I tested my work-in-progress Unreal Engine game based on Sheffield in UEVR

It has been so long since I’ve uploaded a video or wrote an article on here, and it seems like such a waste to have this site, and not use it for its’ intended purpose!
I’ve changed the theme of the site, and will be working to make the site work a bit better in the coming weeks, and trying to remember to use it more.

Transcript

Note: This is taken directly from my original script, so it may not be exactly as it appears in the video, because some parts I had to cut out – if anything, this is more in depth than the actual video, since I had to cut it for brevity.

Intro

Hi, how’s it going? Hope you all had a great start to the year.

I know it’s been a while since I made one of these, but I told myself for the new year – I will get back into uploading again.

Just the other day, I saw a new tool come out – and just had to give it a try! It’s called UEVR, by Praydog – and it’s currently in beta and available for free.

It’s designed to take games that are made in Unreal Engine, and make them VR – even those that weren’t originally made to support VR.

Installation

Installation is quite easy, ive put a link in the description – though configuring it to work with the game that you are playing may not be so easy and will need some tweaking.

Naturally, it won’t work for every game – and the development team have compiled a spreadsheet of the games they have tested, as you can see – most are in green, which is a great sign.

Rai Pal

Another free application that I’ve come across that works hand-in-hand with UEVR is Rai-Pal – again, I’ll put a link in the description for this. It’ll give you a breakdown of what engine was used to create the games in your Steam library, and even the Games that are in your library that you don’t have installed.

Please don’t judge me on the games I have! There’s also a lot of tools for debugging Unity games, which may be useful – but I’m not going to go into that in this video; maybe I will in another.

Raji

As you can see from this list, the only game I have installed that was created in Unreal is Raji: An Ancient Indian Epic, which is a 2D platformer that’s set in ancient India, and loosely based on Hindu mythology.

For the purpose of this demonstration is perfect, because it’s the total opposite of a game that’s designed to be played in virtual reality. One thing I found really impressive about this, is that for a game where the camera is set so far away, the close-up details are absolutely fantasic – especially for something that the developers would never even expect you to see.

My Project

And for the main reason I’m making this video, I want to try and see how this plays on my own work-in-progress project. I’m going to be using this with SteamVR, so I’ve opened Unreal and used the build process to compile the game into a Windows executable.

[17 Hours Later]

So, the building has completed – and I’m going to add it to my Steam library. I do this by loading up the Steam application and selecting ‘Add a non-Steam Game to my Library’ from the Games menu, and selecting Browse to find the compiled EXE on my hard drive.

You’ll notice that the project name is MrWhizALSRep – this is because the template I’m using is MrWhiz’s ALS Replication template, but using my own level.

[MrWhiz ALS]

I’ve been using this as the basis for my game for quite a while because it’s updated quite regularly on their Patreon, so whenever a new release comes out – I can just drop it into my project to update the functionality. I’ll put a link to MrWhiz’s channel in the description of this video in case you want to check it out, they do also have tutorials too if you just want to follow them.

When you’ve added it, it’ll show at the top of the selection – make sure it’s ticked, and select Add Selected Programs.

It’ll then show in your library, so what I’d then do is right-click on it, select Properties → Controller – and Enable Steam Input.

I don’t know if this actually makes a difference, but it seems like the right thing to do for compatibility.

Make sure you have UEVR loaded, because you’ll need to launch it from Steam the same way you’d open any other game in your library – but once it has loaded, you’re going to want to Alt + Tab to UEVR to select the running process.

Once selected, press the Inject button – and it should come through to your VR headset.

The first thing you’ll want to do is is Set Standing Position, so it’s relative to your actual position – and recenter the view.

Let me move this out the way for you. My knock-off, Xbox layout controller isn’t working – so I have to feel for my mouse and keyboard, and try to find the WASD keys with my headset on – which isn’t easy!

Ok, so now if I look around….

And I can see the player character if I look down, and to my right..