First Law: A space sim designed for the Oculus Rift

[ryan]

Been playing around with getting the Oculus Rift setup myself, needed to add framebuffer support to the engine etc... anyway reminded me of this so was wondering how you're progressing?  Thanks for asking, and sorry it's taken so long to respond! Project got waylaid for the last two months, my day job had me crunching 7 days a week to get a project out the door. But now that's done and I'm back working on this on a pretty regular basis. Alex (the artist I'm working with) is making up some new assets, and I'm working on integrating flight stick support and making the first single player test mission. With any luck it'll be released in mid to late August. Pictures & video updates soon!

[fluffyfreak]

Cool glad to hear your still working on it. I'm still waiting for my Rift to be delivered!

[fluffyfreak]

IT ARRIVED!  I'm a bit tongue tied (and slightly nauseous!) after going through quite a few demos but I was still blown away by your demo! It's a really powerful effect isn't it! Wow. Good work on the demo, don't stop because I loved it. The feeling of being in the cockpit of a space fighter is really strong.Rolling/banking is an odd feeling, much less comfortable than the pitching and yawing but I'm still glad it's in there and would miss it if it weren't. In a word: Wow

[ryan]

Thanks! Glad to hear you got your rift, and glad to hear you enjoyed it.  Working hard on the next build and I can't wait to get it to everyone.

[ryan]

Alex is making some progress on the space station, today he finished up the high poly version + normal map. Tomorrow he'll do the diffuse textures - but here's how it looks right now in game

[ryan]

The first station exterior is fully modeled and in the game! Here's a render from Alex to show it off. Super happy with the work he did, and now he's on to making the second flyable fighter. 

[Pinback]

Looking good

[ryan]

Shot a new video tonight - shows off the finished space station, the reworking of physics to be a more newtonian(ish) style model, toning down the atmospheric stuff to not be so crazy, and reworking the lighting/colors on the ship interior to be a bit more consistent. Hope you like it! 

[SuperG]

Wenn I think of a occulust rift combat optimized game.I think of the latest jetfighters. With split second important hud info in helm . A cockpit with a extreem open view. Could look up to backwards.In my opinion the whole target isue is followed and handled with the pilots helm. Less split minut info is mastered in the dashboard cockpit. Example for longrange missile attack or stike bombing.Occulust Rift give you very wide view and it replaces the look around hatch switch on a Joystick.Accualy the occulust rift is HID = human interface device that mimics the pilot helm.Hud elements make even more sense and is even much more emersive.

[ryan]

With the current rift technology reading text that isn't dead center of the screen is incredibly difficult which limits some of the things we can successfully do with the HUD in the short term. I've chosen displays because we can compartmentalize information relevant to a task (check my status or ally status, check target status, check mission objectives, check radar) and we can place that screen in space so the player can look directly at it to make it as readable as possible. The rift does give us a (relatively) wide view but at the cost of a low overall resolution. This should improve with future versions but I have to make the game work with what we have now.

[ryan]

Our second ship is finished! Introducing the Kamakiri - a nimble fighter that can run circles around some of the bigger ships. 

[fluffyfreak]

All these updates are great, the new station looks good and I like the new fighter.How do you find the new newtonian drifting physics to affect the feel of the flying? I was reading that the EVE team found the player got nauseous if they allowed the ship to change speed but if they kept it fixed then everyone seemed to cope much better. I've noticed it myself in a few programs too.

[ryan]

New build! You can download the new version of first law at: [url]http://rjevans.net/firstlaw[/url] What's New? A bunch! First, here's how it's looking:  And here are some of the new features:First pass at mission support! There’s now a simple mission you can playthrough that has a scripted set of events.Newtonian’ish physics (inertia with velocity caps)Afterburners & ShieldsLots of new readouts on the cockpit monitorsInitial pass at a pilot bodyAwesome docking bay/hangar to launch fromConfig tool for controller supportTesting with multiple controllers (thrustmaster hotas, saitek x-52, logitech 3d extreme, xbox controllers)4km diameter space station to fly aroundNew asteroids, new asteroid explosionsAround a dozen reworked sound effects"Look" based UI system for selecting objects and dismissing text windowsCan now select friendly/neutral objects as targets (stations, waypoints, etc)Reworked rates of turn, speeds, firing ratesI'm really happy where the game is at for only being the second public test build, and hopefully you all have as much fun with it as I do. 

[Pinback]

Looking damn good although I would say drop the pew, pew laser sound effect for some thing a bit more meatier sounding.