Epic's low priority on GearVR and VR in general makes me sad

[anonymous_user_71284d2c]

I hear what you guys are saying and appreciate your efforts to get more detailed info as I have learned much from reading this forum. Sinoth even answered one of my questions in the livestream chat regarding the c++ class for blueprints, without which I would probably be studying Unity docs right now, so thank you, Sinoth. The livestream was helpful for me, yet admittedly I am new to the Gear VR.

It sounds like the document itself will be a compilation of information rather than just a Getting Started guide. However in depth or accurate, I respect the time and effort from everyone involved with making it, both from those at Epic and from here within the community, and thank you.

[Sam_Deiter]

Hey Marcel, thanks for taking the time to let us know how we’re doing.

I’m sorry for any confusion, let me see if I can clear a few things up for you based on your feedback.

He answered so many questions wrong that we now have a lot of myths out there.

All questions that were asked during the live stream where also passed on to the VR development team here at Epic. They’ve been good to correct any of my inaccuracies and posted up here. Sorry bout any inconsistencies, this should clear anything up!

Looks like Sam did not even had time to read the Gear VR manual and Oculus Mobile SDK documentation, questions scratching the surface were answered with hearsay and superficial knowledge =(

I spend a lot of my personal time reading up on all things VR as well as closely following the VR forums here. After reading the forums it looked like a number of people were having lots of issues getting everything set up and running, so we decided that we’d make that the goal of this training stream - to get people up and working with the GearVR headset.

Guy asked about the look trough camera - He answered he has to look it up but should work, while is not really a good thing to do. Error: Not supported at all without a lot of hacking of the android java Template and the jni interface.

I should have been more specific, I meant that it can work as there’s nothing keeping a developer from using the available SDKs to implement the feature. There are items that aren’t plug and play straight out of the box, but that doesn’t mean that it’s not a possibility. As we look for ways to improve UE4, it’s good to get this sort of feedback on missing out-of-the-box workflows that the community needs. If this is something that you feel is in need of improvement, feel free to drop us a line in the Feedback for Epic forum so we can have a look!

Someone asked about the frames per seconds in the FPS Template and Sam answered about 30 FPS as if it was totally ok. - Sam did not even read the forum entries about the Gear VR performance problems and the other problems at all. Maybe he did not even know about the high frame rate requirements of VR at all?

I wasn’t terribly sure on the spot for what the number was, though I did a quick performance check and the FPS template is running at a solid 60 FPS. I am aware that you need 60 FPS for each eye to ensure that the use does not experience and simulation sickness.

Another user asked about the Samsung Gamepad and MOGA Pro compatibility. - Sam had no clue and has never heared about a word like “MOGA Pro” (maybe the most widespread Android Bluetooth Gamepad)… And no this compatibility is not solved, the code still does not support the default Samsung Gamepad, in fact nothing has changed!

The focus of the stream wasn’t necessarily for general Android development, but for getting started up specifically for GearVR. The Android section of the forums might be able to shed some better light on gamepad support, however!

Sam told that the “button” on top of the Gear VR would change the IPD - Actually it changes the distance from lens to screen, to adjust the sharpness for moderate near- and farsightedness. The IPD has to be changed in Software.

This is the first I’m hearing of this, however I’ll make sure to follow up with our VR dev team and get some clarification. When speaking with Samsung, I left under the impression that the dial adjusts the IPD and focus at the same time.

Sam explained you have to take the Note 4 out of the Gear VR and put it back in physically to install your application and you need to repeat this over and over again - That’s simply not true, the Oculus_Mobile_v0.5.0_SDK_Documentation.pdf describes how to do it via WiFi as the prefered way on page 75-76, if you set this up the script will install via WiFi without any problems. After that you can start the application via adb shell am start -n [Package]/[Activity]

Deploying over Wifi is extremely slow and because this livestream was focused on getting people up and running, I decided to not bring this up as I wanted as few obstacles to success as possible. You are correct and can deploy to your phone this way, but it is around 4-5x slower than doing it over the USB cable. Either way is totally fine, I can see upsides to both methods in a production environment.

… At this point (~25min) I stopped watching the video, because this proofed Sam did not read the docs and the rest of the time will go on and on like this (I hope I am wrong).

While I might not have the in-depth knowledge that the engineers have, our documentation was the basis of this presentation. I undoubtedly had some incorrect information during the live stream. I have already addressed this by having the VR team respond to the questions, which you can find here. Hopefully that can set some of your concerns straight and helps answer any questions you have.

I’m sorry that the livestream didn’t meet your expectations… I have have heard from many that the explanation did help them get over the issues that they were having and were able to successfully deploy to the GearVR. We should, however, look into the possibility of getting our VR development team on to answer some of the heavier hitting questions regarding the device.

Thanks again for your feedback!

[Alessa (Alessa Baker)]

Thank you for your time in clearing up some of the issues surrounding the stream, Sam. I’d like to reiterate that we do appreciate the time you’ve put into both the Stream and the Documentation. It was a great stream to help get the brand new people up to scratch in creating a project, I just think that specifically everyone here in this thread - they’re already moving onto the harder hurdles.

On a side note
We need that MSAA fix as quick as possible. The jaggies on this device are making it near impossible to develop for without getting a headache! Maybe you could pass this query onto one of the team members?

Thanks again Sam!

• Sythen.

[DFin]

IPD and MSAA Patch

@Sam Deiter;264590

This is the first I’m hearing of this, however I’ll make sure to follow up with our VR dev team and get some clarification. When speaking with Samsung, I left under the impression that the dial adjusts the IPD and focus at the same time.

Hey Sam, this is something you can clarify by just taking a close look at the device what the dial does. It just moves the display further away/closer and thus just changes the focal point. The lenses are completly fixed and dont change the distance to each other.

Also i am really interested in the MSAA patch too.

[anonymous_user_b77537d9]

@;246580

…
Templates:
We’ve also got a rough template that we’ve passed off to the docs team as well. We’re hoping to get that up in the learn tab. In the meantime, I’ve uploaded the sample here to get you started:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B-JC-2m27tZmdURLMXRQZjFmekk/view?usp=sharing

Hi Nick,

thanks a lot for sharing the GearVR Template. That saved us a lot R&D time

While i was running the template without modifications on my Gear VR i noticed that the distortion/wrap of the viewports (left/right) doesn’t work right/doesn’t fit the lenses of the gear vr.
If i pan my head left to right, i noticed that 100% straight objects like boxes have curves/bend a bit in the middle.
That effect is visible with UE4 APKs/projects (4.7.4) only and never noticed on any Un*ty samples.

Don’t know how to capture the issue as image, hopefully my explaination is good enough.
any else has the problem or an idea how to fix it?

best regards,

[Sam_Deiter]

@DFin;265299

Hey Sam, this is something you can clarify by just taking a close look at the device what the dial does. It just moves the display further away/closer and thus just changes the focal point. The lenses are completly fixed and dont change the distance to each other.

Also i am really interested in the MSAA patch too.

The Patch might not make it out soon. However you can do this your self by doing the following.

@JJ Hoesing;268366

1. MSAA patch below. I’ve had issues with the patch and devices running Lollipop, but that’s been hit or miss. We’re still working on a real solution for this.
2. Virtual head model is on the short list, and should be simple enough to patch into 4.7. I’ll update this as soon as we get something in.
3. Yes, there’s a JNI threading issue that cropped up. I’m working on a fix as we speak.
4. This is a bit further down the list and I need to do a bit of investigation to see how involved gesture support will be. I’ll update once I have a better idea.

For a temporary hacked 2X MSAA, replace FramebufferTexture2D() in OpenGLES2.h with this:

	static FORCEINLINE void FramebufferTexture2D(GLenum Target, GLenum Attachment, GLenum TexTarget, GLuint Texture, GLint Level)
	{
		check(Attachment == GL_COLOR_ATTACHMENT0 || Attachment == GL_DEPTH_ATTACHMENT);
#if 1
		static bool Init = false;
		static GLuint DepthBuffer;

		if (!SupportsMultisampledRenderToTexture())
		{
			glFramebufferTexture2D(Target, Attachment, TexTarget, Texture, Level);
		}
		else
		{
			if (Attachment == GL_DEPTH_ATTACHMENT)
			{
				if (!Init)
				{
					glGenRenderbuffers(1, &DepthBuffer);
					glBindRenderbuffer(GL_RENDERBUFFER, DepthBuffer);
					glRenderbufferStorageMultisampleEXT(GL_RENDERBUFFER, 2, GL_DEPTH_COMPONENT24, 2048, 1024);
					glBindRenderbuffer(GL_RENDERBUFFER, 0);
					Init = true;
				}

				glFramebufferRenderbuffer(GL_FRAMEBUFFER, GL_DEPTH_ATTACHMENT, GL_RENDERBUFFER, DepthBuffer);
			}
			else
			{
				glFramebufferTexture2DMultisampleEXT(Target, Attachment, TexTarget, Texture, Level, 2);
			}
		}
#else
		glFramebufferTexture2D(Target, Attachment, TexTarget, Texture, Level);
#endif
		VERIFY_GL(FramebufferTexture_2D)
	}

[Alessa (Alessa Baker)]

Can confirm that this fix makes Gear VR look awesome.
We really appreciate getting the fix out to use Sam & JJ, you’ve really saved a lot of hair pulling!

Thanks!
Sythen.

[Sam_Deiter]

@Sythen;269283

Can confirm that this fix makes Gear VR look awesome.
We really appreciate getting the fix out to use Sam & JJ, you’ve really saved a lot of hair pulling!

Thanks!
Sythen.

That was all JJ…I just made sure to mention it in every meeting I am in…They probably did it just to shut me up…

[Alessa (Alessa Baker)]

Well we hugely appreciate the effort on both parts. I recommend avoiding JJ temporarily to allow him to gain his sanity back
Thank you, Sam!

[anonymous_user_3109fa7d]

Yeah, the above 2x MSAA patch really makes a HUGE difference on the GearVR. Definitely worth the effort involved to compile your own UE4. Just don’t spend time debugging the changes if you happen to forget to add your OSIG file to the new build

Thanks a bunch, JJ and Sam.

[anonymous_user_7bfae45c]

On the UE4 question hub (Exynos GearVR Support - XR Development - Epic Developer Community Forums) it was suggested to update to a newer 5.0.1 firmware from past mid march. After doing that UE4 works on my Exynos Gear VR.

[aussieburger]

@JJ Hoesing;232422

Also, please note that we currently default to CPU 2, GPU 2 for the Oculus mobile SDK perf settings. If you feel that you’re more GPU limited than CPU limited, you can edit the engine config.ini to specify CPU 1, GPU 3.

[FONT=Courier New][GearVR.Settings]
CpuLevel=1
GpuLevel=3

Did anyone try out this gpu=3 setting? By engine config.ini does that mean the “DefaultEngine.ini” file in the Config subfolder of my project???

[Alessa (Alessa Baker)]

I’ve given this a shot, with a 5-8 fps gain

[anonymous_user_6cf98220]

Hey,

Can someone please create an end to end GearVR game development tutorial (including creation of materials and textures for GearVR)? I have been trying for days to get my materials and textures to publish on GearVR but somehow it never works.

In the first person template, using M_Wood_Walnut material on the walls, doesn’t render properly. Posting on the forum, reddit, youtube etc hasn’t elicited any response.

I hope someone here can help me out! Thanks

[aussieburger]

@sudshekhar;393323

Hey,

Can someone please create an end to end GearVR game development tutorial (including creation of materials and textures for GearVR)? I have been trying for days to get my materials and textures to publish on GearVR but somehow it never works.

In the first person template, using M_Wood_Walnut material on the walls, doesn’t render properly. Posting on the forum, reddit, youtube etc hasn’t elicited any response.

I hope someone here can help me out! Thanks

Don’t use any of the epic starter materials and props - they are not optimized for mobile (as it says when you click to the include the content ). Read through all the android/mobile optimization tips available for UE4 - all of those are applicable for GearVR

[anonymous_user_cbe439b2]

@;246580

Hey all!

As promised, here’s a post-GDC update.

Rendering Bugs:
Here’s a list of the bugs that are our top priorities on the rendering front to fix, along with their Jira tag numbers. Jira isn’t publicly exposed that the moment, but having the numbers listed by the issue will make it much easier to follow up.

• Anim Trails (fixed in 4.7)
• Orbit Mesh Particles (UE-5584)
• Mobile HDR (UE-11846)
• Decals issues (UE-11849)
• LPV (UE-9765)
• Subsurface profile (UE-11847)
• Distance Field Shadowing (UE-11848)

The order there is a combination of how basic the engine feature is, and how much time it will take to fix it. It’s not guaranteed they’ll be fixed in that exact order, but that’s our guess at how easy it will be to fix things up. These will be posted on the public Trello in the coming days, but wanted to give you guys an early preview since you all seemed interested!

Documentation:
J.J. has submitted more thorough docs to the doc team, and they’re being verified and published very soon! We had to wait to get more devices in house, so that the docs team could take the documentation that J.J. had fleshed out, run through it, and then fill in any gaps. That should be coming through shortly!

Templates:
We’ve also got a rough template that we’ve passed off to the docs team as well. We’re hoping to get that up in the learn tab. In the meantime, I’ve uploaded the sample here to get you started:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B-JC-2m27tZmdURLMXRQZjFmekk/view?usp=sharing

Here’s the notes from J.J., in raw form:

Again, this is being updated and improved by the docs team, but wanted to get you guys something to start with.

Also, I want to mention that if you start your project with the Mobile settings, and Scalable, and then turn off MobileHDR, you’ll be at a good base level to start with, even without the template, so give that a shot if you’re having trouble!

Exynos Note 4 Support:
J.J. would be the expert on that, and he’s out of the office for a few days, but I do not believe that the Exynos Note 4 is officially supported by Gear VR. From what I’m reading, it seems you have to flash the Exynos Note 4 with a modfied firmware to even get the Gear VR stuff to install. We’ve only tested on officially supported Note 4’s (https://support.oculus.com/hc/en-us/articles/204113096-Samsung-Gear-VR-Innovator-Edition-Samsung-Galaxy-Note-4-Compatibility)

Can anyone please upload the template project for gear vr again? I can’t access the google drive, sadly, and i need it quite a bit.

[motorsep]

+1

I’d like to access Google Drive too.

[aussieburger]

FYI: I uploaded a 4.10 converted version of that example project here: http://s000.tinyupload.com/?file_id=16018475499405413436

[anonymous_user_cbe439b2]

Thank you so much!

[DaYuShen]

Hello Nick,i am Gear VR developer,i use UE4 4.10.4,but i find a engine problem,i pack thrid person template,i meet a problem,on game run about 30s,screen appear stop rendering,then i use UE4 4.9.2 and UE4 4.11.1,but no use,can u provide solve for me,i am crazy…