Welcome to the August 2022 edition of VR Modding Monthly, keeping you up to date with all the exciting things happening in the wonderful world of the Flat2VR Modding community!
For VR enthusiasts, the idea of picking up a brand new flat AAA game, pressing a button, and then being able to “magically” play that same game in 6DOF VR natively in the engine if they want to more of a science fiction thing than reality. I sure would have thought that until master modder Praydog started making the impossible a reality.
It has been a huge months for VR modding and in this month’s issue, we’re going to talk about one of the biggest breakthroughs in Flat2VR modding history that will open up a whole new world of VR ports, and we’ll take a look Take a look at some amazing new mods that have either released or advanced in development.
If you want to learn more about the Flat2VR modding community itself, check out our latest issue where we introduce ourselves, and if you want to get involved, check out the official Discord server.
Join the community on Flat2VR Discord
Praydog Unreal Engine VR Universal Injector
Alright, now that’s a big deal. This mod opens the door for VR enthusiasts to play loads of AAA games in VR (here’s a list of just a few of them) by making it easier to add initial VR support to games built with it. UnrealEngine.
For a very long time, we were mostly limited to adding full VR support with motion controls etc. to certain game engines only. The Unity engine, for example, always comes with VR code in a flat game and that code can be re-enabled and a modder can then start creating VR mechanics on top of that with powerful Unity modding frameworks.
Unreal Engine, on the other hand, removes all VR code if a game doesn’t build with the VR plugins still present. For some of our Unreal Engine VR mods, we asked the game developers and they were kind enough to add the plugins in the shipping builds so we could create a complete VR mod for the game (Mecha Warrior 5 and Galactic Deep Rock with full motion controls are two examples of developers doing this for us). Bigger AAA games though, like Jedi Fallen Order are already finished and the developers have moved on and there is not even an easy way to make a new version of the game even if they wanted to with VR code. Praydog’s VR Injector changes this limitation for Flat2VR modders.
The VR injector is added to a game by simply dropping a few files into the game directory. Then you just need to launch the game and it adds all the native VR code to the engine and launches the game in VR.
Normally when you enable base VR on an Unreal Engine flat game with the VR plugins (if it was built with them), a lot is broken with experience. Any UI that was designed to overlay on top of your monitor screen doesn’t even show up, for example, or it’s only in one eye at an odd angle. The VR camera often doesn’t follow the player character, so when you move the player you can see a headless body running away in the distance. There are many other problems like these.
Praydog’s mod automatically fixes all of these common issues and fixes them properly directly in the game engine for VR, as they all use universal functions. This not only makes it a great place for a modder to start working on a mod complete with motion controls etc., but it makes most Unreal Engine games fantastic enough to play in VR out of the box! It could even be a powerful tool for developers to try out their game in VR and help them decide whether they want to do a full VR port or not.
Load a racing game like Gravelfor example, feels like playing the new Unreal Engine racing game F1 2022 just released (and has its own official VR support); Ace Fight 7 it’s like playing Microsoft Flight Simulator; Eternal Space 2 wanna play Star Wars Squadronsetc I used these examples because they are all games that don’t use motion controls and work almost the same as these official releases.
Next Gravel VR Mod (Praydog EU VR Universal Injector Mod)
You mentioned wanting to see more racing games in VR. There are great Unreal Engine racing games that will now be fully playable in VR when Praydog’s mod is released publicly. pic.twitter.com/O1fw2zQtnL
—Flat2VR (@Flat2VR) September 19, 2022
For out-of-the-box first-person shooters, you can use VR controllers like a gamepad or keyboard and mouse input, but modders will likely want to rely on the mod with game-specific motion controls. Praydog plans to add some sort of universal motion control option that allows a motion controller to essentially point the mouse exactly where you point it 360° around you. This should still be a fun way to experience many games until full motion controls have been tweaked by other modders for a specific game.
Let’s take a look at some of the games we’ve tested so far with Praydog’s VR Injector mod.
Wander
For this game I assigned a button to switch between first person and different third person distances and just exploring this world was one of the most beautiful experiences I’ve ever seen in VR.
Star Wars: Fallen Order of the Jedi
I did the same for this one, switching between third and first person cameras with a button. For sword fights you’d probably want to stick with third person and play the game as if you were playing Moss or something, but for just exploring the beautiful detailed environments, first person is absolutely fantastic. It’s amazing the detail you notice when you see the game in VR.
Based
This survival game looks amazing in VR and feels like real life “Honey, I shrunk the kids”. It was amazing (and terrifying) to walk through this world through the eyes of someone the size of an insect.
Satisfying
Praydog’s mod upon its public release will allow players to see and experience hundreds of amazing game worlds in a completely new way, give players full 6DOF room-scale capabilities to roam around in gaming, bending over to look at things, and more. In some games, players will want to play the fully-out-of-the-box VR games with the mod. For others, players may want to wait for other modders to do some extra work for them.
However, for almost any VR enthusiast, the ability to put on their headset and experience a game world (even if you’re just using a god mode cheat and walking around like a walking simulator) is a treat. and can potentially be a game-changer for virtual reality. I am personally very happy to discover the next Unreal Engine Hogwarts Legacy game in VR and walk around this castle to enjoy all the details.
Continue to Page 2: More VR modding updates since our last issue »
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