Developer Blog – An outline of technical/design accommodations and considerations for VR

This post summarizes 6 or 7 other posts on the subject. Check back as I intend to update this as new #VRdev tips and tricks emerge! To clarify the difference between accommodations and considerations: Technical accommodations must be made in order for the game to be, design considerations must be made in order for the game to be successful.

 

  1. Technical Accommodations: Developing for VR means optimizing which in turn means:
    1. Low poly models, low resolution textures
    2. LODs and Mipmaps
    3. Object culling and object occlusion
    4. lightmapping
    5. And more, including but not limited to…
    6. Static batching/mesh baking:
      1. Choose to use as few materials as possible
      2. Use only mobile shaders for your materials and experiment to ensure they work in-game
      3. Combine textures that use the same shader into a single Texture Atlas
        1. In a 3d editor:
          1. Combine meshes
          2. Re-arrange UVs
          3. Split meshes prior to export
          4. Create textures
        2. Or in Unity
          1. Use 3rd party Texture Atlasing tools
      4. Mark static GameObjects as such in the Inspector
  2. Design Accommodations: Designing to facilitate technical accommodations means:
    1. Developing for lo-spec hardware
      1. Limit line-of-sight
      2. Closed world
      3. Sparse art asset population
  3. Design Considerations: VR presents unique development challenges; the following should be considered:
    1. UI
      1. World Space
      2. 3D World Space
      3. Screen Space – Camera
    2. Rendering
      1. non-photorealistic
      2. faceted low poly
      3. avoid grainy textures
      4. “artistic”
    3. Navigation
      1. address head/body misalignment
      2. pair with the appropriate hardware controller(s)
      3. eliminate navigation
        1. player is stationary
        2. teleportation
    4. Mitigating simulation sickness
      1. Avoid near plane re-refocusing
        1. singular reference points are a rare exception
        2. see also “UI”
      2. Create unfamiliar gameplay
        1. third-person perspective
        2. foreign environment
        3. foreign interactions
        4. see also “Rendering”
      3. Avoid replicating situations that are nauseating IRL
        1. no motion blur
        2. no head bob
        3. no back peddling/strafing
        4. no smash cuts
        5. see also “no navigation”
    5. Enhancing the VR experience
      1. Narrative immersion
      2. Gratuitous 3D
      3. Avoid mitigations of parallax and stereopsis

 

While you needn’t implement all of the tips and tricks that these design considerations suggest, a successful VR Project would need to implement a majority of these proposed solutions. It would benefit the developer to pattern their VR Project after successful VR games. This does the double-duty of helping to establish standardized semiotics; as VR semiotics become standardized, players will have a set of expectations that they can take with them from game to game. This synchronization of expectations will go a long ways toward mitigating common design challenges.

 

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