Vireio Perception 4.0 Alpha 1 was released in early May, bringing early VR support to Fallout 4. The early version of the injection driver worked for Oculus Rift and OSVR, but it wasn’t quite ready for HTC Vive. Over the weekend, the group of volunteer developers behind the project released Alpha 2, which adds support for the Vive.
On Saturday morning, Vireio Perception released a new alpha build that adds support for the HTC Vive and its room-scale tracking abilities. The VR injection drivers are still very much a work in progress, and the software still only supports Fallout 4, but the group developing Vireio has made some exciting advancements so far. The developers said that adding SteamVR support also came with some unexpected benefits to the developers.
Vireio Perception uses Valve’s OpenVR API to access the Vive HMD, which means the Chaperone system just works. The Chaperone safety system isn’t added to games, it’s part of the SteamVR platform. It is primarily used for safety, but the Vireio developers found that it makes scaling VR-injected games much easier. On Friday, during an interview on Neil Schneider’s podcast, Neil’s Messy Basement, Denis Reischl, one of the developers, explained that the grid system of the Chaperone made it easier to scale the world properly because the grid walls add reference to reality that is otherwise not available.
The team behind Vireio Perception said that work on Oculus Rift support has taken a backseat temporarily while room-scale support was being added to the application. The group said that you will “temporarily have a superior experience” with a Vive HMD.
When we tried out Vireio Perception 4.0 Alpha 1, we noted that the in-game UI was difficult to navigate in VR. Fortunately, the developers have found a way to correct that issue for the new release. Reischl noted that he figured out how to separate the HUD from the 3D environment. The HUD now uses a secondary rendering target, which allows it to be resized and repositioned anywhere independent from the game environment. Reischl suggested you could have the HUD attached to your controller or your HMD. The HUD can even take any shape. It’s not limited to a 2D panel.
Vireio Perception 4.0 Alpha 2 is available now but it is currently limited to Fallout 4. The software will eventually support additional profiles, but the developers are focusing on this one title until they get most of the kinks worked out. Head over to the MTBS3D website to get a copy of the latest build.
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