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Valve opens up SteamVR Tracking to everybody for free
- Thread starter dex3108
- Start date
DouglasteR
Member
This is massive.
Imagine the ammount of things that can be tracked ?
Your dog etc.
Imagine the ammount of things that can be tracked ?
Your dog etc.
KatamariOnTheRocks
Member
I've been super psyched for this for a long time.
I'd deff get a tracked collar for my dog if/when they're made - https://youtu.be/TDOVa82SKNI?t=30s
I'd deff get a tracked collar for my dog if/when they're made - https://youtu.be/TDOVa82SKNI?t=30s
DeathSparks
Member
Awesome, I'll definitely sign up for this in the fall. I'm going into Game Development myself
CrunchyFrog
Member
Some fine print, but Tbf you probably should get some kind of training in regards to best practices, especially since the market for this will be niche at first and you don't want bad press from amateurs mudding up your product integrity.
LUFTRAUSER
Banned
I'm glad Valve is converting all that virtual hat and skins economy money into useful technology.
GuitarAtomik
Member
FINALLY! Now give me tracked ankle bracelets please!
It's likely that this approach will work in Valve's favour in the long run. Unlike the Oculus approach of trying to lock shit down.
Of course they are in a far better position to do that, because they aren't manufacturing and selling devices, they just need to keep customers using Steam.
Of course they are in a far better position to do that, because they aren't manufacturing and selling devices, they just need to keep customers using Steam.
valve giving away base-level tech like this and source 2 is potentially way more impactful and is definitely far more scalable than simply funding games
There's no doubt that allowing hardware manufacturers to make their own tracked devices royalty-free is a huge deal. In the very long run, assuming lighthouse tracking becomes the standard, this will be more impactful. In the near future, I'm more excited about larger-budget and larger-scale VR games.
I kinda doubt Source 2 will be a huge thing when we have UE4 and Unity around, but I've been surprised by Valve before.
I kinda doubt Source 2 will be a huge thing when we have UE4 and Unity around, but I've been surprised by Valve before.
it doesn't have the install base but source 2 being entirely free is pretty big, ue4 and unity still charge royalty rates as long as you're selling a product made with those engines
hans_castorp
Member
Is the dog included, or do we have to buy/ adopt it separately?
Yeah, but people put up with the royalty because Epic and Unity actually put effort into their engines being something that's suitable for customers to use. There's a reason why Source 1 has an average of less than three third party games a year. Hell, even Valve themselves uses Unity over Source 2 for some of their VR projects.
KatamariOnTheRocks
Member
It comes included with the Vive, but you have to pay $200 extra to adopt one from Oculus
did they not improve the dev tools from source 1? i thought that was the big reason behind the engine rework, disappointing if that didn't succeed
Their most recent public-facing version of the tools, the Destinations SDK, is... a lot better than Source tools have ever been, for sure, but not really in the same ballpark as UE4 as far as intuitiveness (and I assume feature set) goes.
But Destinations isn't a game development platform, obviously, and who knows when they're planning on releasing the full SDK, etc etc
well that's a shame
unity has proven conclusively that ease of use is the most important factor in getting developer uptake on an engine, even with all of its deficiencies over the years it's still got huge marketshare
In regards to Valve using Unity a few times, it's probably not really fair to use that against them - Source 2 was /still is in development and they also wanted to work with building out Unity support for SteamVR - there are plenty of reasons as to why it would have been beneficial for Valve to use Unity in a few of their projects for SteamVR that have nothing to do with how good Source 2 is to develop with.
I wasn't really using it as a "gotcha" or anything, it's more of a point that shows that Source 2 isn't really ready for primetime.
Well, it's better. But there's also the issue of the dev tools being Windows only (depsite the fact that the games can compile cross platform), no real console or mobile support to speak of, no real customer service or community self-help, etc.
Valve themselves have shown, really elegantly, that Oculus hardware does full 360-degree room scale tracking in a manner that is awfully comparable to the Lighthouse tracking system.
Lighthouse versus Oculus Camera isn't a roomscale vs forward-facing thing. Oculus supporting roomscale is just a matter of Oculus including long enough cables in the Touch box and saying "sure we'll do roomscale too" on the software end, but even if they don't support it people will be able to use SteamVR software combined with Oculus hardware to get it.
Unity now has over 1000 employees. Valve is like 300 and the vast majority aren't working on Source 2.
It may do some specific things very well but there's no way it can compete with Unity in features/support/ease of use/community.