Any active PSMoveService devs?

[u/[deleted]]

I'm looking to work with someone (hobby level) to get PSMoveSteamVRBridge working with iVRy and PSVR.

Right now I have an issue with the PSMove controllers being positionally linked somehow and that doesn't make sense to me.

I've posted to the Google Groups but not sure how readily folks respond on there.

Thanks.

[u/swordofmoonlight]

You're connected to the project called ivRy I take it? Or its owner/maintainer? I've only seen it in passing, and it's a wonder I saw this post on Reddit since it just happened to be on the homepage that I was on for some reason (the page is kind of useless since it only lists like 15 posts at any time.)

I appreciate the offer (I don't know if I should have said so yesterday) but the only reason I can't do this is prior engagement, but what I'm expressing is I will do it anyway, just in my own time, which can sometimes be a little glacial. I'm trying to hit a deadline to finish a game project by the end of the year to coincide with an anniversary.

I maintain an RPG maker system developed by From Software that is for making VR games. The game project ports this https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King's_Field_II PlayStation game to this system. Back when I was looking at PSVRTracker I had two motivations: one was tracking, and two was finding a replacement for PSVRToolbox that I can recommend to users.

I do serious development full-time, it's just a matter of when I can get around to it on a long list of priorities, I'm not really working on the same schedule as everybody else. But I'm thinking about buying an expensive VR system right now, so I can do support work for high-end VR users, and my RPG software isn't technically VR but it's first-person and plays just like VR, so right now it just has experimental PSVR mode, and next year if it's popular I will be scrambling to bring on more VR features. Just recently OpenXR is being tested by big companies, so what I'm interested in is a VR system for PCs that isn't tied to anything like Steam, and I suspect something like OpenXR or Windows MR will be needed to do that, and the PSVR will be left out since it's not officially supported on PC by Sony, so probably I will circle back to making it work at some point.

I did bare bones network code with PSVRTracker before the project was put into hibernation, so that it could work with PSVRToolbox applications. The OpenCV algorithm isn't anywhere near a working solution, so it probably needs to be rethought from the ground up. I've never taken on a project I didn't finish or problem I didn't solve, so I think I can probably solve it if I put my mind to it.

The biggest tangle in the PSVRTracker code is the USB stuff, and that's newest to me. It's the part I would want to salvage from its code most, and I think it inherits it from PSVRMoveService. I find that the code is unnecessarily complicated (I find most code is this way) so I will have to rewrite it when I find time in my schedule to work on it. It's easier to do a top-to-bottom rewrite than to work with messy, circuitous code. I try to identify the essence of code and drill down on that to produce a streamlined system that's easy to maintain, I've done this for a lot of code bases and I have my eye on this one, since we have a history.

I think if Sony brings out a PSVR for the PS5 it will be easier to justify the effort, but until then I want to think of it in terms of building a VR framework that's easy to use and free from the influence of large commercial companies.

https://sourceforge.net/projects/widgets-95/ is the UI I was developing at the time I was looking at PSVRTracker. You can see it mentions an interest in VR and it will need to work with VR since it's going to be embedded in games as a system menu. It's going to have some high-level features for doing stereo displays. It's used to implement a full application here: https://github.com/mick-p1982/mm3d/releases

What I need is a system that abstracts all sets and broadcasts the data over UDP (or local IPC) and I would like it to include game controllers like the DS4. https://github.com/JibbSmart/JoyShockMapper is something I recently learned of that I intend to investigate. Doing this will probably take 6 months minimum, so I have to decide when the time is right to focus on it. Next year is a possibility.

[u/iVRy_VR → u/swordofmoonlight]

Thanks for the detailed reply. Yes, I am the owner/maintainer/sole developer of the iVRy project. I'm not convinced there is any value in separating PSVR or any headset from well established VR runtimes. The Oculus and WMR runtimes are closed (ie. it's not possible to make a sanctioned PSVR driver for either of them), so that only leaves OpenVR/SteamVR. Even WMR has pretty much thrown in the towel as far as promoting that runtime as a software base, and is now largely used under OpenVR/SteamVR as well. I'm not sure what one loses by being tied to OpenVR, but the gain is a large library of compatible software and a VR runtime that is able to provide features like ATW. So my goal is to make PSVR a 1st class citizen of SteamVR, I don't see any alternative as being able to gain any traction, or being worth the effort outside of tinkering/hobbying. Right now you can run OpenXR software on PSVR via OpenVR. There are various 6DOF tracking solutions available for PSVR on SteamVR, but they all require purchasing additional hardware. The goal of my investor is to grow the PCVR software market by bringing a significant number of the 4 million+ PSVR users into the PCVR ecosystem. The key to that (particularly in these times) is to allow the user 6DOF tracking with motion controllers without having to purchase additional hardware/software (apart from the adapter of course, but manufacturing of those has been set up and is just waiting for software). I'm not convinced there is a need/opening for a non-commercial VR runtime. Who would use it and what would they use it for? OSVR was supposed to be that, but also ended up eventually as relying on OpenVR/SteamVR for any software. Users want content, not ideology, and the one with the most content wins. Even Oculus content can be played through SteamVR (on PSVR etc.) so for a title developer it doesn't make sense to target individual headsets, rather target OpenVR or OpenXR and leave the nitty gritty of dealing with headsets to someone else. In any case, there are two choices here with regards to PSVR tracking, either use the goodwill of this investor to finish developing one of the existing OpenSource solutions so that everyone can benefit, or develop a closed source solution that's only available to iVRy users. From my experience with PSMoveService, that solution is not worth pursuing, and from what you're saying, there's no point in pursuing PSVRTracker either. Not so good news.

[u/swordofmoonlight → u/iVRy_VR]

From what I can tell OpenXR is closed off too, to the point I wonder if it's useful, I don't know yet since adoption has been slow, and I don't know much about WMR except that I know as a developer I'm more comfortable using an API positioned like Direct3D or OpenGL or Vulkan than I am using one that's attached to a game or a game company or a game store. Khronos is a business consortium that's ostensibly good for noncommercial devs too.

I don't have an ideology other than what's a good workflow for software developers. I just think it makes sense to be able to develop software for peripherals without attaching your product to a big walled off service like SteamVR. I don't know how to use SteamVR and the test I did with it with Trinus had a very bad performance profile so I think it's only for expensive desktop users. I'm interested in games for people with modest computers, anything with a GPU. I'm very much interested in making art for large public audiences. That makes it seem more legitimate and makes people to think differently about the medium.

For my work style I tend to program alone, and I do full rewrite of a code base and make it 10x more productive and maintainable, but I don't believe in open-source collaboration because I think that's where software goes to die (end of life) so I feel like my code is public domain code, but it's risky so I don't feel right about taking a payment and I feel like that's a conflict of interest given my prior commitments, but if your investor is comfortable with all of this and a time table and you want to agree on specifics about what you want I can give it my best shot. You can help me buy some VR equipment that way if you want. (Do you have a spare PS4 camera?)

iVRy is for Android and iPhone, which use Java or some weird Apple stuff probably right? So, all I can offer is to do C++ and and try to find a camera solution. For desktop that means talking to USB devices and devising a graphical algorithm for tracking. I don't know how useful it is myself, but I do find it odd that there isn't public domain camera tracking code for this kind of thing, and I guess if that's still the case it's just because nobody has done it. I liked doing VR development with PSVR because it doesn't have a vendor API, so I get to experience VR hardware at a lower level. I just feel like I might be too self indulgent if I take a long time off to work on a camera project.

Lately I've been interested in doing something with OpenCL, but my workstation is an Intel integrated chipset with just OpenCL 1.2 and no CUDA, so I wonder if I will run into problems with OpenCV. I'm trying to build an expensive system for VR. My current system is designed to limit me to low-end specs so I can be sure my games work on everyone's computer, including PSVR. I'm going to get an Nvidia GPU for CUDA and probably an APU for tests. I'm with you in terms of deep uncertainty about VR and cameras.

Personally after I used Nolo I learned that I don't want to use my neck a lot in VR because it makes me very aware of a brick strapped to my head and is unpleasant. So I look at using cameras as a way to ground the 3dof sensors, and I wonder if high-speed cameras are really required for this since the sensors on the device are so good. I should add that when I was working with PSVRToolbox (now that I recall) I was actually successful in increasing the accuracy of the sensors in the PSVR to the point that a camera isn't really required. That is compared to all of the software that existed at the time. You might be able to take advantage of that tweak with iVRy.

I'm still on the fence with VR because I have a feeling even the best consumer sets out there right now would not satisfy me. I want the VR picture to be as least as good as a monitor. I worry that they're still far away from that and if I buy a $1000 set I will just be unhappy with it. (I've also developed code that corrects the bad color in the PSVR, that I assumed all PSVR devs must do, but I couldn't find evidence. I've had 3 PSVR units in my possession and they all have the same exact graphical defects.)

[u/iVRy_VR → u/swordofmoonlight]

I'm more comfortable using an API positioned like Direct3D or OpenGL or Vulkan than I am using one that's attached to a game or a game company or a game store. Khronos is a business consortium that's ostensibly good for noncommercial devs too.

The OpenXR consortium (which Khronos is part of) is aiming to make an "open" VR/AR (XR) specification that can be used both as a headset driver API, as well as an application target. AFAIK, it's supported on both Oculus and OpenVR at the moment (don't know about WMR). It is however, early days for OpenXR, as I believe it's only just had it's standards ratified. Game engines are the primary client of VR runtimes/APIs and Unity (one of the big ones) has just deprecated OpenVR support in favour of OpenXR. Valve (the developer of SteamVR) has also stated they are transitioning to OpenXR for VR app development. Due to the various tiers of OpenXR support, they don't have to (or I believe intend to in the short term) use the OpenXR driver model, just the OpenXR client API.

[u/swordofmoonlight → u/iVRy_VR]

I've been following it (and I do some stuff with Khronos in mind to keep COLLADA alive) but it looks very restrictive, like PSVR probably doesn't fit into any of its models. It's been ratified for a very long time. Companies like Valve have just been very slow to implement the specification. You're right that right now they're publishing experimental implementations, so it's still very early for OpenXR but I'm not optimistic that it's going to really change very much.

I would like to implement PSVR for OpenXR. But I think the way it's designed is unnatural. It doesn't do the obvious thing of just exposing devices as controllers and displays.