Exploring the world of Knightmare with Oculus Rift
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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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This is so good! Love the dragon and the way this is starting to develop into a quest.
It will be interesting to see how this develops. The challenge will be how to add variety and replayability to the dunegon. I guess this could be done with different dungeon paths or randomisation to ensure each quest is different. For now seeing the rooms in action is impressive enough!
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Thanks again for all your feedback .
Having been relegated to being in a stable for Series 8, Smirkenorf once again takes to the skies to give Dungeoneers lifts to Level 2. \O/
Welcome back 1993 SGI terrain
I've since been learning Unity3D's terrain/foliage system so expect some more terrains to be in line with the original flight sequences at somepoint in the future, maybe Wolfingdon and the castles and Eyeshield sequences in woods.
Along with this, I've made the beginnings of an inventory system that follows the original two item rule. Smirkenorf will say something different depending on wether you give him the Dragon Mint or the Firestone. Taking the key here is required to make the door in the next room open. If you don't take it, you'll technically be in losing status and will have to take the alternative exit as the door will not open otherwise. As seen in the video, the items persist between the clue room and Smirkenorfs flight area which is quite a major step forward with regards to eventually implementing somekind of quest progression. (still need to implement NPCs at somepoint Gulp ) At somepoint, I'd really like to try implement the status bar used in Series 4 onwards to show the items in the players possession and to make it just that extra bit more authentic.
Video : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6UjB3f7bZsc
High-res images : http://imgur.com/a/bzHPu
With the release of CV1, I have now updated KnightmareVR to use the final Rift SDK. I now feel ready to release a beta version of this for you to play around with as long as you have a DK2/CV1 Rift.
Download link:
http://www.mediafire.com/download/2ssr7kzp6fg8qm7/KnightmareVRPrototype.zip
Controls (X-Box 360 pad)
B - Use (Only used in Sewers of Goth slime version and for sitting on Smirkenorfs Saddle)
A - Jump
Left Stick - Move Forwards/Backwards/Strafe
Right Stick - Turn Left/Right
D Pad - Navigate Menus
Keyboard Controls
R - Reset camera position
M - Show room camera on monitor (only on certain rooms right now)
Escape - Quit to desktop
Known bugs:
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You can fall off the Dragon in the test flight area if your not careful. Just stay squarely on his back for now.
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After playing through the smirkenorf item test area, sometimes it still thinks you have the items on a 2nd playthrough. Restart the game to work around this.
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Start Quest button in main menu is a placeholder right now. Pressing it just takes you back to the main menu.
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Before you sit in the boat/saddle, you have to look straight ahead otherwise the camera will go out of alignment.
Bare in mind that a Leap Motion is required for the Play Your Cards Right puzzle room, The Runes Puzzle Room and the Smirkenorf Flight Test areas. When an industry standard can be established in terms of motion controls wether it be the Vives Motion Controls or the Oculus Touch ect ect, I'll update it to utilise them. It's not clear what the universal standard is right now but given how young VR is, it's difficult to support all the standards in one go along with cost limitations of being able to access the hardware itself to test with. Some of the rooms like the Causeways will be undergoing internal restructuring at somepoint as since I made those, I have learnt more about scripting and want to implement a system for myself to make the creation of new causeways much quicker as they're currently tied too closely to the animation.
Having been working on this for the past 10 months, this has progressed well beyond what I originally envisioned. Starting life as a basic room viewer, the foundations/rules of the original program are beginning to manifest themselves through programming/scripting which I never thought I'd be capable of. I once again thank you all for your support for giving me the motivation I need to work on this.
The two pictures below are of the Smirkenorf test area in its earliest form before I started adding all the geometry and voice triggers.
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Wow amazing.
I had a quick look at the beta which is really impressive, it really is great to see these rooms replicated in all their glory. I can't emphasise enough how good your work is.
A few comments if others haven't made these already. Please don't take these as gospel as I haven't yet got an Oculus so can't say if these issues will be replicated if played as intended, best to wait for others who have to make sure any issues are replicated.
-The Block and Tackle is really fun, and very unpredictable.
-Really like the multiples of 7 causeway, quite challenging too and great to see how this might have worked.
-I get stuck on the 5 on the Great Causeway, it seems to block passage.
-Play Your Cards Right is an excellent replication of the original
-The Death by Spears for me is too quick, maybe this should be slowed down?
-The dungeoneer sprite for the moving block puzzle is just a blob. (But fine for the fireball version)
Great work.
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Thanks for the feedback. I think the Great Causeway got broke with one of the updates to Unity a while back. It was one of the earlier rooms I made so have'nt put back a lot of the programming code in that I've since learnt. At somepoint, I am intending to rewrite my causeway system as it's currently tied too closely to premade animations which doesn't give me much control over how it runs. That and it'll allow me to make new causeways much more quickly. Plus when I re-write it, I'll have an opportunity to add in an anti-cheat system to stop the dungeoneer running across the causeway causing Tim Child to scream blue murder
The Death of Spears like the Causeways will again need to be refactored in someway as it's currently a pre-set animation which doesn't give me much control of how it runs.
Could you show me the dungeoneer sprite on the moving block puzzle please. I don't recall adding a dungeoneer in as a sprite. Is it a white cylinder? If so, that was an early placeholder dungeoneer model that I may have overlooked
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