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Krejlooc · Feb 25, 2015

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_vqNpZqnl1o

Currently, how vr development works is that the biggesst engines out there - ue4, unity, cryengine, etc - employ build options for various headsets that utilizes proprietary apis. Example - i make a vr game, then i tell unity to export a gear vr binary. It uses the gear vr api to turn my code into something gear vr can use. Then i tell it to export an oculus rift binary - same thing only using the rift api. Then a morpheus binary, and so forth. I cant run a rift executable on gear vr or vice versa. And if you are not using an engine with vr support - as we are doing with hl2vr - you have to link against individual apis and dlls per port.

No more. Valve is developing a universal api - write once, build one binary, and it works on every headset.

This will be discussed more at GDC.

BeatResetsTheWorld · Feb 25, 2015

I'm not sure how this would work unless the other headset creators adopt it as well. Seems like it should be more of a collaborative effort

I guess I'm confused if this is an API, which means either the headset devs or Valve themselves will have to incorporate all the different hooks, or is it a standard in which the other creators will hopefully adopt?

Krejlooc · Feb 25, 2015

BeatResetsTheWorld said:
I'm not sure how this would work unless the other headset creators adopt it as well. Seems like it should be more of a collaborative effort

Valve, razor, nvidia, oculus, google and sony have been collaborating on this for years already.

BeatResetsTheWorld said:
I guess I'm confused if this is an API, which means either the headset devs or Valve themselves will have to incorporate all the different hooks, or is it a standard in which the other creators will hopefully adopt?

its an api. All vr headsets are already using a soft standard set by the dk1.

Sixense is doing the same thing for vr input, as well. They have an api that works with razor's tech, yei's tech, sony's move, and of course their own STEMs.

Neuromancer · Feb 25, 2015

Pretty wild stuff. Hopefully this will stop some of the people complaining about too many HMDs. If they're all (more or less) running the same tech underneath, games and apps should be pretty much ubiquitous across all of them.

nynt9 · Feb 25, 2015

Krejlooc · Feb 25, 2015

nynt9 said:

Yeah, this comic is stupid because it ignores that standards do arise this way.

Further, what standard api is valve competing against here?

PGamer · Feb 25, 2015

Krejlooc said:
Valve, razor, nvidia, oculus, google and sony have been collaborating on this for years already.

You got a source for this?

Easy_D · Feb 25, 2015

Krejlooc said:
Yeah, this comic is stupid because it ignores that standards do arise this way.

Yeah, eventually one super good one has to win over the others lol.

Krejlooc · Feb 25, 2015

PGamer said:
You got a source for this?

I am the source for this.

Durante · Feb 25, 2015

This seems redundant with OSVR.

Krejlooc · Feb 25, 2015

Durante said:
This seems redundant with OSVR.

This predates osvr by quite a while.

TheNAC · Feb 25, 2015

Krejlooc said:
I am the source for this.

Boom.

Fafalada · Feb 25, 2015

BeatResetsTheWorld said:
I'm not sure how this would work unless the other headset creators adopt it as well.

The same way engines incorporate different APIs for myriad of things from rendering to file-I/O. Of course if the common-abstraction eventually gains enough popularity, it would force headset makers to support it out-of the box themselves (assuming collaboration isn't already on their plans).

Given how lightweight VR APIs are compared to certain other fields it's kind of a low-importance proposition (I'd rather see a push for a standardized feature-requirement-set, and the former doesn't dictate the latter).

Durante · Feb 25, 2015

Krejlooc said:
This predates osvr by quite a while.

Doesn't make them less redundant

In the end, I think we need a Khronos standard for VR. Might still take a while for innovation to settle down before it's time for that.

Fafalada said:
Given how lightweight VR APIs are compared to certain other fields it's kind of a low-importance proposition

Yeah, I agree with this. There's what, roughly 5?, function calls you really need for VR. (Just talking about rendering and head tacking, not output)

Krejlooc · Feb 25, 2015

I mean none of this is new information. I made a topic for this because every other post in these VR headset announcement topics are people wondering if a unifying API is going to emerge. Valve has been talking about this for a long time now.

Krejlooc · Feb 25, 2015

Durante said:
Yeah, I agree with this. There's what, roughly 5?, function calls you really need for VR. (Just talking about rendering and head tacking, not output)

realistically that goes for all position tracking. in the end all your data is just a matrix.

jmga · Feb 25, 2015

Could you summarize what is Valve working on?

iceatcs · Feb 25, 2015

Good starting if have standard VR API for all.
It make devs ease to develop app for multi-VR, and also for us that we can choose without worry too much which had great software support.

Durante · Feb 25, 2015

Krejlooc said:
realistically that goes for all position tracking. in the end all your data is just a matrix.

True. (And obviously I wanted to say input, not output. My excuse is that I'm drunk)

astraycat · Feb 25, 2015

Krejlooc said:
Valve, razor, nvidia, oculus, google and sony have been collaborating on this for years already.

"Collaborating" is a bit strong. Trending in the same direction? Maybe.

Krejlooc · Feb 25, 2015

astraycat said:
"Collaborating" is a bit strong. Trending in the same direction? Maybe.

I used collaborating in the correct, literal sense. They are outright sharing their information amongst each other.

injurai · Feb 25, 2015

Aww boo hoo, redundancy of standards... we want as many people find jobs in this as the economy will allow. That's how technologies are innovated upon and built up the best. There is no stopping platform fracturing, so best give up that pipe dream.

BeatResetsTheWorld · Feb 25, 2015

Krejlooc said:
Valve, razor, nvidia, oculus, google and sony have been collaborating on this for years already.

So they're all collaborating, but ultimately Valve is creating it or Valve pitched the idea to them and is taking their input on various aspects?

injurai said:
Aww boo hoo, redundancy of standards... we want as many people find jobs in this as the economy will allow. That's how technologies are innovated upon and built up the best. There is no stopping platform fracturing, so best give up that pipe dream.

That's not true...the web itself in its current form wouldn't exist if not for a number of standards created and agreed upon by the W3C. Standardization is possible

Krejlooc · Feb 25, 2015

BeatResetsTheWorld said:
So they're all collaborating, but ultimately Valve is creating it or Valve pitched the idea to them and is taking their input on various aspects?

this is valve's project, its an extension of steamworks.

Bonus - its also cross platform; linux, osx, and windows.

astraycat · Feb 25, 2015

Krejlooc said:
I used collaborating in the correct, literal sense. They are outright sharing their information amongst each other.

If a spokesperson from those companies used the word "collaborating", it would be news. To use it differently seems rather facetious.

bj00rn_ · Feb 25, 2015

Krejlooc said:
I used collaborating in the correct, literal sense. They are outright sharing their information amongst each other.

They should also use their collaborating forces, including Samsung, to shove the entire patent system up Apple's where-the-sun-don't-shine.

Krejlooc · Feb 25, 2015

astraycat said:
If a spokesperson from those companies used the word "collaborating", it would be news. To use it differently seems rather facetious.

Im not using it "differently."

Im using it exactly in the way you dont seem to believe im using it. They are literally collaborating.

injurai · Feb 25, 2015

BeatResetsTheWorld said:
That's not true...the web itself in its current form wouldn't exist if not for a number of standards created and agreed upon by the W3C. Standardization is possible

Standardization and formalization of standards shouldn't happen prematurely, so crying about it now makes absolutely no sense. Because nothing has played out yet.

Krejlooc · Feb 25, 2015

injurai said:
Standardization and formalization of standards shouldn't happen prematurely, so crying about it now makes absolutely no sense. Because nothing has played out yet.

This isnt standardization. This is interface.

It exists because

Krejlooc said:
realistically that goes for all position tracking. in the end all your data is just a matrix.

Giever · Feb 25, 2015

Krejlooc said:
Yeah, this comic is stupid because it ignores that standards do arise this way.

Further, what standard api is valve competing against here?

It's not stupid. It points out a situation that does happen quite often in reality for the sake of humor. It's not like it's making a serious argument. Now, one could say that posting it in this thread is stupid, but that's a different matter.

injurai · Feb 25, 2015

Krejlooc said:
This isnt standardization. This is interface.

It exists because

I know, which is why I'm saying the complaints over redundancy are incredibly misplaced. But Khronos purists gonna do how they do.

astraycat · Feb 25, 2015

Krejlooc said:
Im not using it "differently."

Im using it exactly in the way you dont seem to believe im using it. They are literally collaborating.

No, literally collaborating implies that they're actually working with each other -- that there's some mutual support. The sharing of ideas is not the same thing as the sharing of work to realize those ideas.

Krejlooc · Feb 25, 2015

astraycat said:
No, literally collaborating implies that they're actually working with each other -- that there's some mutual support.

Yes, i know. That's what's going on.

mugwhump · Feb 25, 2015

Uh... haven't we known this for a while?

edit: OK, yes we have.

Krejlooc · Feb 25, 2015

mugwhump said:
Uh... haven't we known this for a while?

Krejlooc said:
I mean none of this is new information. I made a topic for this because every other post in these VR headset announcement topics are people wondering if a unifying API is going to emerge. Valve has been talking about this for a long time now.

.

astraycat · Feb 25, 2015

Krejlooc said:
Yes, i know. That's what's going on.

Well, I'll just say that when it came down to the way the API was designed by one of those companies, there was certainly no collaboration from outside.

AngryMoth · Feb 25, 2015

Good. I believe for vr to be a mainstream success the headsets needs to be like TVs. Don't need to have an oculus for pc and morpheus for ps4, etc.

Krejlooc · Feb 25, 2015

astraycat said:
there was certainly no collaboration from outside.

I'm running out of ways to tell you there is.

Seanspeed · Feb 25, 2015

Krejlooc said:
Valve, razor, nvidia, oculus, google and sony have been collaborating on this for years already.

I know they were talking to each other, but I was under the impression nothing had actually been agreed upon by anybody.

Or at least not by all.

atr0cious · Feb 25, 2015

This is excellent. My little VR dev group has been debating about how best to tackle this problem for our upcoming creations. Hopefully this means it'll be as easy as plugin and play.

Krejlooc, with all these announcements, do you see valve releasing some kind of DK?

astraycat · Feb 25, 2015

Krejlooc said:
I'm running out of ways to tell you there is.

Well, I guess you got to sit through all the same meetings then, and interpreted them differently.

BetterWorldz · Feb 25, 2015

Seeing how deep Valve are in VR, I am now convinced HL3 will be VR, it would be a brilliant attempt at trying to make it as groundbreaking as the first two, actually.

FunkyPajamas · Feb 25, 2015

Krejlooc said:
I mean none of this is new information. I made a topic for this because every other post in these VR headset announcement topics are people wondering if a unifying API is going to emerge. Valve has been talking about this for a long time now.

Thank you. I was one of those wondering about this so it's very good to know such a movement is in place. Glad Valve is working on it and happy to know that all the major players are aboard too. Thanks again!

Looking forward to our VR future!

Yokai · Feb 25, 2015

Krejlooc said:
Yeah, this comic is stupid because it ignores that standards do arise this way.

Yeah. That comic is way too shallow. Nothing is wrong with making more competition.

Also, how's this different from valves OpenVR program that they proposed?

Edit: nevermind. It is openvr! Good to know we'll hear more about it soon.

Krejlooc · Feb 25, 2015

astraycat said:
Well, I guess you got to sit through all the same meetings then, and interpreted them differently.

I'm not sitting in meetings, i directly communicate with chet and valves vr team.

TAJ · Feb 25, 2015

Blanquito · Feb 25, 2015

I'm curious about the extend of collaboration that you're mentioning. Sharing ideas, and/or sharing what they've learning, and/or sharing standards that will help devs build cross-platform games, and/or other things? All of the above?

Krejlooc · Feb 25, 2015

TAJ said:
nvm

RAZR is developing an open source Virtual Reality standard not an interface. Interface = many interconnected standards.

mclem · Feb 25, 2015

Good. This has been a massive thing worrying me about the onset of headset popularity.

deltatheta · Feb 25, 2015

Is this going to be an agreed-upon standard like OpenGL or something that's handed down by fiat like Direct X?

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