Welcome to Street to VR’s first ever ‘VR Modding Month-to-month’, a sequence of article to maintain you updated about all of the thrilling issues happening within the great world of the Flat2VR Modding neighborhood!
What’s the Flat2vr Modding Neighborhood and Why Ought to You Care?
We’re a passionate neighborhood of modders bringing our favourite wealthy flatscreen video games (usually with 1000’s of hours of content material) into full 6DOF VR. We love video games constructed from the bottom up for VR, however we really feel that there’s additionally a lot potential in current video games to be performed in VR. With VR nonetheless rising, we consider there’s a necessity for each new video games and ports. Among the video games we port had been made by 1000’s builders over a few years and VR merely isn’t at a spot but to have video games constructed at that scale completely for VR.
One in all our objectives is to experiment, uncover, and share greatest practices for bringing flat video games to life in VR so extra sport builders shall be enticed to create official VR ports for his or her video games and that their ‘highway to VR’ won’t solely be simpler however produce higher outcomes. Extra instantly, we hope that the 1000’s of hours put into creating VR mods will present the VR neighborhood choices to expertise their favourite video games in magical new and immersive ways in which solely VR can do, and that their love and fervour for the medium continues to develop VR as an entire.
Be part of the neighborhood on the Flat2VR Discord
Should you’re undecided the place to get began within the great world of Flat2VR mods, our buddy Beardo Benjo made a incredible, extremely subjective listing of his private favourite VR mods right here that we advocate watching!
VR Modding Month-to-month – September 2022
The final month has been filled with mods so let’s get began and dig into simply some of what’s been happening within the Flat2VR neighborhood not too long ago!
Inexperienced Hell VR
Official VR port | Launched
Final month, Incuvo (a Flat2VR porting firm) launched the PCVR model of Inexperienced Hell VR and I’ve personally had an absolute blast with it! The port had a couple of tough edges at launch, however Incuvo has been releasing a gentle stream of updates and it’s shaping as much as be by far my favourite method to play Inexperienced Hell. The sensation of being alone in that beautiful and large open world with simply you and your wits can result in some fairly intense and distinctive ranges of immersion, making you virtually overlook that you simply’re not there.
I’m particularly impressed with how they had been capable of port a model of the sport for the Oculus Quest 2 with the assistance of AppSW (Utility House Warp)—a way of rendering the sport at half the framerate after which utilizing a wise interpolation algorithm to make up the in-between frames (to not be confused with the less complicated model of the same tech for PCVR, ASW).
It additionally seems to be a business success; the sport has been on the listing of High Promoting Quest video games since launch. We’re excited to see increasingly official Flat2VR ports like this discover success (hoping it encourages extra sport devs to comply with swimsuit).
(On this matter of official Flat2VR ports, Raicuparta [a modder in our community] made a easy Townscraper VR port a few yr in the past, confirmed it to the developer and it inspired him to create an official VR port coming to Quest quickly!)
Stanley Parable Extremely Deluxe
Modded VR port | launched
The exceptional and hilarious dry humor from The Stanley Parable Extremely Deluxe can now be skilled in VR due to the onerous work of Raicuparta (creator of the Outer Wilds, Firewatch, and different incredible VR mods).
He’s accomplished an unimaginable job bringing us the final word method to play this basic in full 6DOF VR with movement controls. The VR mod is in beta, however already is sort of polished and you shouldn’t have any downside beating the sport from begin to end.
Half-Life 2: VR Mod
Modded VR port | Coming quickly
Half-Life 2 is a sport that VR followers have longed to play in full VR with movement controls for years now. Nearly 10 years in the past now, a VR mod for HL2 started improvement, however the challenge finally died after the lead developer acquired busy with a brand new job at Rockstar.
Many thought the mod would by no means see the sunshine of day, however simply final yr, the extremely proficient modder Cabalistic picked the challenge again up and has been pouring 1000’s of hours into it. His work together with Wormslayer and the remainder of the Supply VR staff has now made what we really feel is the final word method to play HL2.
Followers following the mod since its inception maybe questioned if this present day would ever include the rocky highway, however the mod now has a launch date! Half-Life 2: VR Mod will launch September sixteenth!
Half-Life: Alyx proved how unimaginable a Half-Life sport could possibly be in VR and we’re so excited to lastly carry this basic to the VR neighborhood quickly too! Half-Life 2: VR Mod is among the most polished VR mods ever made with the power to select up virtually any object, manually reload weapons, an enormous quantity of consolation choices, and many others. and it’s releasing instantly on Steam with Valve’s blessing!
Wishlist the sport on Steam right here and also you’ll have an opportunity to get a Steam key for the sport per week early!
Darkish Souls VR
Modded VR port | Launched
After Luke Ross acquired us hooked on FromSoftware’s Elden Ring VR mod, he launched a follow-up mod for certainly one of their earlier video games, Darkish Souls: Remastered. One key distinction of the Darkish Souls: Remastered VR mod is that it’s an older sport and will be run way more simply at 90 or 120Hz which makes for a fantastic VR expertise (that is fairly vital when taking a look at whether or not a VR mod is for you or not).
The mod itself is a incredible method to expertise the dominion of Lordran in VR. There are not any movement controls, however you’ll be able to toggle between a number of third-person views or a brand new first-person perspective that’s nice for simply taking on the planet and feeling such as you’re there in full 6DOF VR. You too can toggle a ‘vacationer mode’ which makes you invisible to the enemies if you wish to simply stroll around the globe and take every little thing in.
One in all my favourite choices and methods to play is to make use of the mod’s world scale slider so it feels such as you’re a god controlling a small figurine in a fortress dollhouse beneath you. It feels so much like taking part in Moss or Demeo this manner and offers you a fantastic view to have the ability to pull off all these last-minute dodges and assaults required to remain alive within the usually unforgiving Darkish Souls sport.
Ultimate Fantasy VII Remake Intergrade VR
Modded VR port | Launched
Ultimate Fantasy VII Remake is one other incredible mod that got here out this week by Luke Ross. The mod is a bit of simpler to hit excessive framerates in comparison with a few of his previous mods (ahem, RDR2 VR). The sport is sort of beautiful and makes the 40 to 100 hours of content material fairly a deal with to expertise in VR.
Should you’re new to VR and don’t have sturdy ‘VR Legs’ but, I’d advocate this mod extra for simply seeing and experiencing a few of your favourite areas within the sport in VR moderately than taking part in by way of the entire sport with it. I personally haven’t any points with it, however I think about the quick fight could possibly be particularly onerous for some gamers.
The mod options numerous choices to customise your expertise together with controlling the digicam distance, a sluggish movement mode to expertise the epic fights in VR, and extra.
Geo 11
Generic stereoscopic 3D injector | launched
3DVision was part of Nvidia’s GPU drivers that added stereoscopic 3D (the 2 cameras/viewpoints required for 3D) into video games. It solely formally labored for a small handful of video games and was primarily used formally for 3D displays and TVs (although it might be hacked to be performed on VR headsets too).
The modding neighborhood usually spent 1000’s of hours modding in assist for different video games unofficially, fixing typically a whole lot of shaders to work appropriately for stereoscopy. It was a moderately main blow to the neighborhood when Nvidia discontinued 3DVision final yr (it virtually appeared like a few years of labor had been about to go down the drain). Ever since 3DVision was discontinued, Bo3b and different key members of the neighborhood have been onerous at work reverse engineering elements of DirectX 11 to create an answer to switch 3DVision, fully freed from something associated to Nvidia. After 1000’s of hours of labor, they lastly revealed their free and open supply injector Geo 11!
How does this relate to VR or Flat2VR modding in any respect?
Geo 11 by itself gained’t “robotically port any sport to full VR’, however it permits you to play lots of your favourite video games on a curved IMAX-sized display screen in entrance of you in beautiful 3D out of the field. It could actually nonetheless be an extremely immersive expertise in your VR headset (and a few third-person video games like Little Nightmares really feel like a local VR sport).
For full 6DOF VR although, it’s what modders can do with Geo 11 that’s particularly thrilling. Since Geo 11 is open supply, a full VR mod could possibly be created with it as a framework and will save us a little bit of time with sport engines that don’t have native VR already. If Luke Ross had been to make use of Geo 11 to create a VR mod for instance, it might save him a while and would enable him to create a VR port with out utilizing Alternate-eye Rendering (which may have disadvantages except you’ll be able to run the sport at excessive sufficient framerates). Most of the Geo 11 video games have already got fixes to points that typically present up in Luke’s mods that cope with temporal results like TAA.
Skyrim VR (PLANCK)
Add-on for official VR port | launched
This basic Bethesda sport obtained an official port a couple of years again, however the VR expertise was a bit missing by itself. The VR modding neighborhood nonetheless stepped up and has enhanced virtually each side of the way in which VR works within the sport. Skyrim VR mods improve the expertise a lot that you simply simply would possibly mistake Skyrim for Blade & Sorcery now except you regarded nearer.
Final yr, the HIGGS mod allowed us to select up something within the sport, use Half-Life: Alyx-like grabbing gestures, maintain swords with two arms, and achieve all types of wonderful methods to work together with the world. Lately, this degree of interactivity was additional enhanced with PLANCK (which stands for Bodily Animation and Character Kinetics).
PLANCK permits you to bodily wrestle with enemies, push them again, knock them over, and extra. Should you’re not sure the place to get began with enhancing your Skyrim VR expertise, the neighborhood has put collectively largely one-click mod pack installers that robotically set up all the very best VR mods. Moreover, for those who’re already bored with Skyrim, it’s also possible to play your entire Enderal: Forgotten Tales (a full-length marketing campaign for Skyrim) in VR too with these mods and can be should play expertise (try the mod pack for Enderal).
Fallout 4 VR (VRIK)
Add-on for official VR port | Launched
Talking of Bethesda video games, Fallout 4 VR was additionally launched some time again formally in a wanting state and has been getting the same VR modding overhaul from the neighborhood. Along with full VRIK, one factor that modder rollingrock added not too long ago was two-handed gun assist. There are few issues that really feel worse than taking pictures a protracted sniper rifle with only one hand in VR. This mod goes a great distance in bettering the expertise with a lot of the gun dealing with for FO4 VR.