Valve released a developer preview for OpenXR support in SteamVR.
The release is a big step toward what should ultimately represent industry-wide support for an open standard in VR and AR. Facebook’s Oculus Quest Android-based standalone also includes “prototype” support for OpenXR and Rift is also expected to gain support for the application programming interface (API) as well. There are still significant differences between PCs and Android-based VR systems, but the broader support of OpenXR should generally make it easier for developers to target more platforms with a single API.
“With OpenXR, for the first time, developers will be able to build their content in a way that will allow them to span the myriad types of hardware and software platforms,” a statement from Valve explains. “Thanks to The Khronos Group and the extensive hard work of OpenXR’s many members (AMD, ARM, Epic, Facebook, Google, HTC, Microsoft, NVIDIA, Qualcomm, Unity, Valve, and many more) VR now has a consolidated API to enable developers to bring universal VR support to their applications.”
Valve is releasing initial support for the 1.0.9 OpenXR release and the developer preview can be accessed by opting into the SteamVR Beta by right-clicking SteamVR in your Steam library, selecting properties, clicking the betas tab and select ” beta – SteamVR Beta Update.”
“Our definition of initial support is that SteamVR is currently passing 95% of conformance tests. This means now is the time to start testing things,” Valve explains. “SteamVR’s OpenXR implementation supports D3D11 on Windows, and Vulkan on both Windows and Linux. Support for both D3D12 on Windows is on the way.”
Valve just ended SteamVR’s support for macOS. ‘Legacy builds’ will continue to be available.
SteamVR is Valve’s PC-based virtual reality platform, supporting Windows and Linux. Mac owners can continue to use the latest versions of SteamVR by installing Windows as a secondary OS.
At the time, Apple released updates to Metal, its equivalent of Vulkan/DX12, to make it suitable for high performance low latency VR rendering, including via external GPUs on MacBooks.
The company even worked with Unity and Unreal Engine to make this available to all developers.
Later in the conference, employees from ILM gave a live on-stage mixed reality demo of VR on macOS- a Star Wars scene powered by Unreal Engine.
In September 2018, Apple added support for HTC’s Vive Pro, including giving developers access to the onboard stereo cameras, presumably for AR development.
What Happened?
Less than two years later, Valve is announcing ending support for macOS. Apple doesn’t seem to have made a statement on this yet, but we’ve reached out to employees who worked on Metal’s VR support.
We’ve seen new Beat Saber tracks, implications of inside-out tracking on PSVR 2 & the introduction of OpenXR for Quest – not to mention the many releases! It’s the VRecap.
The first story is Beat Games’ newest track addition: FitBeat! It’s free, it’s fitness-focused, and it fits in nicely with the other tracks in the game. It was developed by the studio’s CEO-turned-music producer, Jaroslav Beck, who has produced many of the iconic tracks for the rythm game.
There was plenty of hype this week surrounding Sony’s DualSense controllers for PlayStation 5, but for us it mainly raised questions for the future of PSVR. With the change in lightbar location, could it be that the PSVR 2 will have inside-out tracking? Our VR senses are tingling!
And lastly, a more robust story for developers and enthusiasts: Android game engine developers can now support Oculus Quest using OpenXR instead of Facebook’s Oculus Mobile API! Heaney gives a great explanation on it all, so make sure to read up for an in-depth report.
Much like the Game Developers Conference (GDC) which it’s replacing, Facebook’s Game Developers Showcase is a chance for the company to announce both consumer and industry-focused news, with the first day mainly concentrating on Oculus Quest. Facebook also unveiled plans to roll out OpenXR in prototype form for Oculus Rift and Quest developers later this month.
Having played a central role in the development of OpenXR, helmed by The Khronos Group, Facebook and Oculus first revealed plans to give developers access back in September 2019. A royalty-free open standard designed to aid the development of high-performance virtual reality (VR) applications across multiple platforms, an update offering access to OpenXR will arrive in the next few weeks.
As VRFocushas previously reported, the OpenXR 1.0 specification launched last year to solve the fragmentation of the XR industry, reducing overheads for VR/AR developers working across various platforms because they can reuse the same code. This should, in theory, provide consumers with more choice in the long run.
The Oculus Developer Blog notes: “The Oculus PC and Mobile SDKs will include the resources necessary to use the Prototype OpenXR API for native C/C++ development of Oculus Rift Platform apps and Android apps for Oculus Quest respectively. OpenXR offers an alternative development path that allows developers to create portable code that can be used on devices from multiple vendors.”
Also for developers, Oculus will be releasing an Add-ons option in the Developer Dashboard. This will combine Downloadable Content (DLCs) and In-App Purchases ( IAPs) under one management function, making the creation of add-on content easier. So hopefully you’ll see more content arrive for your favourite videogames.
Facebook today announced that a prototype version of OpenXR, the royalty-free open standard from The Khronos Group, will be available to Oculus Quest and Rift developers in an update coming later this month.
OpenXR is a work-in-progress standard that aims to unify the underlying connections between VR and AR hardware, game engines, and content, making for a more interoperable ecosystem.
This essentially means that any app created for one OpenXR headset should technically be able to run on an entirely different OpenXR headset with zero changes to the underlying code.
Oculus Rift and Rift S developers have already had preliminary access to OpenXR since late last year via that platform’s Public Test Channel, UploadVR notes.
Bringing Quest into the fold via prototype support for OpenXR potentially opens up that platform to a greater number of games, apps, and experiences, provided they can not only squeeze onto the standalone headset’s modest Snapdraon 835 chipset and make it past Oculus’ strict content selection process.
Facebook has published a developer blog post, noting that both the Oculus PC and Mobile SDKs will include the resources necessary to use the Prototype OpenXR API for native C/C++ development of Oculus Rift Platform apps and Android apps for Oculus Quest respectively.
Android game engine developers can now support Oculus Quest using OpenXR instead of Facebook’s Oculus Mobile API.
The support is currently described as ‘prototype’. OpenXR 1.0 doesn’t offer a standard Android loader, but Facebook provides one as part of its OpenXR SDK Package.
OpenXR is the recently finalized open standard for VR & AR. That means that apps built for Quest using OpenXR should theoretically also work on any future Android-based Quest competitor.
The Oculus Rift will also get OpenXR support soon. When SteamVR adds support for OpenXR, that means PC game engine developers will be able to support all platforms with one API.
Just to clear up any confusion here: OpenXR is not the same thing as OpenVR. OpenVR is Valve’s API for SteamVR, entirely unrelated to OpenXR. While OpenVR works on all PC VR headsets, it doesn’t support Android headsets like Quest and due to Facebook’s policies cannot be used on Oculus Rift store apps. Valve said last year it plans to support OpenXR in SteamVR but that doesn’t appear to have happened as of yet.
The Problem OpenXR Solves
An API (application programming interface) allows software to interact with other software or hardware. VR developers use APIs like Facebook’s Oculus and Valve’s OpenVR to build apps. The API is often part of an SDK (software development kit), and informally these terms are often used interchangeably.
The problem with the Oculus API is that apps developed with it can only run on Oculus hardware (without hacks). In addition, for developers using a custom engine, there are actually two separate APIs between Quest and Rift.
This means that if a developer wants to support all VR headsets, they need to use multiple APIs. This can be time consuming and increase complexity.
Engines like Unity and Unreal make this easier, and both are trying to separately unify VR APIs under their own new engine subsystems, but the problem still exists.
What Exactly Is OpenXR?
OpenXR is an open standard for VR/AR. It was developed by a working group managed by Khronos, a non-profit industry consortium. The working group includes the major VR companies such as Facebook, Valve, Microsoft, NVIDIA, AMD, HTC, Google, Unity, and Epic.
The API allows developers to add universal VR support to their apps, so in the future any Windows OpenXR app should technically run on any PC VR headset, and any Android OpenXR app should technically run on any standalone headset.
It’s also important to note that most VR apps are built with the Unity game engine, which has not announced any plans to support OpenXR yet (Unity is a member of the consortium, though).
A few years ago, OpenXR seemed like a distant dream. But now it’s here, and soon engine developers will be able to develop for VR without worrying about what hardware they’re supporting. This should shorten the time taken to develop cross platform VR apps, and may encourage developers to jump into making VR software who were originally put off by proprietary APIs.
Unity 2019.3 introduces a new plugin system for XR headsets, and deprecates official support for Gear VR, Google VR, and Valve’s OpenVR (the API for SteamVR).
“Valve is using our XR SDK to develop their OpenVR Unity XR plugin for 2019.3 and beyond,” the blog post from Unity explains. “They will share more information on where to access it once it is available. Until that plugin is available, built-in support of OpenVR will continue to be functional and available in 2019.3, and we will support our users with any critical fixes.”
What This Doesn’t (Yet) Mean
This doesn’t yet mean that developers can no longer build Unity games for these platforms. For now, it simply means that bugs & issues introduced by the engine which affect the support for these platforms “may not be prioritized”. This also serves as a warning that they will be removed from the engine in the future.
That actual removal won’t happen until version 2020.1. Despite using years in version numbers, 2019.3 has yet to be officially released, so 2020.1 is likely months away.
Of course, developers can continue to use older versions of Unity to build their games — although obviously that means they won’t have access to new & future engine-level features and optimizations.
The New Unity Plugin System
The new XR plugin system is intended to simplify the way VR and AR works across the various platforms in Unity in the long term, and allow for new XR features and software plugins to work across all VR & AR hardware.
Under the new system, Unity is “officially” working with 7 XR platforms: Apple’s ARKit, Google’s ARCore, Microsoft’s HoloLens & WMR, Magic Leap, Oculus, and PlayStation VR.
These platforms are “fully supported” by Unity, and the company is “directly” working with them on “deep platform integration, improvements to our engine, and optimizations to our XR tech stack for the platform”.
Valve?
Notably absent from the list of officially supported platform partners is Valve, the company behind the popular SteamVR platform.
However, the new plugin system does allow third parties to develop XR plugins for Unity separately from official support.
Valve’s application programming interface (API) for SteamVR is called OpenVR. According to Unity, Valve is “currently developing their OpenVR XR Plugin, and they will share more information on where to access it once it is available“.
There are two Unity designations Valve could be delivering this system through. One is as a ‘Verified Solutions Partner’ (VSP) and the other is as an ‘Innovator’. Being a VSP “offers various levels of support, including test verification and promotion of the plugin once released.” It has not yet been revealed whether or not Valve is a VSP.
Will This Really Matter?
There are no announced plans for an unofficial plugin for Daydream or Gear VR, however, there are plans for an open source plugin for Google Cardboard. This means developers will eventually have to resort to non-current versions of Unity to develop for Daydream or Gear VR.
For SteamVR, the change means that responsibility for support of Valve’s platform in Unity now rests solely on Valve. It also may make it more difficult for Valve to work around engine-level bugs or introduce new features that require engine support.
Unity’s own OpenVR Plugin is now deprecated, and will be removed in 2020.1.
At the end of the day, however, this probably won’t really mean much to the average SteamVR developer other than the fact that the party responsible for the core OpenVR support in the engine changed.
It could be argued that a lack of official support would be important to large publishers/developers choosing which platforms to develop for, but even this seems like a stretch for now.
We’ve reached out to Valve for clarity on the current state of its relationship with Unity, plans for future support, and any other statement on the topic. We’ll update this article if we receive a reply.
Facebook added basic support for OpenXR to their Oculus Rift and Rift S headsets.
OpenXR is the open standard API for VR/AR. It was developed by a working group managed by Khronos, a non-profit industry consortium. The working group includes the major VR companies such as Facebook, Valve, Microsoft, NVIDIA, AMD, HTC, Google, Unity, and Epic.
The API allows developers to write code which runs on any and all VR headsets. Until now, developers have had to write different code for different VR headsets, depending on the headset’s native runtime platform.
When OpenXR 1.0 was released back in March, Facebook stated that it planned to support it on Rift and Quest “later this year“.
That support hasn’t arrived on Quest yet, and hasn’t been “officially” released on Rift. However, a message was posted on an open Khronos slack from a user purporting to be a Facebook employee. This message contains the instructions for how to activate the “preview release which is fairly complete”:
Rift Public Test Channel has our preview release which is fairly complete, we don't yet ship the .json manifest but you can create one and either point the XR_RUNTIME_JSON environment variable at it or set the HKLM\SOFTWARE\Khronos\OpenXR\1\ActiveRuntime reg key. The .json should look like (for x64):
{
"file_format_version": "1.0.0",
"runtime":
{
"api_version": "1.0",
"name": "Oculus OpenXR",
"library_path": "c:\\Program Files\\Oculus\\Support\\oculus-runtime\\LibOVRRT64_1.dll"
}
}
substitute LibOVRRT32_1.dll for the /reg:32 version.
The support is currently available on the Public Test Channel of the Oculus Rift software, which users can opt into with one click.
We added the registry key described in the message and were able to successfully link OpenXR to the Oculus software. When launching an OpenXR test app, the Oculus app launched and recognized it as a VR app.
We reached out to Facebook, and spokesperson confirmed that the company has “started to implement support” in the PTC build. They also told us they’ll “have more to share soon“.
A few years ago, OpenXR seemed like a distant dream. But now it’s here and soon developers will be able to develop VR apps without worrying about what hardware they’re supporting. This should shorten the time taken to develop cross platform VR apps, and may encourage developers to jump into making VR software who were originally put off by proprietary APIs.
Initiatives like OpenVR have allowed platforms like Steam to be hardware agnostic, allowing almost any virtual reality (VR) headset which supports the protocol to be used. The industry is striving for ever greater openness and interconnectivity, hence why The Khronos Group and its affiliates began working on OpenXR. Soon Oculus will begin to adopt OpenXR with support reportedly coming in the latest Oculus Public Test Channel release.
Appearing on the Oculus Forums, the preview release is available for testing now, just don’t expect to be running an HTC Vive or Valve Index on Oculus Home anytime soon. The whole purpose of OpenXR is to provide an open standard for cross-platform VR/AR apps, allowing them to be used on any compatible headset, without developers having to make lengthy and costly changes.
The current OpenXR 1.0 specification which launched in July helps to solve the fragmentation of the industry with companies like Epic Games, HTC, Google, HP, Unity, Valve, Sony, Samsung, Oculus and Microsoft all supporting the endeavour. At present only Microsoft’s Windows Mixed Reality headsets support OpenXR. The addition for Oculus Runtime has been expected, a Khronos press release previously mentioned: “Oculus OpenXR implementation for Rift, as well as Oculus Quest support coming upon ratification of OpenXR 1.0.”
However, there are big plans for OpenXR which could make platforms like Oculus Home hardware-agnostic just like Viveport. The Khronos Group does mention: “Optional device plugin interface will be supported post V1.0,” which could make that possibility a reality, albeit very unlikely as Facebook likes to keep a tight rein on its software.
With this appearing, only a couple of weeks before Oculus Connect 6 (OC6) further details regarding Oculus OpenXR integration plans may come during the keynote, most likely from CTO John Carmack or possibly Chief Science Officer Michael Abrash. VRFocus will be in attendance to find out further details.
In the meantime, you’ll have to use software such as Revive to play Oculus exclusives on HTC Vive via Steam with plenty of compatible titles currently available. As the implementation of OpenXR continues to expand VRFocus will bring you all the latest updates and announcements.
Collabora’s xrdesktop, sponsored by Valve, adds full VR support to Linux desktop environments such as GNOME and KDE.
VR On Linux So Far
Linux is an open source operating system initially developed in the 90’s. Unlike Microsoft Windows, Linux is highly modular. This allows users to pick and choose which windowing system and desktop environment to use. It also allows people to modify and extend these components.
The most popular Linux windowing system is called X11. Before early 2018, the default behavior when a VR headset was connected was to treat it like a regular extra monitor. This means that each eye would be presented half of a monitor screen with no distortion correction or tracking.
In January 2018 Linux added a non-desktop property, enabled on the HTC Vive. In May 2018, X11 added support for the non-desktop property. This did not, in itself, add VR support to the Linux desktop. It simply prevented the windowing system from handling VR headsets.
A Vulkan extension was then created to allow VR runtimes such as SteamVR (which was released on Linux in 2017) to render directly to the headset via “direct mode”. A similar extension is being developed for Wayland, X11’s main alternative.
Collabora’s xrdesktop is a 3D window management system which allows the user to view and control windows in VR. It works with the two most popular Linux desktop environments, GNOME and KDE. Xrdesktop supports both the HTC Vive and Valve Index, headsets which have Linux drivers. Using the HTC wands or Valve Index controllers the user should be able to grab, push, pull, scale, and pin windows. The controls can be rebinded using the SteamVR Input Tool.
Collabora also offers its own open source implementation of the OpenXR standard — called Monado — which may eventually function as a bridge for Linux to content available from storefronts such as Valve’s Steam. This new open source VR runtime for Linux uses OpenXR.
Open Source And Future Innovation
The open Linux model allows xrdesktop to individually manipulate windows without needing a “monitor” model. On Microsoft Windows, apps such as Virtual Desktop are limited to displaying physical monitors in VR, and windows are contained within these monitors.
Facebook’s Oculus Rift software tries to work around this limitation of the operating system by using a hidden virtual 4K monitor, enabled via collaboration with NVIDIA and AMD. This is still relatively clunky, however, and the instability of this workaround means that Facebook classifies the feature as “experimental” in the Rift’s settings.
Microsoft’s own Windows MR software allows for individual apps, but this software only supports Windows-based headsets, which make up just 11% of the PC VR market. As Microsoft controls the Windows operating system — it is possible the company may never make this functionality directly available to Facebook or Valve.
Facebook today announced that a prototype version of OpenXR, the royalty-free open standard from The Khronos Group, will be available to Oculus Quest and Rift developers in an update coming later this month.