Captain’s Log 1 | VR Debugging for UNC: Pathfinder
Welcome to the not-so-secret life of the development team here at Rook Games. This blog is our chance to vent about some of the challenges of development and your chance to peek behind the curtain at what it really takes to bring a VR game into reality.
So whether you’re a developer yourself, an avid gamer wanting to learn more about how your favorite games get made, or someone who’s really excited about UNC: Pathfinder (or all three!), welcome to the madness of development. We’re glad you’re here, and we’re excited to show you what we’re working on right now.
Debugging Challenges We’re Working On: Occlusion
The biggest thing we’re working on right now is figuring out occlusion issues. Have you ever played a video game where you’re in a scene and some object in the background just keeps popping in and out of existence? Now you see it, now you don’t — that’s often an occlusion issue.
There are many things that can cause this issue. But we’ve found one of the most consistent factors (at least in Android-based platforms like the Meta Quest) is related to dynamic objects.
As you can see in the video below, there’s something in the engineering room — it’s visible when you look through the window. But it’s not there all the time — it keeps flickering into existence.
How annoying is that? (It’s certainly bothering us!)
The problem
The problem here is that the door to the engineering room is a dynamic object —it moves. (Once you find the key for the lock, you can open the doors). However, the walls on either side of the door are static — they don’t move. And the occlusion properties of static and dynamic objects differ.
A dynamic object doesn’t occlude what’s behind it, but a static object does. And when you look through that window into the engineering room, your angle of perspective determines whether you’re seeing what’s “behind” the door or the wall.
Stuff behind the door is visible, but stuff behind the wall isn’t. Thus, the object in the engineering room flickers in and out of existence depending on how you’re viewing it through the window.
The solution
There are several possible solutions here — and we’re still deciding which one is best. We could make the door static, but that’s not as fun. We could try limiting the number of objects in that area of the ship to see if that helps. Another option is to redesign things so that there’s nothing ever visible through a window.
And honestly, we could just remove the windows from the doors. And yes, that’s cheesing it a bit — but as all gamers know, sometimes cheesing really is the best option. (If you want to hear a bit more about how we’re debugging this occlusion issue, check out this video.)
Debugging Victories We’ve Completed
We’re still working on debugging many of the scenes/chapters in UNC: Pathfinder, but we’re making (slow-and-steady) progress! Want to see some polished parts of the game?
Check out these videos:
Chapter 1, The Space Station: Come along with Chad (the manager of the space station you live on) as he gives you an overview of life out here in space. Or at least, what you can expect “life” to look like as a clone.
Chapter 2, Your Purpose: Chad’s back to talk about purpose and let you know what’s expected of a clone. You’re pretty much there to serve those who matter (real people). But if that doesn’t feel like purpose to you — what can you do about it?
Chapter 3, Love and Romance: Sure, you’re a clone, but that doesn’t mean you can’t find love. Chad’s here to remind you that he’s all for you going out to find love. With another clone. A clone you can bring back to the space station….
What’s Coming Next
This occlusion bug is a challenge, but we’ll make it through. Once that’s done, we’re going to be attacking interactability bugs, which are pretty common in VR development. Sometimes triggers and objects can mess with each other and create some really weird situations in VR.
We’ll cover this issue in the next blog and talk about how we’re working to address those bugs. Make sure you’re subscribed to our newsletter to stay updated on development and everything else about UNC: Pathfinder.
Of course, if you’ve got any suggestions, we’re happy to hear them! We wouldn’t be true developers if we weren’t always looking for ways to borrow other people’s work.
Everyone here at Rook Games is so excited about how UNC: Pathfinder is coming along. We can’t wait to share it with you in a couple months! Don’t forget to wishlist the game on Steam so you’ll know as soon as it releases.
