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SpaceEngine

SpaceEngineer
Explorer


Hi there! I am Vladimir Romanyuk aka "SpaceEngineer", here my project called SpaceEngine. It is a 3D space simulator with procedural Universe generation. It features real-scale planets with 3D landscape, physically based generation of solar systems, real-scale generation of galaxies and entire Universe structure. All transitions are seamless, you can land on any planet and explore it, then take off and fly to another galaxy. Known astronomical objects are also here, including ultra-high resolution textures for Solar system planets and moons (20+ gigs, available as separate download).

This engine is in a form of a free space exploration planetarium, but I am going to make a game based on it. It will feature realistic physics and exploration based gameplay. More info on the forum (look for a sticky threads). Space ships are already implemented, with basic physics and controls.

Website and forum: http://en.spaceengine.org/

Main program: download (960 Mb)
Hi-res Solar system textues: coming soon

Trailer:




This version should work with Oculus Rift DK1. I have only DK1, but I tried to make DK2 support by feedback from beta testers. Here is a relatively old dev video for DK1 (warning it may make you sick iw watch in Rift):




To run in Oculus, first switch it to the extended desktop mode. Then run SpaceEngine, fly there a bit using monitor 🙂 Learn controls, they are easy: WASD + left mouse drag mouse to move, mouse wheel changes speed, click to select object, G key to fly to it (double G for faster flight), and F2 key to bring up the planets list (left and right mouse click to navigate). Advanced controls including speedup and reverse the time flow: JKL and Space keys. You always can use a toolbars, but in Oculus you probably will close them. After this, configure a joystick. Needed actions are move, rotare and chage the speed (very important!).

Then go to Display settings menu (Ctrl-F8) and choose Oculus Rift mode. Moving the window to the Rift is easy: just hit Shift-Enter. Don't forget to toggle fullscreen (Alt-Enter). To move the window back, hit Shift-Enter again. Note that mouse cursor must be in the window to allow rotation and GUI navigation.

If SE crashes on attempt to enable Oculus mode. So you are have AMD graphics card, aren't you? Try to disable mipmaps generation for the framebuffer texture. Open the config/user.cfg and change these parameters to false:
EnableMipmapsGUI false
EnableMipmapsFrame false
EnableMipmapsWarp false
The last parameter could fix crashes on approaching black holes, neutron stars and white dwarfs. Disabling mipmaps reduces quality, but at least fixes crashes.
PS: does anybody know how to implement a CRASH FREE manual shader-based mipmaps generation on ATI on OpenGL? I had a problems with it since the beginning.

There a lot of things what should be done for perfect support of the Rift. The main task is obtaining a DK2, but this is hard because I live in Russia - the country where Oculus did not ship their devices. Other issues are bad tracking latency and lack of direct mode support. I using OpenGL in SpaceEngine and can't make it work in direct mode. Lack of good OpenGL example code is also an issue. Also this release was built with 0.4.3 SDK, because I has weird glitches with the 0.4.4. Interface should be completely reworked to use in Rift, this probably will be made in the next version.

But anyway experience in Rift is just amazing. I hope a nice feedback from this community. Enjoy!
115 REPLIES 115

drash
Heroic Explorer
Sorry SpaceEngineer, wish I could help you with your question as I haven't fiddled with toggling VR mode using the native SDK.

However, I did want to say thanks for your awesome work. It was (and is) an inspiration for me a couple years ago when I discovered it!
  • Titans of Space PLUS for Quest is now available on DrashVR.com

SpaceEngineer
Explorer
SpaceEngine 0.973 release! Oculus DK2 is now fully supported, also the direct mode which is epic! Extended desktop mode is not even close to a perfect timing and almost zero latency as the direct mode. So I suggest you play only in the direct mode.

Download here: http://en.spaceengine.org/load/
Note what this is a patch, so you need to install 0.972 first, then extract 0.973 patch into it.

Big thanks to bud01 for DK2!

NEO_RACER
Honored Guest
HOLYCRAP AWESOME!!! THANKS!!

"SpaceEngineer" wrote:
SpaceEngine 0.973 release! Oculus DK2 is now fully supported, also the direct mode which is epic! Extended desktop mode is not even close to a perfect timing and almost zero latency as the direct mode. So I suggest you play only in the direct mode.

Download here: http://en.spaceengine.org/load/
Note what this is a patch, so you need to install 0.972 first, then extract 0.973 patch into it.

Big thanks to bud01 for DK2!

NEO_RACER
Honored Guest
Direct mode loads but freezes at the menu (for me) but Extended mode still works and its much improved well done

TomSD
Honored Guest
This is really great. It works beautifully for me in direct mode. Thank you and congratulations!

I'm just starting to learn SpaceEngine's interface and the various handy keys. There's so much cool stuff here that I never realized before.

Here are a few tips to other SpaceEngine newbies like myself:

There are some essential Rift specific settings in the display settings available after choosing Oculus Rift, like interface size (I had to make mine a little smaller to fit). Also, you can hide certain UI elements by clicking on the little pins next to them. Ctrl+~ cycles through visibility modes for the rest of the UI. This is very useful in the Rift sometimes when you want the most immersive experience.
i7-4770K, 2x GTX 780 SLI, Windows 7 64-bit, Oculus runtime 0.6.0.0

Arock387
Heroic Explorer
Im trying to figure out the download stuff here. do i download the latest patch, the cubemap and all the planets? Why isnt this all just bundled into one

edit: nevermind. page two..teehee sorry.

SpaceEngineer
Explorer
0.8 update breaks everything... Is there a way to tell library how to use my own textures/buffers, instead of trying embedding textures created with ovr_CreateSwapTextureSetGL into engine? This is extremely inconvenient, I must broke everything in the engine to do that. Or, alternatively, don't touch engine and just copy frame texture rendered by engine into that Oculus' texture. But additional extra copy is not good. And how to generate mipmaps after that (for GUI layer)?

So, my question is: is it possible to set my own texture IDs to the swapTextureSet->Textures[0]->OGL.TexId instead of using ovr_CreateSwapTextureSetGL (SDK 0.5 style)?

Dark_Fread
Explorer
Hello ! I followed your project more or less as soon as it appeared on the internet and I already spend a lot of time exploring the universe in SpaceEngine. Really love it.
Now to make things clear, what version of SpaceEngine does work with the 7.0 runtime ?

See you, Space Co... Engineer !
OR DKII - Win7 64 - Phenom X4 965 - Radeon R9 380 2Go (15.7 driver) - RT v7.0

SpaceEngineer
Explorer
"Dark_Fread" wrote:

Now to make things clear, what version of SpaceEngine does work with the 7.0 runtime ?

I guess you mean 0.7 runtime? No one. The version I am working on currently work with 0.8, I will release it soon. The latest official release (not beta) 0.973 worked with 0.5 runtime.

richhard1
Protege
"SpaceEngineer" wrote:
"Dark_Fread" wrote:

Now to make things clear, what version of SpaceEngine does work with the 7.0 runtime ?

I guess you mean 0.7 runtime? No one. The version I am working on currently work with 0.8, I will release it soon. The latest official release (not beta) 0.973 worked with 0.5 runtime.


This is great news! Cannot wait!
I7-4790K - GTX980ti - 32GB - PB287Q - G502 - A50 - GAMEZ4RO - G19s - E17k - Xonar7.1 - Xenyx502 - AT2050 - H105 - T300RS - XBox1Elite - X55- 4K/DK2/CV1/VIVE