Oculus VR for Unity - review of Sample Framework unitypackage v1.31

Before I reviewed the full Oculus Sample Framework unitypackage, I reviewed the core Oculus Integration Utilities which are included in the Sample Framework:


For 1.32
This week's update of the 1.32 brings the scripts and the plugins to 1.32 and SDK to 1.33:
Debug.Log() Console output:
Unity v2018.2.20f1, Oculus Utilities v1.32.0, OVRPlugin v1.32.0, SDK v1.33.0.
UnityEngine.Debug:Log(Object)
OVRManager:Awake() (at Assets/Oculus/VR/Scripts/OVRManager.cs:1078)

Oculus appear to be shifting focus towards putting  assets inside the Avatar plugin dlls accessible via CAPI class, and removing some meshes, etc from individual use.

This version 1.32 includes some assets (but not the scenes) under Oculus/SampleFramework/Core, including the locomotion, teleport scripts, which is a good thing and raises my start rating from 3 to 4 :)  (Full Oculus Sample Framework would get a full 5 if it ever comes back to Asset Store, as would the OVR Updated Interaction unity package which should still be available here https://developer.oculus.com/blog/easy-controller-selection/ along with useful touch controller meshes )
Also helping raise the star rating is the inclusion of LeftControllPf and RightControllerPf which are essentially standalone animated prefabs of the Oculus Touch Controllers, used by attaching them under a customised TrackedRemote prefab, setting Controller var to LTouch/RTouch, dragging the ...ControlPf prefabs to replace both Model vars, adding those "Touch" TrackedRemote prefabs for each of OVRCameraRig or OVRPlayerController's LeftHandAnchor/RightHandAnchor sub GameObjects..

Also new are the social/network sample scenes under Oculus/Platform/Samples.


Review of v1.31
 

Test Developing with Rift CV1, I have downloaded and tested some core sample scenes in the latest Oculus Integration Utilities v1.31 for Unity - most scenes have something useful to use, even if not everything works, or is incompatible as-is with Unity 2018 (requires some code tweaking for deprecated methods)

- something of note is the Oculus/Avatar/Samples/SocialStarter/Assets/MainScene, which does the loading of a custom avatar, complete with autofading linerender rays & pointer spheres which match those in the default Oculus Home user interface, however the code which creates those rays and pointers is not externally exposed to developers

- it appears to be an internal function of the Oculus.Avatar.CAPI class, of which we only can see headers, because it is an API inside the OVRPlugin.

Unfortunately that does not help developers who need lightweight high performance/low overhead code for mobile platforms, like Gear VR which I am attempting. Importing ONLY the VR subtree hierarchy from this unitypackage works for SOME scenes which have no platform or avatar code dependencies, but if you start using certain prefabs or scripts, a web of cross-dependencies on the AudioManager,Avatar,LipSync,Platform,Spatializer,VoiceMod subtrees will soon emerge, necessitating a monolithic import of bloat, even if you remove the various 'Sample' subtrees.

As official companion unity packages to the Oculus Integration/Utilities, I have tested the line render technique shown in the Oculus Sample OVR Updated Controller Interaction (separate unitypackage) and certain locomotion scenes in Oculus Sample Framework (separate unitypackage)

- both also designed for earlier versions of Unity, in order to test locomotion/teleport/rotation as well as UI interaction, but that brought additional complexity because of differing versions of OVR scripts in the sample scene prefabs which are incompatible with the same named scripts in the separate Oculus/VR/Scripts hierarchy.

Additionally, the Oculus Unity UI interaction for Touch/GearVR/Go/Malibu controllers seems broken when dealing with anything more complex than a toggle, button, input field, or slider bar. (i.e. Things like a Unity UI.DropDown result in reverting to selection via a non-visible Gaze Cursor.)
There is a user-submitted hack for this here: https://forums.oculusvr.com/developer/discussion/39327/gaze-pointers-drop-down-boxes

(thx @jhocking !)

It also bears repeating to say Unity UI Navigation must be disabled on all in-scene UI components to avoid the 'stuck focus' bug, (selects the previous UI element on click rather than the UI element currently being pointed to).

I will try the hack, and try to use something other than a dropdown or scroll field, but just be aware not everything is integrating well....

Update: I updated the hack to be implemented via CoRoutine only on Event DropDown Clicked, rather than every frame in Update.  It currently works for GazePointer and correctly switches between Controller raycasts so long as activeController for the EventSystem's OVRInputModule is being correctly set.

A number of issues and lack of obvious functions here are mitigated by another unitypackage "Oculus Sample Framework" v1.31, which very handily also contains the contents of THIS unitypackage as well as all the samples in a single download.



 
And now for the review of the Sample Framework v1.31:

The v1.31 version Oculus Sample Framework unitypackage combines updated/tweaked Sample Framework scenes and assets for a number of scenarios, with the core OVRPlugin 1.31 & Integration contained in the separately importable Oculus Integration Utilities v1.31 package.

Compared to the previous v1.30.1 of the Sample Framework, v1.31 shows an interesting migration by Oculus towards implementing separate LocalAvatar prefabs with animated hand mesh superimposed over controllers, and away from static controller mesh representations attached to the PlayerController/OVRCameraRig.

Highly customisable Locomotion with Teleport is still supported in the example scene for SampleScenes/FirstPerson/Locomotion2/TeleportAvatar, but the latest PlayerController prefab in the core v1.31 Integration package already supports very basic linear motion with snap rotation (without teleport).

The GazePointerRing is used as a pointer in that scene, rather than the nice Oculus Dashboard/Home ray pointer alpha shaded linerender, but you can see and copy how a straight laser linerender and a curved multisegment linerender from controller is handled via the teleport mechanism.

To see how a custom/personalised LocalAvatar works with those nice alpha shaded ray pointers and animated hands, see the Oculus/Avatar/Samples/SocialStarter/MainScene, which loads a custom avatar (so long as you set up the Oculus app id via Oculus Platform/Oculus Avatar editor inspectors)
Bug: -There are 2 audio listeners in the scene. Please ensure there is always exactly one audio listener in the scene.
Fix: disable Audio Listener for GO "Room Camera" & also "Main Camera" since OVRPlayerController contains OVRCameraRig with Audio Listener
Bug:  the HelpPanel GO on avatar left hand  has a null material
Fix: Drag Help (Rift) & GearHelp (GearVR) materials to OVRPlayerController GO PlayerController Script
(Dragging material Help to HelpPanel GO - does not fix in Play mode, it gets set back to null)
 
Basic UI interaction is also demonstrated in the Locomotion2/TeleportAvatar scene.

The overall download size of >500Mb seems large but it is possible to just take the specific scripts and scene prefabs you need, along with the core /Oculus/Avatar(2Mb),Platform(23Mb),VR(20mb) asset subtrees, for a more reasonable size. Note that the Oculus/VR subtree contains the actual OVRPlugin core dlls, so it is not an optional import :D

Start here for Oculus Unity doco:
https://developer.oculus.com/documentation/unity/latest/concepts/book-unity-gsg/
https://developer.oculus.com/documentation/unity/latest/concepts/unity-utilities-overview/#unity-utilities-overview https://developer.oculus.com/documentation/unity/latest/concepts/unity-reference-scripting/

and here for guides on adding linerender to controller using Sample Framework (for GearVR but also works for Rift touch and other rotational pointer type controllers like Go, Malibu)
https://developer.oculus.com/blog/adding-gear-vr-controller-support-to-the-unity-vr-samples/
https://developer.oculus.com/blog/easy-controller-selection/
https://forums.oculusvr.com/developer/discussion/54513/use-gearvrcontroller-with-selection-ray-unity

Happy VR coding with this asset, thx Oculus.