Graphics Engine

[jqnatividad]

Just curious, what graphics engine is VZFit using?

With the Oculus Quest celebrating its 1st year and largely eclipsing/subsuming the Rift S with Link support, and Epic unveiling Unreal Engine 5, and confirming continued support for the Quest, has the VZFit team considered using the Unreal Engine instead?

https://uploadvr.com/unreal-engine-5-vr/

When I play games like Red Matter (using Unreal Engine) and The Climb (uses Crysis Engine), I'm really blown away by what can be graphically achieved on the Quest, and I just wish my Rally/Tour rides were as graphically immersive.

If rewriting for those engines are too big an effort, what about just doing it for Rally/Tour and make it a different application?

[apLundell]

The art makes much more of a difference than the engine.

I imagine that VZFit doesn't have nearly the same art budget that those other games have.

[emalafeew]

We agree that art budget and time are a bigger factor. We use Unity but have worked with many other engines and could get similar results. Unity's familiarity and flexibility are the reasons we use it, since we can make new features and updates faster and more confidently.

That said, if a technology came out that could make photorealistic rides with less art effort that ran smoothly on Quest we'd certainly look hard at it. Nanite and Lumen look stunning even for high-end PCs not trying to do VR. When you factor in VR and mobile processors we'll be interested to see what's possible, and whether Unity comes up with something similar.

[jqnatividad]

That’s good that you’re open to new technologies... Anyway, here’s my vote to improving the art in Rally and Tour. And if you’re prioritizing, the most jarring assets are the trees/foliage in terms of fidelity.  Hopefully, improving assets can be added piecemeal to the sprints!

Also, Oculus Go seems to be on the way out...  hopefully, once it’s retired, you’ll have more headroom to do more photorealistic stuff.

[emalafeew]

That’s good that you’re open to new technologies... Anyway, here’s my vote to improving the art in Rally and Tour. And if you’re prioritizing, the most jarring assets are the trees/foliage in terms of fidelity.  Hopefully, improving assets can be added piecemeal to the sprints!

Also, Oculus Go seems to be on the way out...  hopefully, once it’s retired, you’ll have more headroom to do more photorealistic stuff.

Thanks and yeah, we went a stylistic direction to keep tree costs down.  

Note we can keep supporting the Go while adding graphics detail for the Quest.  The Quest is 35-50% faster depending on bottleneck, a chunk of which goes to running at a higher framerate, but there's definitely headroom in some games.

[jqnatividad]

And while we’re dreaming graphics, here’s my wishlist, in priority order for Rally & Tour:

* Higher-res Trees/Foliage (these look AMAZING - https://assetstore.unity.com/packages/3d...2-0-103151)
* Dynamic Clouds (ala https://youtu.be/saGyjU5wHWw)
* Wind effect on gate flags (even if its just blowing in one direction, so long as its consistent with the windfarm propellers)
* Additional environmental effects (e.g. occasional flock of birds flying, hot air balloon, plane skywriting random messages, maybe even use the other graphics assets from the other mini-games - helicopter, horses, pegasus, boat, etc.)
* Billboards (with dynamically generated ads for events, promotions, leaderboard, user anniversaries and hey, maybe even real monetizable ads )
* dynamic mile/km markers (that show how many miles/kms you’ve pedaled so far)
* Rider shadows (like Explorer)

Again, this is just dream wishlist... but if you’re going to dream, might as well dream big!