Distance VR feedback ( VR best practices, broken )

[Nikita]

Hi there, I am pleased to see that Distance now supports Oculus SDK 1.3. Good stuff.

I have spent a little time testing Distance in VR and have found it to be very very very uncomfortable. This is mainly due to you guys breaking one of the major best practices of VR.

Here is the issue. The player's perspective of the cockpit changes when you turn the car left or right. To reproduce it, slowly drive in a straight line. Look at the dashboard now move your joystick left and right. The dashboard will move when you turn the car, which makes you feel like you are turning your head, even though you aren't. This causes a disconnect with your vestibular system, which in turn will cause immediate simulator sickness for players that are sensitive to this. In VR you have to be really careful not to take control away from the user ("headtracking input"). Especially, forced rotational acceleration is one of the worst things you can do in VR. Which is why so many VR applications have opted for the "blinking", or comfort mode for rotational movement. In Distance turning the car left or right will force a rotational movement of the cockpit relative to the users perspective. This is very very uncomfortable and will make it impossible for anyone prone to simulator sickness to enjoy the game for more than 2 min at a time.

This is a similar problem that we had in Elite Dangerous starting with alpha 2.4. In alpha 2.4 Frontier introduced cockpit movement in VR in order to "increase immersion" the lead developer responsible for this was not sensitive to VR sickness and thought the impact to comfort was minimal. The result was that after 2.4 was released a fairly large sub population of players who were enjoying the VR implementation of the game previously, were suddenly unable to play it without getting sick.

After many months of testing and feedback from the community, this "forced cockpit movement" was removed. As a result, Elite Dangerous is very comfortable in VR.

The big advantage of cockpit games for VR is that it is much easier to adhere to Oculus' best practices suggestion of "locking the background to the player's inertial reference frame". In other words, please make sure that the cockpit remains static for the player UNLESS the player enganges in physical translational or rotational movement. The movement beyond the cockpit can be substantial, but as long as the cockpit remains static to the user, the experience will be comfortable.

In summary, I suggest removing the rotational and translational movment of the cockpit in VR. Keep it static unless the player moves his head. At the very minimum it would be nice to have an option to disable the "cockpit shake" for players who are prone to simulator sickness.

Honestly, the only reason one would want the cockpit shake in the first place would be for the sake of immersion. However, in VR you are already so immersed that this doesn't really add anything to the experience. Comfort is much more important at this point.

EDITED: May 18th 2016

In response to the great addtion of the "VR options" menu of the experimental branch, here is my feedback:

VR options feedback

First of all thanks for implementing the VR options so quickly. These options are a massive improvement. I am fairly sensitive to simulator sickness and these options help mitigate VR sickness for me.

In order of impact:

1. Neck Spring - This option has the highest impact on comfort. I recommend toggling this off as a default and adding a warning message that if you turn this on, it may cause discomfort.
   
2. Incline camera - By default this is set to 1.0. Turning this down to 0.0 makes the cockpit feel like in Elite Dangerous. Static and comfortable. I don't feel like I need the added information of the road's incline. I rather opt for comfort in this case.
   
3. Camera shake - Even with the camera shake "on" it is fairly comfortable, unless you keep bumping into walls. I feel a lurch in my stomach every time I hit an obstacle though. But unless you crash a lot, this should be alright. I turned it off and now feel 100% comfortable while playing this game in first-person VR mode. Good job guys.

Thoughts on the 3rd person camera

So, I actually quite enjoy playing the game in VR and in third person. But currently it is still a little uncomfortable due to the camera location and movement.

Currently, there are two distance setting for the third-person camera. One that is close and another that is a little "less" close. It still feels like I am a bit too close to the car. Regardless, the main source of discomfort comes from the relative motion of the camera to the car. When you start driving the camera starts pulling ever so slightly closer to the car. It would be much more comfortable, if the camera would remain at a static distance and only change the position in respons to headtracking input. Also, whenever you "jump" with the car the camera does a wild rotational movement. It moves from the back of the car above the car and looks down on it. That movement completely disrupts the sense of control the user feels. It basically has the same effect as the "neck spring" in first-person mode. It is just way way way too much.I can jump exactly once and then I have to take the headset off and take a deep breath. Finally, I found that setting the "world-scale" to "0.36" feels really awesome in the 3rd person camera. It is sort-of like driving a RC car around in a tron like world. :) Good stuff.

Suggestions for 3rd person mode

• Add a third preset for the camera's distance to the car. We need one that is further away.
  
• Keep the camera at a static distance from the car. The distance and rotation should only change due to headtracking input. The car can flip and twist as much as it needs to, but as long as the relative distance to the observer remains static it should be comfortable. This is especially important during "jumping". The exception might be the rotation you need when the car drives backwards.

Overall, great job. I can now play this game comfortable in first-person mode and I think that with some small tweaks to the camera, the third person mode can be very fun and comfortable. Seriously, give world-scale 0.36 and third-person a try. It is great.

[Plague]

^^ I really enjoyed Distance in VR - up until around the 10 minute mark, when I felt extremely ill!

Distance is the only game I've experienced it in, and honestly I won't be rushing back to Distance in VR.

An option to disable to cockpit shake would be most welcome

[CrookedDeebz]

still waiting on that cockpit shake eh?
ive even looked in the unity assets and found the entry, i just cant remove it.

[Nikita]

Originally posted by CrookedDeebz:

still waiting on that cockpit shake eh?
ive even looked in the unity assets and found the entry, i just cant remove it.

Oh ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥. :( I wish there was a way to turn this off. If it wasn't for that I would be playing this game a lot in VR :(

[CrookedDeebz]

anyone know how to use unity extractor?
i can see the camera shake entry, I just cant remove/recompile it. maybe unity 5 locked or something. devs?

i also found the entry via Hex Edit.
I believe I could delete these lines in the file with hex edit, however it may throw an error during gameplay. i can not test right now.

someone want to crack open and try?

[Californ1a]

Originally posted by CrookedDeebz:

still waiting on that cockpit shake eh?
ive even looked in the unity assets and found the entry, i just cant remove it.

Of course the devs changing it officially would be best, but there is a modding/extension system (Spectrum) in the works (community-made, not supported by the devs - i.e. any issues while using it are your own issues).
You can get all the info about Spectrum (and how to make plugins for it) in the channel topic of #modding in the Distance community Discord:
https://discord.gg/0SlqqvzfIbi6zhbY

[Cluh 2]

We just barely released an Experimental Branch with a VR settings menu. The 3 features you will want to tinker with are Camera Shake (Which has been reduced even when on), Neck Spring, and Incline Camera Rotation. Cheers!

Please leave feedback in the following thread

[Nikita]

Originally posted by Cluh 2:

We just barely released an Experimental Branch with a VR settings menu. The 3 features you will want to tinker with are Camera Shake (Which has been reduced even when on), Neck Spring, and Incline Camera Rotation. Cheers!

Please leave feedback in the following thread

Wonderful ! I will add my feedback to the other thread. But that is great news :)

[MANTRONIX]

please dont reduce too much shakin n stuff for those guys with zero sim-sickness. it plays great, i`m glad it´s back for the vive.

[Longomontanus]

I played two hours of Distance in my DK2 yesterday using the experimental branch and the VR settings Nikita suggested above, and there was not even a hint of nausea. The game runs beautifully in VR, I'd say this is the second best VR experience I've had after Elite Dangerous. Thanks for the effort developer(s), you've done a great job! And a special thanks to Nikita for doing the legwork in figuring out what works and reporting it.