VR Design
In a recent talk at the Animago conference, I had the privilege to discuss the current state of standalone VR, specifically the Oculus Quest (the YouTube video is under this link). The topics included quickstart tips, on how to jump into VR development using the Unreal engine and a few notes on personal experiences, designing in VR using Gravity Sketch. The example on the left is an alien spaceship concept (Project Biotope). The goal was to design an organic looking alien ship, using the Gravity Sketch VR toolset and bringing it into Unreal after cleanup and texturing.
Design of alien spaceship (Project Biotope) in VR.
Unreal graphics optimization for standalone VR
The main topic of the talk was UE4 graphics optimization for standalone VR. A big chunk of the talk went into the subject of cinematic fades using Blueprints. This is one of the most important techniques for smooth VR presentations and one of the topics I get a lot of mails about. The technique is covered in my book Unreal for Mobile and Standalone VR. For users who have trouble with the UMG technique, I offer a solution using a recent addition to the Oculus UE4 Blueprint library. The context is explained in the video recording of the talk and the blueprints are listed below.
The first example: Using an simple overlap event to trigger the fade with Set Color scale and offfset
The second example: Using an the event pickup and event drop with the Blueprint interface to trigger a color change at the pickup, followed by the fade with Set Color scale and offfset.
Oculus Quest Quick Start: Making imported FBX meshes, like this Suzanne head from Blender, interactive, with Blueprint interfaces, using the UE4 VR template.
Example 4: Testing optimization with content not intendet for Android VR, like this Subway sceen (available as free content from the UE4 marketplace). Assigning console commands to the Oculus controller.
