Doom in VR

It has come to my attention of a Phenomenal port of the Gzdoom engine to function with Rift/Vive/Steam VR Motion controls, This is a Monumental achievement in the Doom Community (one that Bethesda failed to bring us)

I would like to congratulate Mr. Fishbiter for his dedication and hard work, But one question I personally have been thinking is:

Will Modders make there Mods and levels be Vr compatible? (i know i from now on am going to)

IMO i think there is so much untapped potential for the Vr Mods that i couldn't tell you all of it tbh, But i would highly reccommend taking advantage of the Platform to help Draw in more people to the Doom community.

Hello everyone, I was a big fan of Doom in the 94,95 but then I moved on and I have somehow forget about Doom. I've not known how thriving doom community become, how many great wads have been made during last 26 years, until I've by an accident discovered VR port of GZDoom. I own VR headset for 3 years and it is not an exaggeration to say that classic Doom is one of the best VR experience out there. Maybe it is a nostalgia about teen years, but to be able to be somehow physically present in Doom world is for me a bit magical. With a wireless headset I can hide myself behind a corner and shoot blindly, no need for constant strafing, I can also run and shoot in the opposite direction or I can spin a round with a chainsaw surrounded by monsters. Doom in VR is quite physical and VR legs are required but in return it gives a unique experience. And with all these greet wads the content length is enormous. Modern VR FPS like Arizona Sunshine IMHO pale in comparison, sure they are prettier but gamewise they are more short tech demos.

Mr Fishbiter and the author of the original GZ3Doom port Biospud indeed had done a splendid work, I am very thankful them. Unfortunately the last release of fork is still based on an ancient mid 2017 GZDoom version. It is stuck between 3.1 and 3.2, sadly many modern wads and mods will not work. I can imagine many doable improvements e.g dual wielding weapons, imagine to hold two SSG, or a mod with throwing grenades but any further works on VR fork without updating a base version seems for me to be a bit futile. I wanted to play Eviternity in VR, so I updated myself this fork to version 3.6, but i am not sure if VR code survives all refactoring that comes after it in base GZDoom. Maybe it is wiser to write VR support entire from scratch taking the latest GZDoom version. 

There is some technical limitations but if there is more Work added to it then it could be the best VR source port of Doom ever created.

Funny thing is, I don't like playing VR games with motion controls (except for head tracking). I don't get motion sick easily so I prefer to play with controller and smooth movement in VR. With my setup I never got Fishbiter's ports (his Doom and Quake ones) to work quite right, which Fishbiter basically said he wasn't going to support other (non-motion control) VR modes anyway (so I was barking up the wrong tree). Instead I have been using this port: https://github.com/cmbruns/gz3doom/releases

So I have been stuck running older GZDoom as well. So it will be awesome if the plan is for GZDoom to natively support the OpenVR API and headtracking in the main branch. I will get to play even more mods!

@hari Did you ever get Eviternity to work right? I was able to mod Eviternity to get it to work in my even older VR port. I found out what prevented it from running was the ZScript for weather effects requiring a newer version of GZDoom. So I edited that script to be fine with older versions, and found out the weather effects still works without noticeable bugs! I can always send my Eviternity file over to you if you need it. :)

 

41 minutes ago, Immorpher said:

Instead I have been using this port: https://github.com/cmbruns/gz3doom/releases

Does it offer more support for things like Custom weapon sprites or Non-doom 3d models?

27 minutes ago, Morpheus666 said:

Does it offer more support for things like Custom weapon sprites or Non-doom 3d models?

I haven't tried anything with 3D models. But I have used my own Doom 64 style sprites and sounds with it which has dynamic lighting. I think its older than Fishbiter's version, so it some ways it could be more limited although it seems to be more traditional in weapon sprite handling than Fishbiter's version.

@Immorpher Thanks, I updated fork, so version from /idgames works fine. You could try a bit newer version from https://github.com/hh79/gz3doom/releases.  It is based on Mr Fishbitter fork but there is an option to have classic weapon sprites: Options->VR Options->Sprite Weapon Mode -> Sprite Only.

@hari this is awesome! I will try it in a week or two (my VR helmet is packed at the moment since I am moving). My first task will try Doom 64 Retribution in VR :) https://www.doomworld.com/forum/topic/91854-v15-doom-64-retribution/ . It kinda works in the older vivedoom version I have but the player height is too low and that port ignores player height commands. So your port might be what I need to get it going :)

Doom 64 in VR would be terrifying tbh

3 hours ago, Morpheus666 said:

Doom 64 in VR would be terrifying tbh

That's what I am hoping for! :D

I think this is the port I played a while back. Is it the one that has motion control for aiming the gun and uses voxel models for the weapons? I played that one with Oculus Link in my Quest, it's really good. I'd verify but I don't have my VR stuff set up right now. I never tried loading WADs on it, just played the base game.

18 hours ago, DuckReconMajor said:

I think this is the port I played a while back. Is it the one that has motion control for aiming the gun and uses voxel models for the weapons? I played that one with Oculus Link in my Quest, it's really good. I'd verify but I don't have my VR stuff set up right now. I never tried loading WADs on it, just played the base game.

yeah that's the one! i have created a couple Vr compat wads and loaded it up with it and had a blast! Basically any wad that doesn't alter the weapons is possible to be played, (or if you REALLY want to) you could modify the wads and remove the weapons.

On a side note Sargent Mark IV jumped on it and made a Vr Brutal Doom mod: (it's not the greatest but if you like Ultra violence and gore it's okay) (also the Melee weapons don't function how a regular melee does, (you have to pull the trigger to attack with the Fist, I busted my hand up good trying to do it the other way!)

Here is a better 3d model weapon pack: (The weapons are realistic and you can see the doom-guy's hands holding them.)

https://mega.nz/#!TOpgkKbL!MJshOqaPWtVLU4YjwN1RITiJeXByJBgNERf7cYpt_rg

Oh, I remember this port. It was fun going through all my old favorite maps in 3D.

I used keyboard/mouse (this was before the port with touch controls came out). I changed the mouse to have full freelook instead of only on the horizontal axis, because that bothered me. If there's interest in that let me know.

10 hours ago, JadingTsunami said:

Oh, I remember this port. It was fun going through all my old favorite maps in 3D.

 

I used keyboard/mouse (this was before the port with touch controls came out). I changed the mouse to have full freelook instead of only on the horizontal axis, because that bothered me. If there's interest in that let me know.

I tried it out and i have to say, it's really great, so good infact i'm using it as a base to make a short level Pack idealizing the VR port

I do not dabble in VR at all, but if this is based off of GZDoom then it stands to reason it is compatible with all vanilla Doom and Boom maps/mods, and any ZDoom or GZDoom maps/mods that use features up to the particular version it is forked off of. I doubt VR alters the core data structure, just how it is rendered. Consequently, there is little to no reason to make mods or maps specifically for VR. So the map or mod falls within the aforementioned parameters, it should be fine.

I played Doom 3 with the lights out and the headphones hooked up to the monitor.  That was awesome and Doom 3 VR would be great plus the other Doom games if that would work.

11 hours ago, Murdoch said:

I do not dabble in VR at all, but if this is based off of GZDoom then it stands to reason it is compatible with all vanilla Doom and Boom maps/mods, and any ZDoom or GZDoom maps/mods that use features up to the particular version it is forked off of. I doubt VR alters the core data structure, just how it is rendered. Consequently, there is little to no reason to make mods or maps specifically for VR. So the map or mod falls within the aforementioned parameters, it should be fine.

With a VR based mod you could be able to do things that the normal Doom player wouldn't be able to do (free-look is a mixed  bag IMO) Meanwhile VR has 180 degree's of freedom for view which mean's putting switches or other interesting tropes into the map works because they have a better angle to do that, Also there are strategies that VR does, (Peaking around corners, Crawling under things) it's more immersive to the experience and i think it's useless to tell people that it "doesn't matter" when in reality No one has even touched this port and shown off the capabilities it has.

@hari For the most part the port runs great, but even with the weapon sprite option on, the weapons still seem to vanish for me. I attached a screenshot on the github page if it helps!

@Morpheus666 Did they say if the GZDoom update will support Steam's OpenVR API? I imagine it might need that for head movement detection.

@Immorpher thanks for reporting, I will look into. I've tried this Doom64 Retribution mod and it seems to works fine, except a weird world scale. I had to increase it to 40. 

11 hours ago, Immorpher said:

@Morpheus666 Did they say if the GZDoom update will support Steam's OpenVR API? I imagine it might need that for head movement detection.

No i believe the Vr edition of gzdoom is a Modified source code port of the original Engine.

Also i think he's not updating it since according to the Github the last update was Febuary 12th 2019.

I think that any VR running applications that can use 3rd party exe files to run vr games works.

@hari Thanks a billion for looking into it! I am more than happy to bug test if you need someone to. :)