Mitch how is developing going? Is there any plans to update?

[sambuev]

Hello Mitch, I like your asset very much, big thank you for this, I'm curious about future developments, how is it going? Are you going to update it with some new features or at least support your current asset with new 4.19 version?

[mitchemmc]

Hey, I'm currently super busy with other work so I haven't had the time I would like to work on VR stuff. I opened the project in 4.19 and every thing seemed to work so the main upgrade points would just be new features (like spectator screen, using stereo layers with UMG or the new default controller models).

As it might be a little while before I get a chance to look at the project again I'll lay down some of the things I had in the pipeline before I got overrun with work.

1. I wanted to look at refactoring the world interaction and trace interaction into one system. This is because the more I used them the more I realised how similar they are. One of the use cases of this would be interacting with a world based UI, I wanted to be able to interact with the UI laser pointer style but then still be able to go up to it and interact with it like a touch screen. This would be pretty trivial if both systems were combined.
2. I've started to move away from attaching objects directly to the motion controller when picking them up. Instead I've started to rely more on using a Physics Handle to grab the object and then attaching Physics Constraints to the object as needed. This approach means that making things like doors or draws is rather trivial and they still maintain their physical properties from the engine. One of the reasons why this approach wasn't looked into before is because of the motion controller late update, which will update the position of the controller at the very last moment to get the least amount of latency. Comparing this to objects attached with a Physics Handle, which get updated in the physics tick that happens before this. These two things together make it seem like objects lag behind in your hand when using Physics Handles. Previously this was a deal breaker to me, but I remember seeing a talk by the devs of Robo Recall where they mention that they simply disable late update to get around this and to me if they can do it and get away with it then why not do it too, haha.
3. I really felt that a glaring omission in the current content examples is locomotion examples, some kind of level that shows how to make an proper IK system and a stick locomotion method that become so popular after the rise of the VR shooters (onward , pavlov, etc.) would be a very nice addition

Again I'm not sure when I'll be able to implement those things, which I'm sorry about, although I have done a couple of those thing in other projects like my book and other materials related to it, migrating those over seems like it will take a bit to much time at the moment.

[Limbicnation]

Hi Mitch, I have enjoyed reading your book! Indeed, I’m curious how you would interact with objects using Physics Handler instead. Looking forward to future updates!

[karlduckett]

Hey Mitch,

Just wanted to say thanks for the great VR resources - I'm totally new at UE4 and this is invaluable for me!