extensively. In the instance of normal maps… think of a brick wall. You have the wall, which is just a box. Use a heightmap to tessellate the box to create the bricks. Then use normal maps to give the bricks their small details. On normal screens, you could just use a single normal map. Not so much in VR.
Spain, and it is supposed to be shipped on April but from past experience I guess June is an accurate assumption
Thanks for your reply… I will do my research and maybe wait before any final release until my headset arrives, better later than sorry!
As long as you design the level / world in a 1:1 space, or even just start on the game systems / backend, I would do that while you wait for the headset.