CODEWITHSUNDEEP
testingunity-game-engineoculusunreal-engine4
Michael Hogan
Michael Hogan

Reputation: 144

Play test GearVR game on dev computer

How can I play test my GearVR game on my development computer without building and running on my phone?

I'm looking for either an answer for a game built with either Unreal Engine or a Unity3D.

Upvotes: 0

Views: 984

Answers (1)

K.L.
K.L.

Reputation: 2487

Dont playtest without a headset

"Playtesting" on a PC completely misses the point of playtesting in it's regular meaning.

Playtesting VR apps is important, and has to be performed with a headset. One of the biggest challenges of designing VR games is ensuring a comfortable (not nauseating) experience and percise, intuitive input/controls. If you run your app on a PC with the WSAD/mouse duo, your playtest will be pretty much worthless.

Cheap alternative

Google cardboard is the cheapest option, if you have a decent smartphone. The experience wont be as good as when using Gear VR, but it will be a lot closer the real thing than using a PC. It will let you test actual gameplay as intended.

If you really need mouselook

I found that testing some features (not gameplay itself!) is a lot faster if I cut out deploying to a device from the workflow, so I actually implemented what you ask for.

I dont have Unity at hand right now, but it is quite easy to do. In a initialization script you can check if you are running on Gear VR or a PC, and enable the appropriate control script. it could look like this:

void Start() {
    #if UNITY_ANDROID && !UNITY_EDITOR
    setAndroidCameraRig();
    #endif
    #if UNITY_EDITOR
    setEditorCameraRig ();
    #endif
}

Your SetEditorCameraRig could look something like this:

    pcRotateHead pcHead = gameObject.GetComponentInChildren<pcRotateHead> ();
    pcHead.enabled = true;

Where pcRotateHead is a script that updates it's object orientation each frame based on mouse movement:

public class pcRotateHead : MonoBehaviour {
  public float XSensitivity = 5f;
  public float YSensitivity = 5f;

  public void Update()
  {
    float yRot = Input.GetAxis("Mouse X") * XSensitivity;
    float xRot = Input.GetAxis("Mouse Y") * YSensitivity;
    Vector3 baseRotation = transform.rotation.eulerAngles;
    Vector3 newRotation = new Vector3(-xRot + baseRotation.x, yRot + baseRotation.y, baseRotation.z);
    Quaternion newQuatRotation = Quaternion.Euler (newRotation);
    transform.rotation = newQuatRotation;
  }
}

Check out the Unity manual: http://docs.unity3d.com/Manual/PlatformDependentCompilation.html

Upvotes: 2

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