Trying VR in BeamNG.... Sort of

Following some interesting discussion in this thread about using head tracking alongside a HMD, I thought I'd have a go and see what sort of VR experience can be possible in the game's current state.

I'm fully aware that the game has no VR implementation yet, nor are there any plans to implement it in the immediate future. Despite this, I wanted to see if there was a way to achieve a pseudo-VR experience by leveraging the head tracking functionality that the game already supports via TrackIR. Depth information is going to be missing of course, but that is expected.

The HMD I'm using is an Oculus Quest 2, connected to my PC using a link cable.

The first thing I realised was that TrackIR wasn't going to work. I'm now running Opentrack instead of TrackIR. Even though the game natively supports TrackIR, it appears you need a TrackIR device for it to work. Opentrack will support many input devices, including the Quest 2 it seems.



With the Oculus Rift Runtime selected and after hitting the Start button, the software is actively tracking the headset, as you can see from the tracker data above..

I tried running the game using both the native Oculus Link utility using desktop view and SteamVR. Both launch the game in a theatre type arrangement.

With Oculus Link, this is what I see:


Desktop View doesn't remove the background ambient sounds whilst in game, nor does it hide any of the controls. It also hijacks some of the button mappings from the game, so pressing the change view button in Beam also brings up some keyboard options for Oculus Link. Not ideal, but I don't think this is an intended use case for desktop view.

Using SteamVR was an interesting experience. Despite BeamNG not being a VR game, you can still launch the game in SteamVR by going to your library within the virtual environment, finding the game and launching in theatre mode. This is much better than using desktop view in Oculus Link, much more game focused as you'd expect.



As you can see there are issues with the cropping.. Not sure where that problem lies, but worth noting. This makes using the in-game menu impossible (would have been the same on the old UI too).

Tracking is hit and miss. Opentrack works, but clearly needs some tweaking. As you can see in the second screenshot in SteamVR, every camera view is hugely offset to its intended position. I later figured out that this is because I started head tracking before starting the game, and something somewhere had zeroed the camera incorrectly. If I started the game, tabbed out, sat in a neutral position and then started tracking, the camera would appear almost correct, albeit with highly exaggerated movements. For example in cockpit view, everything looked ok, until I leaned back in my seat ever so slightly, which would make me clip right through my in-game seat. Looking over my left shoulder (in a LHD car) would put my head outside of the car... that sort of thing.

All in all, it sort of works. Not the full immersive VR experience you'd expect from a natively supported VR title, but an interesting topic of investigation. A fully immersed viewport would be a nice inclusion, rather than looking at the game through a window like you would be if you were using a monitor. Depth information is something I could live without in the short term. I'm only interested in head tracking in the first place because I don't like the tunnel-vision you get when playing racing games through a static display. Playing Garage to Garage scenarios made me realise how important it is to be able to lean forward to look up and down a street before pulling out into it.

I'd be interested to know if anyone else who has a VR headset/HMD has tried this out, or if there are other things I could have tried that could have improved the experience. I'm completely new to VR, so I'm bound to have missed something. Also, whilst I'm 100% aware that VR implementation is not on the immediate roadmap, and for justifiable reasons, I'm curious as to the barriers faced by the developers if they had played with this before. Is it a performance issue, a limitation of the engine? Could compromises be made perhaps, marking it as an experimental feature maybe? Interested to learn more.

 

You have to define the limits for your axis of movings. And also set the button to reset tracking to zero point while you shift your position.
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Cheap DIY tracker or original TrackIR seems better choice for that.

 

It’s interesting, BeamNG used to have native oculus rift support, wayyyy back in the day, but it was removed

 

Ah that's good to know in future. Was really awkward trying to sit in a neutral position, whist peeping at the button to start tracking through the gap in my headset. I did look into using a normal head tracker, but it doesn't help when you want to look to the side of you and you can't because now you can't see your actual display. That's what a proper VR headset should overcome, so long as the viewspace is 360 degrees.

I wonder if it was way too buggy and they removed it to reduce support requests or something like that. I really hope that they bring it back soon.

 

Ive tried that as well and honestly a monitor is much better. I got very nauseous after trying it like that for like 5 minutes so it was basically unplayable for me. You can try dragging the virtual screen closer so its like a screen wrapped around you which I think looks a lot better.

 

some people made beammp, so why the community couldn't make beamvr?just imagine shift in vr, protecting your head in a crash cuz some are scared, having the same vr effect as jobs, and maybe one day ray tracing...
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ps: i'm too stupid to do it

 

Please do not bump threads.

 

just starting to test this out today (yeah i know, old post - but i'll "bump" an old post everytime instead of creating clutter with a new identical post).

Implementation is a bit clunky, but i think i can make something work.

I am using a combo of an old cardboard headset, with my Samsung s20 running iVRy driver combo via steam. Testing out using Desktop+ and OpenTrack to see if i can get something reasonable working. If i never come back, i didnt get very far with it

 

So OpenTrack actually just works fine and looks really responsive but i did not found any free software that will show my PC Screen always in front of me (screen bound to my HMD position and rotation) so when i turn my head the screen should still be in front of me. If there is a solution for that too, you would basically have a VR Game but without 3D effect.

Used: Meta Quest 2 with Quest Link

 

This would be acceptable for me in the interim. I can understand why the devs wouldn't want to release VR support in that state though. I just wanted head tracking without having to look out the corner of my eyes, especially as there's no native in-car camera panning.

 

There is one more trick that I know but did not try it yet.
Opentrack for tracking.
Virtual desktop from steam
And reshade for 3D Depth.
https://reshade.me/forum/shader-presentation/2128-3d-depth-map-based-stereoscopic-shader


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Also there is multiple viewports rendering in the game already and maybe the vr is closer than we think.
https://www.beamng.com/threads/update-speculation-thread.20246/page-2554#post-1530416

 

Hi, sorry, how are you using a phone to get vr for the pc? I wanted to do the same as I am trying to make everything work with a thight budget, I saw there is RiftCat Vr that can do it, but what is iVRy driver?

 

I tried riftcat, it just won't connect, so instead i use ivry.