Has Anyone Figured out the new VR Stereo Layering (not instancing) feature in 4.11 preview 1?

Development Platform & Builds XR Development
1

Just wondering if anyone has Anyone Figured out the new VR Stereo Layering (not instancing) feature in 4.11 preview 1 is and how to take advantage of it.

I’m assuming this allows you to have multiple stereo camera view outputs layered onto the same final stereo image.

For example one camera could render the inside of the cockpit of a spaceship while another camera’s view rendered for the starfield, planets and objects outside the ship.

Another use would be view portals, like the game Portal or like looking through the door of the Tardis from Dr. Who. “It’s bigger on the inside.”

#1 Am I understanding the purpose of this feature correctly?

#2 How do you use it?

2

I’m curious about this too, wonder if someone from epic could chime in on the basics.

3

I am also curious, epic jump on this thread and lets get the info sharing party started!

4

I havent had time to download yet but a quick search on github come’s up with this.

https://github.com/EpicGames/UnrealEngine/search?utf8=%E2%9C%93&q=IStereoLayers

and this

https://github.com/EpicGames/UnrealEngine/search?utf8=%E2%9C%93&q=getlayermanager

5

any new insight into this?

6

I think we should wait for the final release and/or a livestream…Unless a super-expert joins in

7

I believe the new VR Layering is targeted towards stereoscopic UI. So you can render HUD and game menus (which have detailed text, buttons, etc.) at a higher resolution / AA level than the main game world.

8

is correct, Layerd Stereo Rendering lets you send a separate texture to the runtime for the VR headset, and have it reprojected on it’s own. It’s useful for things like UI, where you want to attach to the head and run through a separate pass than the rest of the game. Imagine a good use case as some UI that you want to display to the player as a quad right in front of them. You’d use stereo layers to do that. The advantage of doing it that way rather than attaching a component to a camera is that it gets composited on as a separate pass, which means it doesn’t go through anti-aliasing / post, etc.

9

I saw this announced in the 4.11 release notes, but cannot find where they put it in the engine. Did anyone figure this out yet? Or am I not looking in the right place?

10

+1 - Would love to know where and how to use this as well!?

11

Hey guys,

it seems, that Epic put the groundwork for the feature in 4.11 but didn’t really expose it in any way.

Stereo layers were introduced in this commit: https://github.com/EpicGames/UnrealEngine/commit/31e41758688f02b5b01bcfe7f5ece4c6157a52da

I went through it, and it seems that stereo layers aren’t exposed in upper layers of the engine or the editor in any way. IMHO it’s weird that Epic is even advertising it in 4.11. Unless I’m missing something, it’s unusable right now, without writing substantial amounts of code.

It also seems, that easier usage of the layers started landing in UE4. Look at this file in master branch:
https://github.com/EpicGames/UnrealEngine/blob/master/Engine/Source/Runtime/Engine/Private/Components/StereoLayerComponent.cpp

EDIT: judging by the amount of code in UStereoLayerComponent, it’s not that bad to implement this. Anyway, you’d have to write some code that will be useless in next UE versions anyway.