Exploring the world of Knightmare with Oculus Rift

[DJOSKA87]

So, I've started drawing up 3D models for the game's non-player characters.
This is a steep learning curve for me- from sculpting faces, rigging clothes and getting used to software which I've never had to use before (Blender 2.

I've been working on Elita, Gwendoline (see other post) and now Hordriss.
You'd think his flowing cloak would be easy, but this took some fathoming in order to get the cloth simulation to behave properly.
The medallion was made from scratch (good old YouTube for close-up reference images of Hordriss) and the hair is "real", meaning it consists of thousands of tiny strands.

The next challenge is trying to figure out how to add the red streaks to the sides and along the eyebrows.

Hordriss1.jpg (38.23 KiB) Viewed 4925 times

Now I wonder who I should start on next... :-D

[jamesuk]

Hi all,
It's been far too long since I've posted here but I can't really hold off not talking about this any longer.

Basically work on this for the past couple of years has ceased entirely. My reasons being are the follows:

1) Lack of overall interest in terms of those that downloaded usable VR binaries. Admittedly due to a lack of VR headsets in the wild at the time and the fact that Knightmare itself appears to have very little interest overseas in places like the United States where other than one episode that IIRC got broadcast from Rhode Island, it appears to be completely unknown outside of UK which in my belief has resulted in hardly any downloads of the binaries. With the exception of France and Spain that had their own versions of Knightmare based around Series 1-3.

2) The sheer amount of time it'd take to refit it to work with modern motion controller implementations. (further complicated by point 1). IIRC, I tried refitting it with motion controllers and the ragdoll system just wouldn't get on with it. The fact that I'm extremely inexperienced as a programmer doesn't really help matters as I was mainly dependent on studying code snippets online and modifying them where applicable.

3) The main one: Burnout. It was getting to the point where I was getting home from work and then starting up on this immediately upon getting home. Not a good mix in retrospect considering how much my workload was going up in my job. This in turn started adversely affecting my ability to sleep. I had no choice but to walk away. The amount of stress I was getting from being frustrated with my limitations in programming wasn't helping matters either.

4) My overall inexperience with programming was severely holding me back from making a proper usable game out of it. Even when making basic code in Javascript and C#, it'd take me hours possibly several days to get something basic working. Something a proper experienced programmer could get working in minutes or a matter of hours.

5) My inability to create advanced NPC animations and make proper scripted sequences with them was severely holding me back in terms of making the game more advanced and faithful to its source material.

I love the work I did on KnightmareVR. I really do think the absolute world of the effort I went through to present to you all what I believed at the time to be the next step in Knightmares evolution and the ability to experience it in the very medium that Tim Child at one point sought after doing but was unable to due to the technological limitations at the time.

Although my work on this has ceased, I hope my work has bought inspiration to others here who may be able to iterate on where I've ultimately left off. As knightmare continued to evolve with the absolutely cutting edge of technologies that existed throughout its run on CITV, I know for a fact that Knightmare can live on through the advancements that current technology and the future technology that AI Neural Networks can bring once they've sufficiently evolved enough.

I cannot thank you all enough for the interest you've showed in this project for the past couple of years. The download link will stay up for the time being but due to the fact that it's an old version of Unity and was made during a time where the Oculus Rift didn't even have motion controllers, I can't guarantee how it'll run. If it'll even run at all.

[AriadnesLayer]

James I absolutely loved the work you did on this. Thank you.

You only have one life and you shouldn't spend it doing stuff that is not rewarding for you and/or is simply not worth the effort. I for one am glad you did the amount that you did.

Thank you for taking the time to come and give us an update.

[Drassil]

Welcome back, James. Thank you for sharing this with us. To echo what AriadnesLayer has said: your VR ambition and achievements were stunning, but your health is a price that none of us would want you to pay. No quest can succeed without life force. I hope you will continue to appreciate and engage with Knightmare and ways that work for you.