Second Life: Oculus Rift CV1 Viewer & How To

Hamlet at New World Notes is pointing out David Rowe has a SL VR Viewer working. The page Hamlet  linked to is out of date. The new news is in the comments where David says,

Oculus Riftを貰った

Oculus Riftを貰った

David Rowe Post author5 Jul 2016 at 11:22 am

Just tried LL’s Rift viewer and, well, it’s surprisingly un-good. It’s like the graphics are being fed from the wrong framebuffer object or the pipeline is being misconfigured when you switch into HMD view. Intentional or bugs? I suppose time will tell. The graphics should be able to be so much better (even if understandably the FPS isn’t so good)!

Links:

Note Jo Yardley’s comment about being able to use Vorpx with a regular viewer (i,e., like Firestorm, Alchemy, or LL’s regular viewer) to view Second Life in your Rift. I haven’t tried it myself but am told it can be used.

After seeing Linden Lab’s dropping of their Rift viewer…

David Rowe Post author10 Jul 2016 at 10:13 am

Yes, I’ve seen the LL Rift news. All very disappointing and a quite bizarre situation. I’m having a look this weekend at whether it might be possible to update the CtrlAltStudio Viewer “as is” to use the latest Oculus Rift runtime.

And…

David Rowe Post author11 Jul 2016 at 5:53 pm

I’ve managed to get something up and running with the latest Oculus runtime. A few loose ends to tidy up before providing a test build.

Then with something to show…

David Rowe Post author11 Jul 2016 at 9:12 pm

Hot off the hard drive and ready for some testing: 1.2.6.43402 Alpha. Pretty much the same as the previous version – including the same general limitations – but built with Oculus SKD 1.5.0 so that it runs with the latest Oculus runtime.

https://ctrlaltstudioviewer.codeplex.com/downloads/get/1589124

I’ve tested it with a DK2 but not a CV1. In theory it should work fine with a CV1; let me know. Can be installed over the top of previous version, 1.2.5.43397 Alpha.

To use: Turn on your Rift then start the viewer, and after logging in do the usual Ctrl-Alt-3 to toggle into Riftlook.

Follow on comments show the viewer is working with CV1.

David Rowe Post author12 Jul 2016 at 8:56 am

Thanks very much for the testing and feedback, everyone.

For the UI, if you feel so inclined, you can edit the following file to increase the min/max values of the “UI Depth” slider in the Viewer > Preferences > Display Output > Oculus Rift settings:

C:\Program Files (x86)\CtrlAltStudio-Viewer-Alpha\skins\default\xui\en\panel_preferences_graphics1.xml.

Near the end of the file there’s a control “RiftUIDepth”: adjust the “min_val” and “max_val” values. Let me know if you find a good default UI Depth value and range of values for the CV1.

Yes, I have a CV1 but it is still in its shipping box. : ) Maybe next weekend.

And another follow up:

Kalera Seelowe12 Jul 2016 at 3:15 pm

Oh, that helped a lot. I found the ideal value on a CV1 to be around -100 or -110. The UI is pretty readable at that point without having to close one eye.

And…

TTech12 Jul 2016 at 6:03 pm

Found the solution. Thanks for pointing the way David.

When you first open the file you will see that originally “max_val” is set to 120 and “min_val” is set to 0

Change min_val to: -120

The CV1 starts to focus at -80 and below, From their you can adjust it to your taste.

Remember, after you change the vaules in the .xml file you have to restart ctrlaltviewer then go to Viewer > Preferences > Display Output > Oculus Rift and then adjust the UI Depth slider you will notice that it won’t stop at 0 it will continue onwards to -120

Now the UI is usable and you’re good to go.

So, we have third party support for VR in Second Life. I expected something. But, had no clue it would be this soon.

Now it will be interesting to see how many other third party viewers pick up David’s code. I expect it to show up in Firestorm in a reasonably short time. But, I am speculating.

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