Exploring the world of Knightmare with Oculus Rift
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The bats along with their squeaking noise are indeed really good, and I especially liked the peering round into the arches to the left and right of the dwarf tunnel, something that of course never happened in Series 3 itself! Although I've always wondered what would happen if the dungeoneer walked into one of those arches instead of taking the obligatory exit directly ahead....
Nonetheless, great work as usual.
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These are marvellous, James. Thank you. You are certainly keeping up the good work - and 'good' is an understatement. The website VR Focus recently picked up on the Knightmare.com article and your work, so well done for that as well.
The Series 3 dwarf tunnels got away with being basic because the emphasis was on keeping the dungeoneer moving. Your version is atmospheric in different ways and gives an enhanced sense of claustrophobia.
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Thanks for bringing that to my attention. I wasn't aware that VRFocus had made an article on the project. Image below is a WIP of the Mills of Doom that I have been steadily working on recently. The cogs turn right now, the cog on the support rotates and moves up and down accordingly. Sound is pretty much done. Still need to implement the pendulum, floating object thing that moves back and forth? and make a bat fly past periodically. And yes, it's possible to fall between the teeth of the cogs and die
Full resolution image here:
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Image below is a WIP of the Mills of Doom that I have been steadily working on recently. The cogs turn right now, the cog on the support rotates and moves up and down accordingly. Sound is pretty much done. Still need to implement the pendulum, floating object thing that moves back and forth? and make a bat fly past periodically. And yes, it's possible to fall between the teeth of the cogs and die
Awesome, I can't wait to see what a Mills of Doom death would be like!
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Mills of Doom from Series 2 now finished. Featuring authentic sound effects and an animated bat that flies past occasionally .
Falling between the gaps of the cogs is naturally an insta-kill
Video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3s6cCtXLAu8
High res screenshots:
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Falling between the gaps of the cogs is naturally an insta-kill
I've always wondered how this would work. Despite the title containing the words "of Doom" and the massive chasm above which the Mills were suspended, it didn't seem like a massively deadly room, not least because the Mills themselves didn't rotate and the dungeoneers always seemed to be able to walk across the gaps between cogs without any problems!
A good example of how scary Knightmare can be even in a room which poses no threat and got no kills.
Adding the ability to die makes this a much better room! And the animated bat is a nice touch too!
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And the animated bat is a nice touch too!
Agreed, I love these little details! And it's so cool to see this room from all kinds of unusual angles.
James, have you thought about doing Slice Me Dice Me from KMVR / Geek Week, or would the jumping between platforms not be possible?
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I had been pondering on the possibility of doing the Slice Me Dice Me room at some point. Jumping is definitely not a problem as it was a requirement for the play your cards right room. Animating it should be reasonably simple and putting down triggers on the wrong tiles to make them fall away should be pretty simple stuff.
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With the release of Leap Motions Orion driver which greatly improves the tracking quality, I thought I'd try integrating it into the Play Your Cards Right puzzle. Being able to see your hands in VR really goes a long way in increasing the sense of presence. With the Leap Motion in, you physically need to reach out and touch the cards After adding it in, I replaced the blocks with ones that have smooth edges to be more in line with the original and upgraded the scripts so I have greater control of the animations. The cards now progressively appear like the original, the previous block goes back in as you progress through the puzzle and unlike the previous version, touching the wrong card results in the block visibly going back in (used to disappear before).
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Had a rather nice breakthrough earlier. Whilst looking through the Oculus Rift debug C# code, I came across a function that allows Oculus mirroring to be disabled with the press of a key. Having had trouble with mirroring normal cameras to the monitor in the past, I decided to try pressing the key and I suddenly gained the ability to show room cameras on the monitor instead of what's going in the Rift! The VR still functions like it normally does so you effectively get a nice representation of Knightmares Magic Mirror on the monitor.
Ragdoll deaths have now implemented which look vastly more realistic than the original TV program. There's no way these would've gotten past censors back in the way
Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=leD8ZjRLAbs
The death at 1:47 made me flinch so hard I was jointly looking at the side wall and checking the camera was outputting to the monitor and I failed to see how much of the floor fell away. Looking back at the footage, there are times where it feels like your watching an episode of Knightmare.
With a mocap suit such as Razer Stem or PrioVR and sufficient room space (inline with original blue screen sets), I do believe 1:1 recreations of Knightmare will eventually be possible with consumer level technology as long as the mocoap suits have sufficient range. It's easy enough to blindfold the player by obstructing their vision to truly make it like the original.
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Indeed. We were looking at something very similar a couple of weeks ago
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I spy the Arken shield in the distance! Nice touch!
It's not so much a touch as part of the accurate recreation of Julie's team's PYCR, and is of course only in the distance until the player moves closer to it.
Dazzling work as ever, James. Thank you for continuing to share it with us. It sounds like you're gaining plenty of satisfaction from the project too.
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Thanks all so much for your continued support with this.
Apologies in advance for the big wall of pictures that's about to follow but I had another big breakthrough yesterday with my understanding scripting. I now understand "static variables" which are basically variables in a script that can be modified from any script. Such a thing will now eventually pave the way for a functioning inventory system amongst other more complex things. The Great Causeways F-I-N-D puzzle for example could now be replicated in this manner in the future along with Keys and other critical quest items that are required to progress through the dungeon.
Onwards to the update:
The rune puzzle from Series 8 is now fully implemented and functional. You have to touch the runes in order otherwise nothing happens.
The Reach Wand from Series 8 has now been implemented which allows you to interact with the runes from a distance. A laser pointer has been included with it to make aiming it easier.
Before you do all this, you have to give Brother Strange his proverb so he'll give you the combination to the rune puzzle (remember it or write it down!). If you don't give him the proverb, you'll effectively be put in losing status like the original program.
I've included a check in the rune room to see if you've given him the proverb. If you haven't, then the puzzle goes into lockdown and you won't be able to progress any further.
This is to basically prevent cheating and to stop Tim Child foaming at the mouth when the dungeoneer wildly waves the Reach Wand around to try guess the combination. Using my new understanding of static variables, I was able to replicate the behaviour of this puzzle to match the original program which would've been practically impossible before. Naturally, all the original sound effects are intact.
Take too long solving the puzzle or if you don't have the combination............
**BHAL-SHEBAH LIVES AGAIN!! **
He enters the room like the original program with the original voice and sound effects before frying you! It really is a surreal feeling to watch him emerge from the shadows when you're in the room in VR. The watchers get a nice view of the action from the monitor which closely mirrors the original program. Once he enters the room, control is taken away from the player so the player can't run away. The room camera in this room is deliberately off center. The reasoning for this is where Bhal-Shebah is a physical 3D entity in the room geometry instead of a 2D video superimposed over the 2D dungeon graphics, there was initially a problem where he would get in the way of the camera. Regardless though, it really does closely mirror the program
Uh-oh..........
AAARRRRGGGHHHH!!!!!
I was supposed to have shown the Coridoor of Blades room camera in the previous update but I overlooked it by accident
High res images here:
Video here: (Video seems brighter than what it should've been for some reason) Pictures above more closely reflect how it looks in the rift)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U1deKsDAeN4
I once told myself a long time ago I'd never ever program. I never imagined I'd be making things as complex as this when I first started using Unity. Once again, I can't thank you all enough for giving me the motivation I need to continue onwards with this project. Motivation is so importent when things in the program start misbehaving leading to hours of debugging and learning new things to do things more efficiently within the progran. If any of you get an Oculus Rift CV1 can you let me know please and I'll start uploading playable binaries. It should be due out sometime in the coming week and I woudl be interested in knowing if SDK 0.8 is compatible with CV1.
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