Exploring the world of Knightmare with Oculus Rift

[Beefybeef]

Love the causeways, these were one of my favourites, think I preferred them over the series 6 ones with the numbers. The different themes made things more interesting when worked into the quests.

It would be really good to be able to switch between first person and ragdoll view if this is possible.

This makes me really want an Oculus....

[jamesuk]

If you're referring to a first person ragdoll view through the Oculus Rift, it would cause instant motion sickness. One of the main rules with VR development is to strictly avoid moving the players view too much otherwise it will cause discomfort. Even when I was playing Luckys Tale a couple of weeks ago, it took me a while to get used to that due to how the camera moves around.

[Beefybeef]

I see, I read somewhere avoiding motion sickness was a major issue with VR!

[jamesuk]

Time for another update. I've implemented the first variant of the Blocker as seen in Series 5/6. I had to animate a morph in 3DS Max in order to make the face seamlessly come out of the wall. Naturally, all the sound effects are intact. The disappearing effect was done by creating a wall with 3D blocks and then making every couple of blocks move back and to the side by 1 or 2 frames to try and emulate the quick zipping effect. Kinda tricky at first as the frame timings had to be specific.









Room perspective




Give the Blocker the wrong password and your going down the hatch


Arrgggg!

Looks like the remains of Chris are still here after all these years.

The ragdoll effect here looks quite a bit better than the original animated 2D cardboard cutout getting sucked into the mouth



High resolution images:
http://imgur.com/a/EAJLu

Video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vpaFz8yu2pI

Updated demo:
http://www.mediafire.com/download/s56yo ... totype.rar

Second Blocker variant hopefully to come once I can figure out an optimal way of recreating the wall morph (gulp as it's significantly more complex than this one geometry/structure wise).

On a slightly unrelated note, was it Tim Child that said password? The Orc in the Knightmare VR pilot who was voiced by Tim Child IIRC just sounds quite similar.

[SLRCATCH]

Ooh. I could so play this right now.....I've got a question, can you do the Raining Fireballs Room from Series 8? Here's a clip: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0cz5dDqlMss

[pjmlfc05]

Awesome work as usual! Loved the pov when the blocker eats the dungeoneer!

[Canadanne]

LOL, Chris' skeleton is a nice touch, or a nasty one, depending on how you look at it!

I have long suspected that the Blocker's voice is Tim for the same reason, but no-one has confirmed it as far as I'm aware.

[trainjames22]

it wouldn't be possible to play without the vr headset or is it if not it would be great as a non vr game as well. love your work anyway looks fantastic.

[Fidjit]

Your works getting better everyday dude. Keep it up

[ClaireFearsBlades32]

Hi James

I have seen the fantastic work you have done here. Its all nicely put together and the detail is excellent. My favourite would have to be Smirkenorf video as it is visually stunning but I also like the Play Your Cards Right and clue rooms.

The CoB is fabulous but I struggle to watch that room due to memories of being scared witless as a 6/7 year old in 1990. Its too accurate!

Take a bow, you are a real star. BRAVO!

[jamesuk]

Thanks for all the feedback so far. Just a quick post to let you know that I am still here. I really should do a bit more work on this at somepoint.

Seeing the videos is one thing but to actually put the Rift on and see the rooms around you in true to life 1:1 scale is completely different

[AriadnesLayer]

Wow, this is unbelievable!

This thread has been absolutely fantastic to read through - experiencing the dungeon first hand is great! I can only imagine how awesome it must be to actually see it through the rift.

The video with the massive snap dragons in the dwarf tunnels actually made me jump out of my skin. Great work. I notice there is a hole in the ceiling in the final part of the tunnel. Was something supposed to appear there?

And you have put so much effort into the sound effects and music too, as well as the graphics. Actually looking down and seeing the causeway pieces fall away into oblivion was excellent.

Do you plan to recreate some of the earlier rooms (either the castle ruin photos or the early dungeon room paintings) in 3D? I'd love to see a version of the castle ruin where Lord Fear's massive hand comes down!

[jamesuk]

Thanks for the feedback
Look at Episode 1 of Series 8. About 5 minutes in, you'll see there's a hole in the ceiling hence why I put it in there.
As for the earlier rooms, due to the highly detailed hand painted nature of them, it's highly unlikely at this point that I'll try to recreate them in 3D. I'd love to put them in though.

[DJOSKA87]

Well, after seeing the videos on YouTube before tracing my way back here (after a gap of about 14 years!) I must say I'm impressed (did I just quote Greystagg there?!).

This UK Lockdown situation has seen me rekindle an old flame- my 2D-engined rendition of Knightmare, which I originally released in 2006, which now looks horribly awful. How things have changed in 15 years!

My experience with 3D game programming is virtually non-existant, however, I have been an avid user of SketchUp (for other non-game-related projects) for several years now, so I've decided to take a unique approach to implementing 3D graphics into a 2D engine.

Although not quite as visually dynamic as Jamesuk's masterpiece (the camera view will be fixed on each room), it does however mean that the player/viewer will get an authentic Knightmare visual, as well as the ability for me to get around a few obstacles- particularly creating and animating 3D figures from scratch for NPCs.
As Jamesuk quite rightly expressed- the NPC aspect of Knightmare is rather daunting!
Animating them is one thing (even superimposing them from video footage of Knightmare is a laborious task) but constructing/editing the dialogue to suit a variety of scenarios is very difficult indeed.

I've already spent days sifting through episodes gathering audio of some characters, only then to listen through it all and remove all traces of noise interruptions from advisors/dungeoneers/dungeon MASTERS...
This then leaves a rather rigid, limited range of dialogue which one can truly work with.

The other- perhaps most frustrating factor- is that of burning out, creatively.
You get so far into a project before something else takes hold and places it on the back-burner...

[AriadnesLayer]

Great job! Curious to see how this progresses! I'm excited. Keep up the great work. Keep us updated!