#dbp2017

I just released XRCinematicImageEffects, it’s a fork of Unity’s Cinematic Image Effects with better XR support and Single Pass Stereo Rendering. I’ll try to add Single Pass Instancing later, but it’s a bit harder. I don’t have ported all effects for now, let me now if you want more.

Why I did that?

All my active projects targets the Universal Windows Platform and Windows Mixed Reality. I can’t use the Post Processing Stack V2 because it’s not compatible with this target when .Net is enabled (only IL2CCP). I also use a nice set of effects from Amplify that are IMHO superior the Post Processint Stack V2.

However I need some more effects like AntiAliasing. So I decided to port the old cinematic effects by adding Single Pass Stereo rendering support. And it works well!

As I already wrote in a previous article, I submitted a solution the developers behind the post processing stack v2, but it's not a priority for now.

GunSpinning VR and M.A.R.S. Extraction, two projects submitted for the Dream.Build.Play 2017 challenge are using my XR FXAA/SMAA and all is fine!

When use those effects?

You can’t use the Post Processing Stack V2

You use another set of effects

Your VR Project requires only one or two specific effects (Like AntiAliasing)

Available effects

FXAA

SMAA (no temporal, but prediction is fine)

Vignette (good for artificial locomotion)

Chromatic Aberration (this one was for fun, it’s not very usefull in VR)

Distortion (I don’t recommend it in VR)

Stylistic Fog (a height fog effect)

A very WIP Depth of Field

Tone Mapping

Contributions, feedback & download

Don’t hesitate to submit pull requests! I’m not a shader guru but I can maybe fix few things here and there.

Hey there!

The the next update of GunSpinning VR is ready with some cool features.

New sets of effects, the graphics looks even better now. Thanks to the Amplify Effects ;)

A message to explain why shoot on the blue rings

A confirmation message for teleportation

A working buy button (UWP)

Less bonus spawned by zombies

Pass dialogs using the Shoot button

A 3D Icon for the Mixed Reality Portal (UWP)

In this update I’ve removed the use of the Post Processing Stack V2, as well as the use of Beautify. Removing the first allows me to compile the game with .Net instead of IL2CPP. That means I can use the full Xbox Live plugin! So yes Cloud Save and leaderboards are coming in a next update.

About the next update

The Xbox Live integration is the next focus for GunSpinning VR, you'll be able to use the Cloud Saves as well as the Leaderboards! Finally the Xbox One version could out before the end of the year at the same time, with this update.

M.A.R.S. Extraction

As I wrote in a previous post, I want to publish an initial version of M.A.R.S. Extraction for Windows Mixed Reality because it's normal to bring that game on the Store. I don't know if I'll have the time to do that for the Dream.Build.Play challenge. But I'm on it too (Don't worry there is only ONE demonixis).

I had the chance to spend one day at Microsoft France to meet other Mixed Reality developers and people working on Mixed Reality at Microsoft. That was an awesome day, but it leads me to think that there are some work to do on M.A.R.S. Extraction before a publication.

Version 2.0 with a new confort mode

M.A.R.S. Extraction is not an easy game because it's a tribute to Descent and Forsaken (two great but also hard games) AND it can make you sick because it's a 6 degrees of freedom shooter. This is my plan to make it playable by more people!

Reducing the FOV when moving

Add teleporter to change floors

Use a simplified movement with 3 DOF instead of 6)

Ask to the user the first time if he want to disable the confort mode

Of course the menu will allows you to enable or disable those features.

Hello everyone,

Thanks to the Cyber Monday sales, I just purchased 3 Amplify Effects and a new plugin to make nice light beams! Of course, all these effects are VR ready.

Amplify Bloom

Amplify Color

Amplify Lut (requires Amplify Color)

Amplify Occlusion

Volumetric Lightbeam

Now the plan is to revamp M.A.R.S. Extraction to submit it to the Dream.Build.Play 2017 too. Yes I'm going to try to submit two games this year. GunSpinning VR was submitted few months ago. It's not sure for M.A.R.S. Extraction but I'm going to do my BEST to do it.

M.A.R.S. Extraction Windows Mixed Reality & Xbox One

That was a dream two years ago to publish M.A.R.S. Extraction on the Xbox One, but today it's possible and it has a LOT of sense. So what's the plan?

Refactoring: 25%

Windows Mixed Reality Support: 100%

Graphics Enhancement: 40%

New menus: 40%

Xbox Live Integration: 0%

UWP builds: 0%

As you can see, it's possible to achieve 100% on all parts before the end of the year.. But I need to work fast and well (Like The Flash :D).

Input Method

All my games use InControl which is IMHO one of the best plugin you can buy with Unity. The game works with: - Keyboard + Mouse - Gamepad - VR Controller's sticks & buttons

It's not a RoomScale game, you're sticked to your gravity bike, so controllers have no sense. But it's a good idea to allows user to use the analog sticks and buttons to play.

Voice control is not planned, but... I know it can be awesome to control all the UI with your voice, so maybe later ;)

Well well well... you know sometime... things are broken :’( That’s the case with the Xbox Live plugin for Unity and Unity 2017.2f1. I have switched back from the .Net 4.6 scripting backend to .Net 3.5 to be able to use this plugin. Unfortunatly it can’t be built :’(

That’s caused by a wrapper that brings System.Task in the Unity Editor... I’ve opened an issue on github but I don’t know if it’ll be fixed quickly or not.

Some notes about the version 1.3.x

This is almost the end, the last set of builds are almost completed, new levels are included but locked for now because I’ve to do some balancing before. As you can see on the screenshots, there is an all new UI!

VR Update

Thanks to Unity 2017.2 the game is now compatible with OpenVR on Mac (when using the Metal API). I don’t know if some of you guys have a VR Mac, but if yes : ENJOY!

I’ve a big news for OSVR users because I’ve integrated the new OSVR SDK for Unity. It works using the built-in Unity’s XR implementation resulting in a big performance boost! Take a look at the readme for more informations. The OSVR controllers integration is still in BETA but has been improved.

Of course the game works well with Windows Mixed Realtiy immersive headsets ;)

Windows UWP / Xbox One

It’s sometime hard to make a game that work on many platform AND Windows UWP because the API is not the exactly the same used in Unity (hello Reflection). But also mainly because the Unity’s UWP integration is not very polished. I don’t know why but there are often bugs. 

The Post Process Stack v2 is not compatible by example. So what? No post processes for Windows UWP users? Of course no! I was able to compile it using IL2CPP so don’t worry it’s going to be OK.

Another embarassing thing was the .Net 4.6 Scripting Backend.. I converted all my code to C# 6.0 and that was awesome. However the Xbox Live SDK for Unity can’t be compiled with this scripting backend. I tried A LOT of things and some dev friends too, but it seems to be difficult. So I decided yesterday to switch back to the .Net 3.5 scripting backend.. Almost 200 errors in the editor, that was insane, but today it’s OK and I’m ready to use the Xbox Live SDK!

I’m going to release a new (private) build today for the Windows Store by the way.

Plans for the next build

Now that the version 1.2.1 is out I can focus on the Universal Windows Platform version. This version is also important because it targets multiple devices such as regular PC, VR and.. Xbox One! Thanks to the Xbox Creator Program, you can create an UWP game and publish it to Xbox One. The game appears in a new section on games called Creator Program.

The version in this video is a simple click and deploy of the UWP version on my retail Xbox One. I just enabled the developer mode using the required app. It’s not yet ready, but I was pleasantly surprise because it works very well, without any kind of optimizations or anything else.

I started to work on specific components for UWP, to use the more features I can. That’s my current TODO list:

Building a better “console” FPS component

Xbox Live

Mixer

Cloud save (between VR, standard PC and Xbox)

Learderboard

Simplified menu (you don’t need all those options)

Better transitions between scenes

However I’m stuck on some parts because I use Unity 2017.2b9 and

There are bugs

The Mixed Reality integration is unstable (right now the near clipping plane is stuck to 20m. That breaks my per layer culling system)

The Xbox Live (Creator Program) for Unity is not compatible with .Net 4.6 (The funny part is that it’s not compatible because of a compatibility library to emulate some features of .Net 4.6)

Well tonight I have finally tested GunSpinning VR with my Acer Mixed Reality Headset using Unity 2017.2b6. All seems to work and you know what? I was able to simulate controllers! And yes it's working too :P

However... yes... There is a BIG problem, the image is reversed and my console in Unty is spammed by errors..

Graphics.CopyTexture called with region not fitting in destionation element(dstX 0, dstY 0, scrWidth 2176, srcHeight 2175, dstMip 0)

I think that this error is caused by the dstMip sets to 0 but I don't know how to fix that. I tried to remove all my effects but it's an error in Unity (or Windows).