"VR"

[jwhyrock]

Thank you!

[Holy_Diver]

 

In case anyone is following this, I messed up the http://csv.swordofmoonlight.net/SomEx.dll/1.2.2.5.zip demo by having it disable the free-look function. I should've confirmed it was working. There was a debug mode only qualifier in a place I forgot to look, because honestly, the code is disorganized, and I thought I would get to organizing it better before sharing.

On the plus side, I only noticed this, because I went to see if the problem with blurriness (looking around) had improved after I figured out the right FOV settings. I think it has, and the reason I did so, is I'd reached a conclusion about the "reprojection" function (sometimes called timewarp) whether it was in hardware or software on the PS4.

At the same time, I noticed a change I made to swap the directions on the gyroscope early on (it's sideways inside the unit, which looks unorthodox in code) was having weird side effects, when looking backward and sideways (which is why I hadn't noticed) because a "fusion" algorithm I'd copied was set up to presume otherwise. Thing is, I also noticed the same algorithm was pulling (overcorrecting) when looking up & down, or if swapped, it was pulling side-to-side. So in the current demo I've disabled it, after calibration, because being pulled around is much more obnoxious than any drift can ever be, and you're going to drift no matter what anyway, without a camera.

Strikeout: This problem was due to I believed there were two sets of sensors, but in fact there are two sets of data because there are two samples from the same sensor.

So now it feels like the home-theater mode. Although I'm pretty sure that mode is upconverting to 120hz or more. I wish it would do that for the pass-through mode, because normal people don't own monitors and video cards that can do 120hz or more, and so that would be amazing for practical VR. To be honest, unless the box uses the same innards to do the 3D sound processing, as it does to do the home-theater picture (which doesn't require 3D sound) I don't understand why the same processor isn't designed to cooperate with the computer in pass-through mode, in order to lighten its load

If anyone knows of a PC product that is like the PSVR that does take the load off of the computer, so it can work with affordable systems, I would endorse that in a heartbeat.

[Holy_Diver]

For what it's worth, this morning I had some success reproducing the home-theater mode's image filter. I've uploaded a demo (same link) with a preview. It makes picture appear much more stable, at the cost of image fidelity. What I've done is a 25/75 blend of the original 960x1080 (per eye) image and a downsampled 480x540 image. It looks good (hopefully much less sickening) but considering that most of the image is peripheral vision, we are really getting down to old-school screen resolutions.... it is back to the 90s! But, like I say, I think this is the effective resolution of the home-theater mode also. The best way to think of it is like a CRT display with so many pixels, but with some blending between them.

I decided to try my hand at this, because when I get around to programming something for cameras (I will have to program it) it's going to be a big project, so I will enjoy it much more if the picture is as satisfactory as can be.


P.S. Anyone using your PSVR, I think that I recommend not putting it as close to your face as possible, because I think that on the outer edges there is significant distortion. If you have games that don't distort on the outer edges please tell me. But what I can say is that I never noticed this problem until I tried it without my glasses on. So I recommend just wearing it as if you wore glasses, so you cannot see this distortion, except in the periphery. (I also think that if you wear it too close, you're more likely to catch glimpses of the black edges beyond the picture.)

[Holy_Diver]

Cool News

While I was looking at trying to get a constant ground wobble out of the picture, I noticed the sensor "fusion" algorithm is the principal source of it, but decided to make it more aggressive instead, so that the wobble is currently increased! And I don't know if it helps at all, in terms of smoothing the picture out, but the reason this is good, is I've found that it actually does a good job of eliminating "drift" and that means that the game is playable without a camera set up...

I think that a camera can be a hassle anyway, and so it's a good option to not require one, and it certainly takes a weight off my shoulder to rush out and program a camera solution for the time being...

In the meantime I should probably try instead to figure out a virtual (in-game) camera technique for eliminating the wobble. I tried quantizing the sensor data, without meaningful success.

I know SOM doesn't have a wealth of great games to play (no kind of a library) but for what it's worth, a rush "build" of the demo is available with this "drift" fix. Basically you can play very aggressive and even if you notice drift, it will probably take a while to set in, and you will notice it long before it gets neck twisting bad, and the occasional PAUSE to recenter, will not be too much of a nuisance.

For what it's worth, I'm feeling a lot less sick in VR mode of late, and I think I'm predisposed to psychosomatic sickness because I've been working with the thing for so long under poor conditions like you probably don't find in finished products. The home-theater mode is pretty rock steady, but I think it drifts a lot more than this new demo (build) does. I don't know how much of that is because it probably outputs at 120hz or more, or if there is just that much room for improvement.

[jwhyrock]

This is incredible stuff.

[Holy_Diver]

This is incredible stuff.

Actually, I just played Moratheia, in the tomb, for what felt like half an hour, and NEVER FELT SICK ONCE, and absolutely no drift. Hopefully we will restart interest in PSVR here ( https://github.com/dylanmckay/psvr-protocol/issues/8 ) since it hasn't enjoyed a lot of action on PC so far. And no one was interested in it since a couple years ago.

I think that the home-theater mode is more sickening to me now. That's amazing considering where I began. It might depend on the environment at this point, but I think that I've got most of the issues ironed out.


EDITED: Also for the record, I cannot try it, but I don't see any reason that SOM won't work at 120hz or more. You just need a video adapter that has the bandwidth (mine doesn't) and if you want it to be convenient, a monitor to match. If the monitor doesn't match, you cannot clone them, to create a single virtual monitor. I really wish the PSVR would upgrade to 120hz (reprojection) in hardware so that it would be the product of choice for regular people with regular PCs. It has the potential to do so much in that little box, but it basically only does things with it in home-theater mode. (Either it's just lazy design to not use it to take the load off the PS4, or its dedicating all of its resources to 3D sound in VR mode.)

EDITED: I wish somebody knew why Sony never puts PlayStation drivers out for Windows. I feel like it can only be a sense of honor or pride or bitter rivalry or something about wanting its clients to feel like they are getting some kind of exclusive access to PlayStation peripherals that somehow gives them a leg up on the PC market???

[Holy_Diver]

ALSO BTW it seems I neglected to share yesterday (I thought I did, maybe I lost a post?) that after the screen filter effect I posted about (the extension is called fuzz_constant) the "chromatic aberration" was much more dramatic. It was an easy fix, but had it not been for that I might not have thought to... the fix was to make the undistortion filter square, just as I'd done already for the lens like distortion effect... I just forgot that the light frequency filter had a Y-axis component also.

So now, even if the filter makes the correction less potent, it's still very good, and so can only look better without the filter. But I think the filter makes for a better experience, even if it drops the effective resolution down. Like I say, home-theater mode clearly tosses out half the resolution, in fact, you cannot even see the do_stipple extension in its mode, because it effectively eliminates every other pixel.

[jwhyrock]

It might also depend on user sensitivity. I never once was uncomfortable using VR for hours on end. Many people are.

My set up will be a gaming laptop ported to a decent 4K TV via HDMI.

[jwhyrock]

Or rather not ported to the TV at all I guess. Duh.

[Holy_Diver]

It might also depend on user sensitivity. I never once was uncomfortable using VR for hours on end. Many people are.

My set up will be a gaming laptop ported to a decent 4K TV via HDMI.

If your laptop can output 4k it can probably output 120hz. If so, see if your video control panel will let you set up a "custom resolution" for the PSVR, because it only advertises 60hz. Just make a custom resolution that is 1920x1080@120hz, and it should work. I don't know if SOM has the power to do that, but it would have to do it in dedicated fullscreen mode if so, and I would rather avoid that if at all possible.


P.S. I think I have an initial plan for the wobble... what I have in mind is to track the PSVR both with and without the sensor fusion corrective, and try to get the best of both worlds, by letting the correct (drift-free) one drag the other around on a leash. Which I like the idea of, because that's how SOM works with regard to analog control, versus collision detection. It used to be very much like that, but these days the extensions are so refined that they are virtually identical, except in a few scenarios. That is the error between them doesn't change, but they still work like a dog on a leash. This is why it has a very organic feel, like how you can lean into things, and up against/off walls. At first it was a happy accident of SOM's unorthodox path through life, but by now it's an integral feature, that among others, makes it very possibly the best embodied video game experience in existence. I know its in a completely different league from every commercial title I've ever tried.