The quote in the topic title is from joe ludwig himself.
-
Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.
valve developing a unifying api for vr headsets, "the direct x of vr"
- Thread starter Krejlooc
- Start date
The quote in the topic title is from joe ludwig himself.
Well, one of them usually wins. Its usually not a good one. Its just whichever giant mega corp pushes its weight the most.
I have some friends at Facebook/Occulus who said they were doing this a year ago... doesn't bode well for cooperation I guess, or Valve just wanted some PR.
serversurfer
Member
I'm not clear on what this actually is. What is Steamworks, exactly? Is this just support for "all headsets" in Source? That's what they call their engine, right? Then what makes this a "standard"? How is it "Valve's thing" if Sony are working on it too? If it's a standard, will Unity and Unreal benefit in some way too?
What about consoles?
Its basically a steam platform feature. Devs can publish on steam and know that the api will ensure a broad range of HMDs work with their games without the need to make changes to support each HMD. Calls just go to the api. Steam are ahead of the game on this one I think. No one else seems to be doing it on PC platforms.
My understanding is that PS4 will only support morpheus
The question you seem to be asking is actually "what is an interface?" This isnt a standard, this is an interface.
interfaces are means of taking wholly unrelated ideas or standards that output a similar way, and unifying their output. As i mentioned to durante, when you are talking about any posotional tracking, the resulting output is a matrix (3 vectors, in other words). How the headsets themselves work is inconsequential - so long as they arrive at the same result. To give an example off the top of my head, roads are an interface, that takes you from one destination to another. It doesnt matter which standard you use - bikes, walking, cars, etc - they all output the same way, and thus are compatible with the same road.
Interface is an actual concept in programming, read up on it to understand this better. to rapid fire answer your questions - steamworks is an api to facilitate functions within steam, this is unrelatex to source (you can use steamworks with any engine), Its valves thing because they are funding, developing, spearheading, and maintaining the project.
And it is up to the specific console makers if they want to support this specific api.
Actually, most dont realize you dont need steam itself - the client i mean - to use steamworks. Although why the hell would you ever separate the two?
Dreamgazer
Member
As long as it's opensource.
Maybe you can tell people who the fuck you are and why they should listen to you. Your posts/threads always seem to suggest everybody knows what the hell you're talking about.
He's explained it quite a few times before, to be fair. But yes, newcomers aren't going to know.
I don't browse all the furry sonic threads.
a secret-boss
Banned
That collaboration exchange on page one LOL
Woah, calm down. I believe he worked on HL2 VR and has been in contact with Valve's VR team as a result, among other things I'm sure.
FunkyPajamas
Member
Is there some history that we should know about? Why the hostility?
We are on page one you pleb
I am part of the 3-man team working on Half Life 2 VR, co-owner of a new company funded by MD Anderson for neurology research using VR, and long time VR developer. During dev days in 2014, for example, essentially all the VR threads created were using me as a source before I joined GAF. I have been in close contact with Valve's VR team since our last (as in, most recent, not final) release of Half Life 2 VR back in october when valve reached out to me (not the other way around), and have connections to companies like Capcom and Sony. As an example, I openly talked about Super Stardust VR over a year before it was announced, and almost 6 months before Morpheus itself was unveiled. I've been developing for the Steam Controller for over a year.
I've been on shows like Reverand Kyle on Road to VR, I run a large developers group out of Houston, I work closely with Virtuix, Sixense, and NASA. I've been on the Oculus subreddit since there was one to begin with. I, like, really know my shit when it comes to VR development.
I would expect, without bragging at this point, that I qualify as a source by this point.
Oh, well in that case, I guess I don't post in creepy topics about female anime children, so it's no wonder our paths haven't crossed.
"I am the source" is as arrogant as it comes really.
Nah, that would be "I don't browse all the furry sonic threads."
FunkyPajamas
Member
It's a fact though. And not a personal attack, at all.
the problem is that you seem to be the only source
one would think that given how many people seem to be involved someone would have talked about it publicly, but there is nothing
sorry but given the lack of information, my first guess would be that given all those big names a consortium would be more likely to handle a unifying api rather than just valve
Not to those who don't read through all the VR threads; but at least he explained it now in this thread.
KojiKnight
Member
... Did you just call XKCD stupid? Wow...
Valve talked about it at Dev Days... before these companies had even announced their headsets. Hence they used vague terminology like "other headsets" even if, when you look at their pictures released, if you're familiar with these particular headsets, you can see their prototypes in the background.
And someone is talking about it publicly - me.
Holy shit, every fucking little thing just has to be a problem...
It doesn't really bother me, amongst those in the know (people like Feep), they know who I am. I don't know why that guy is seething and unpleasant, but whatever.
Mass_Pincup
Banned
Lmao what was he supposed to say?
Well done, fellow Houstonian
I advertise the group regularly in the rift thread. Assuming you're still in Houston, we run our meetings every 3rd thursday of the month out of TxRx Labs (https://txrxlabs.org/) at 7pm, free and open to anybody who is interested in VR. We've had business professionals, freelance programmers, even small kids drop by, and we include food too. Feel free to swing through if you're interested.
in a few months, virtuix will host the meeting at their HQ near downtown, and Sixense will attend as well. Everyone will be free to try their tech. And NASA is coming out in a few meetings as well.
We also have the Unity group coming out as well, and some people from a film studio showed up 2 meetings ago.
We also have the Unity group coming out as well, and some people from a film studio showed up 2 meetings ago.
EDIT: Oh and I think Unello (the eden river people) are showing up to our next meeting, too.
Meh, I misunderstood. I thought he meant that those companies internally were collaborating on their own APIs, not that they were collaborating over Valve's API, which since Valve's aims to be a standard, makes sense.
To Krejlooc: My b
Oh wow, I didn't know that.
iceatcs
Junior Member
It is quite shame. At least it didn't bother you.
I think "collaborating" might have scare some, especially fanboy don't like the idea of share/work with most hate company.
ieptbarakat
Member
Can you add the info to the op for people who don't know? Can't assume that every poster knows/knew who you are.
Well, I sort of had to pull back on that stuff because my actual career in VR development has taken off (like I mentioned, we just got funding from MD Anderson, as in, last friday). But the first revision was released yesterday
Choosing between working on Sonic Xtreme and advancing my career in VR was like choosing my favorite child, but I couldn't really turn down VR work. I decided I wanted to persue a career in VR a long while ago, and for a while it was looking like all 3 of us were going to go to Crytek, then when Valve reached out to us we were kind of in Limbo... MD Anderson was like the single best thing to happen to me in the last decade. Well, really deciding to buy a rift and enter VR development was. To say it's changed my life would be an understatement.
Well, I sort of had to pull back on that stuff because my actual career in VR development has taken off (like I mentioned, we just got funding from MD Anderson, as in, last friday). But the first revision was released yesterday
Choosing between working on Sonic Xtreme and advancing my career in VR was like choosing my favorite child, but I couldn't really turn down VR work. I decided I wanted to persue a career in VR a long while ago, and for a while it was looking like all 3 of us were going to go to Crytek, then when Valve reached out to us we were kind of in Limbo... MD Anderson was like the single best thing to happen to me in the last decade. Well, really deciding to buy a rift and enter VR development was. To say it's changed my life would be an understatement.
That's great, i'm really happy for you because you seem a really cool guy... continue your good work.
Well, not being rude, but i really dont want this topic to be about me. Valve's stuff is incredible, and this topic should have lots of new info in about a week.
Well you did kind of come in here and make a pretty huge statement.
ieptbarakat
Member
Considering you're using yourself as the source it would be fair to give a small background as to why people should assume this information to be true. I really didn't have any clue until the overreaction earlier in the thread.
Either way, looking forward to hearing more about this!
Yeah but people can flick through the thread and find the info easily enough
I guess, it just seems pretty newsworthy to people who may not be following the scene that closely. I'm glad that all these different competing companies are all working toward some kind of common goal.
The idea of vr fanboyism saddens me. Vr isnt a product to be put out by sony or Valve or oculus, its a medium. I dont see how someone can love the rift but not morpheus or even hololens.
All this is the same tech revolution! This is so extremely exciting that i honestly feel sorry for those who let brand loyalty spoil their excitement. i lived through the formation of the internet (been onlinrle since late 80s), watched 3d acceleration grow into what it is today... vr is following the exact same path. Its ok to just be genuinely excited imo. This is fundamentally cool technology.
LOL good lord
Calm your tempy.
Thanks for the invite! I'll check out the site.
Txrx is actually just a makerspace we partnered with... i actually don't think we have a website haha. Oh wait, guess we do - http://www.houstonvr.com
Just really out of date. We have cool regular guests - one of zeboyd games is a college friend of mine and regularly comes to meetings, and one of the developers of mortal kombat and nba jam runs an open source collaborating project for our group.
We've been doing this for over a year, this is actually how we got involved with md anderson. Good business opportunities there.
pooptacular
Member
Hold up, half life 2 is still getting VR updates? I never got it to run at a solid 75hz, any updates would be AMAZING!
We are planning an enormous revision to move to opengl thanks to oculus depreciating dx9. So it might be a while till our next release.
pooptacular
Member
As long as it's on the radar that's good enough for me, thanks for responding!