Chex Quest in Virtual Reality.

Started by Mastrius, October 20, 2016, 03:55:35 PM

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Mastrius

Boingo the Clown asked me to make a post on this board, so if you don't like it, blame him.
Here we go...

GZDoom Virtual Reality
A guide for Android users.

Since the kickstarter of Oculus Rift in 2012, many have been intrigued by the concept of playing their favorite games in virtual reality. When the Rift was released as a consumer product in early 2016, many people including DooMers were disappointed that the rift cost over $500, not to mention the cost of a computer fast enough to use the rift, or the inability of Oculus to get the product into the hands of pre-order customers on time. Fortunately, many other companies took it upon themselves to create ways of playing games in VR without either the high price tag or inevitable waiting for delivery.

Today I will show you how with a budget of less than $100 you can setup and configure your very own GZDoom Virtual Reality.

Hardware!

The most important thing we need is the hardware. A phone that is compatible with Google Cardboard has G-sensors that will permit the user to control the mouse/cross-hair with his head when playing a game. A rather small list of compatible phones was released on StackOverflow some time back. I will provide the list at the end of this post.

Example:


The phone I will be using in this tutorial is my 2 yo Motorola "Moto G".

Next thing we need is a good head mount which is what holds the phone to your face. There are plenty of different models that can be found on Amazon.com for less than $20.00, The one I bought is called Cynoculars, which can be obtained at any local Toys 'R' Us and comes with a wireless blue tooth controller which is useful.

Example:


While you're at it. If your computer doesn't have built in blue tooth support, go grab an adapter off Amazon for a couple of bucks.

Now that we have our hardware. Its time to tie everything together.

Software!

Now we need software to run our scheme. The software we will use is called TrinusVR.  TrinusVR is free for any PC running Microsoft Windows Windows Vista or above.  For Android, TrinusVR has a 15 minute demo to test on your android phone before buying the full $10 app.



So far we have probably spent somewhere around $60-70 (have to count shipping) for our goodies. Much less than the $500 Rift. Now we just need to tie it all together.

Configuration!

First, you want to make sure your computer and android phone are both on the same WIFI connection, or better yet, have your computer plugged directly into the router's LAN port.

The most important thing to do after installing TrinusVR to your computer is to click on the advance button in the config menu and change the Capture Mode from Fast to Compatible.

Example:


Otherwise, instead of this:


You get this:



Bluetooth Controller!

If you decided on the Cynoculars, here is the best way to configure the bluetooth controller in GZDoom.

First, make sure to pair them with your computer, but not the phone, according to the instructions in the manual.

Second, On the wireless controller press the @ & B buttons together for 3 seconds to set it for gamepad mode.

Third, run Zdoom/GZdoom and go to Joystick Options and set Enable Controller Support to Yes.

Example:


Fourth, scroll down to Keyboard #2, which is actually the game controller.
Once there set both Z Rotation and Z Axis to None, otherwise bad things will happen.

Example:


One thing I did was because I wanted to hold the controller like a pistol, was set X Axis to Moving Forward, and Y Axis to Strafing.

After that, setup your control buttons in the Customize Controls menu and you should be on your way. Hope you have fun!

Appendix!

A quick little list of compatible G-sensor enabled phones.
Amazon fire
Droid Maxx/Ultra
Droid turbo. (see /u/G3yost 's comments about getting the magnet to work)
Honor 6 (But the magnet has to be on the other side.)
HTC Sensation
HTC Sensation XL
HTC Evo 3D
HTC One S
HTC One X
Huawei Ascend P1
Huawei Ascend X (U9000)
Huawei Honor (U8860)
iPhone 5, 6+
LG g3 works, (but you need to put 2 pads on the cardboard to elevate the phone. Or the magnet doesn't work)
LG Nitro HD (P930)
LG/Google Nexus 4
LG/Google Nexus 5
LG Optimus 2x (P990)
LG Optimus 3D (P920)
LG Optimus Black (P970)
LG Optimus G
Motorola Moto G 2014 (works with mixed results, need second opinion)
Motorola Moto X 2014
Nexus 7 (2012)
OnePlus One
OPPO Find 7
Samsung Galaxy S II (i9100)
Samsung Galaxy S III (i9300)
Samsung Galaxy S4
Samsung galaxy S5
Samsung Galaxy S6 Edge is fully functional
Samsung Galaxy R (i9103)
Samsung Google Nexus S (i9020)
Samsung Galaxy Nexus (i9250)
Samsung Galaxy Note (n7000)
Samsung Galaxy Note 2, Note 3, Note 4
Sony Xperia P (LT22i)
Sony Xperia S (LT26i)
Sony Xperia Z3 Compact
Tablets:
Acer Iconia Tab A100 (7")
Acer Iconia Tab A500 (10.1")
Asus Eee Pad Transformer (TF101)
Asus Eee Pad Transformer Prime (TF201)
Motorola Xoom (mz604)
Samsung Galaxy Tab (p1000)
Samsung Galaxy Tab 7 plus (p6200)
Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 (p7100)
Sony Tablet P
Sony Tablet S
Toshiba Thrive 7"
Toshiba Trhive 10"

75

#1
This might be a good time to post a tutorial on how to get Chex Quest working on PC based headsets.

Playing Chex in PC Based VR Headsets (Razer OSVR, Oculus Rift, and HTC Vive)
(Note: I have only tried this on the OSVR (Dev Kit 1), but I'm pretty sure it will work on the other headsets too)

Note: Prices of these headsets:

OSVR: HDK1 is $300, HDK2 is $400 -- note that this is a dev kit, it's intended for devs / hardcore nerds
Oculus Rift: $600
HTC Vive: $800

- I think this tutorial will work for any headset you can plug into your PC, so the Vive, the OSVR, and the Oculus should all work.

- I think the system requirements for this are probably pretty low. I haven't tried this on laptops. If you try this and it doesn't work on your computer let me know, I'm curious to find out what effects performance in this port.

Step 1: Download GZ3Doom

You can get it here: http://rotatingpenguin.com/gz3doom/



The port only advertises Oculus compatibility but it will work with other headsets.

GZ3Doom is just launched like you would launch GzDoom. I use ZDL for this but it's not required.



Step 2: Set up your screen

OSVR users: You should NOT be in DirectMode for this, and you don't need to have the OSVR server running.

When you plug your headset into your computer, chances are it will just appear as a second monitor.



You could just drag GZ3Doom over to that "other monitor" and play like that, but I usually set it so that the VR headset is duplicating my desktop.





Step 3: Configure GZ3Doom to work with the headset



The only thing left to do is to go into Options -> Display Options, and set Stereo 3d Mode to Side - By - Side.

There's also a Side by Side narrow mode, but I find that it makes the map look really distorted at 1920x1080.



What does GZ3Doom do?

It takes a scene and renders it at two slightly different view angles

For example, here's the image without side by side view on:



And here's the image with side by side view on:



Let's take a closer look at the door and the flemoid in the distance



As you can see, the split view is very similar, I copy/pasted the flemoid from the non-split screen into this and recolored it pink, for comparison.






Overall, here's what I think:

It looks nicer than playing normally. I enjoy VR most when I'm playing games with bizarre art styles, and horror games seem to be really fun too. The depth perception is not as dramatic as some of the 3d effects I've seen in theaters, but sometimes the projectiles have a neat 3d effect.

IMO it's kind of a gimmick, I wouldn't go boot up a map pack for the first time and play it for hours with a headset on, but I do enjoy going back to maps like E1M1 of CQ: TLQ and just walking around for a few minutes. I'm a little disappointed overall, I was really excited to try VR and it didn't quite live up to what I thought it would be.

- This VR headset is borrowed equipment, I didn't buy it myself; I'm not sure if it's worth the high cost of entry for one of these things.

- It has its good moments but using OSVR sort of feels like wearing a gas mask over my head, it's kind of heavy. I've read that the Oculus is more comfortable, I haven't tried one of those, though.

- I would recommend trying VR if you know somebody who has one, or if you see it at a local Best Buy or something.

OSVR Specific:

- First party support for games is really hard to come by (it's a dev kit), but I had pretty good luck with TriDef, which is a tool that you can use to get side by side video on non-VR games. In particular I enjoyed Serious Sam: The First / Second Encounter with Tridef / OSVR.

- I wear glasses, the lenses offer some adjustment, and I can almost see properly without them, but it's kind of difficult. My vision is really bad without my glasses, though. It sounds funny but if you want to use this you may want to consider getting the smallest frames you can find, or getting contacts, I have one pair of glasses that does not fit into the headset at all, and I have one pair that just barely fits.

- I was able to get Half Life 2 and Team Fortress 2 working with OSVR, but for some reason those two games gave me terrible motion sickness, I could barely play either of those for more than a few minutes at a time.

- The OSVR comes with head tracking but I very rarely use it, I usually just play with mouse and keyboard.

It's hard to play a FPS game without having the ability to turn all the way around easily, and I wouldn't recommend trying to control your view with your mouse and your head at the same time.

"Give us those nice bright colors, give us the greens of summer, makes you think all the world's a sunny day."

You can find me on the CQFF discord: https://discord.gg/AgNhjem


Manhs

I tried it with Gz3doom, it's awesome !  :whale
For the vertical aim, better to use the vertical auto-aim a bit ^^ (for the neck).