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Chris Pruett - Director of Ecosystem

rosebud_the_sle
Expert Protege
Hi folks! My name is Chris Pruett, and I am the Director of Ecosystem for Content here at Oculus. I joined Oculus in 2014 and have spent the last four and a half years helping developers build better VR apps and games. Before that I ran a game studio, worked on Android at Google, and even further back, shipped a bunch of games for consoles. I'm a big fan of horror games.



I'm happy to answer your questions about VR engineering, game design, or market success. Please only post a question once, we'll see it!
59 REPLIES 59

rosebud_the_sle
Expert Protege
For @Schneider21:

Chris, I'm a hobbyist Unity developer hotly anticipating the Quest as my first real VR jeadset. I've done a bit with Daydream, but after experiencing 6dof tracking and Touch controllers, I can't go back. I do my work from my MacBook Pro. Is there any way I could get started with 6dof controller development now? Doesn't seem like Rift would work for me. Could you give us any insight on how Quest development workflows will go? Will quest be able to display the editor preview in realtime, or will we have to build each time to see changes? I'm seeing a lot of people freaking out over Oculus' recent announcement about a more cultivated store front for Quest. Could you tell us what this does and doesn't mean as far as game content, as opposed to purely game quality?

###

That's a lot of questions! I will do my best!

I also work on a MacBook Pro as my main development machine. Unfortunately we do not have a good way to preview 6DoF in the headset with a Mac. For core gameplay iteration, particularly for things like hand interactions, I often switch over to my PC and use the Rift to test ideas and change them quickly. That said, it's also pretty easy to make a build and deploy it to the device. You can increase the speed at which you turn code changes around by splitting your data out into an asset bundle and only rebuilding the executable as described here: https://developer.oculus.com/blog/tech-note-expansion-files-with-unity/

With respect to our recent announcement about store curation, our goal is to ensure that folks who ship on our store have a real shot at success. We are trying to learn about titles in development as early as possible so that we can support those that look promising, and so that we can save developers who we don't think will find an audience a lot of development time and money. I think this will drive customer trust and lead to better returns for the devs shipping on our platform.

rosebud_the_sle
Expert Protege
Oculus has a team dedicated to education that is pursuing all sorts of ideas. For now, considering that Oculus Quest hasn't even launched yet, our core focus is on delivering the highest quality VR experience that we can to the home. There are lots of other interesting ways that VR is being deployed, including in educational settings, enterprise setups, and location-based entertainment. But for now we've chosen to focus on our core audience.

It's also worth noting that, like all of our headsets, Quest is designed for ages 13 and up.

rosebud_the_sle
Expert Protege
I asked a couple of engineers on the team about this. We'd have to dig in a bit for exact details, but you could try accessing the Hand SceneComponent and finding the PoseableMeshComponent from there. From there you can query for the "hands:b_finger_3" bone or something similar. The scene component is available in OvrAvatar.h/cpp. I might have the bone name wrong here—it's been a while.

fabs_epsilon
Explorer
Hi Chris,

We have worked with the Rift, Go, Vive and now the Focus. Ideally we would like to have fully untethered full body tracking.

1) How does the Quest compare to the Vive Cosmos and the Vive Focus Plus?
2) When will the Quest be available?
3) Will the controllers for the Quest be 6DOF as well?
4) Do the controllers need to be in view of the HMD in order for them to be tracked, or does the system know the controller(s) location even when it's outside the HMD's field of view (ie when the hands are flat against the sides of the body and the user is looking forward).
5) Will Oculus have other hardware to track feet and waste (for the Quest), such as the HTC track straps and belt ?

Thanks!

Anonymous
Not applicable


Hi! I'm not sure I understand your question. The development process for Rift is pretty well defined and we don't anticipate any major changes to it in the near future. Did you mean to ask about Quest?



Yes I meant Quest, my mistake!

jumbli
Heroic Explorer
Hi Chris,

Visibility is one of the challenges for small indies with minimal marketing budget. How do you select the titles that you highlight / promote on the store? Are they hand picked, or selected based on previous sales figures / ratings / playtime or something else? Any insights may help steer our developments.

For example, I released a free experience that didn't take long to play but it was unique, polished and well rated but I expect that wouldn't appear on your radar due to 0 revenue and low playtime. Being free means I can't put it on sale to highlight the title so it's probably not a good route for visibility.
Developer of Dimensional, The Relentless, Breath Tech, Jigsaw 360 View my dev blog at JumbliVR.com

rosebud_the_sle
Expert Protege
This isn't really about a performance difference. User rooms (Sessions) can be used for matchmaking or invites. If you want to be able to join other people who aren't friends, use matchmaking. If you want to create rooms that friends can join or be invited to, use Rooms.

fabs_epsilon
Explorer
Hi Chris,

We have worked with the Rift, Go, Vive and now the Focus. Ideally we would like to have fully untethered full body tracking.

1) How does the Quest compare to the HTC Cosmos and the HTC Focus Plus?
2) When will the Quest be available?
3) Will the controllers for the Quest be 6DOF as well?
4) Do the controllers need to be in view of the HMD in order for them to be tracked, or does the system know the controller(s) location even when it's outside the HMD's field of view (ie when the hands are flat against the sides of the body and the user is looking forward).
5) Will Oculus have other hardware to track feet and waste, such as the HTC track straps and belt?

Thanks!

andrewtek
Expert Protege
Hi Chris. Thanks for doing this AMA. Will developer resources for the Quest be limited to people who have an approved concept document?

Use case: I work with a small team of developers. We have several ideas but we are not sure what we want to do with them. We want to create a proof of concept to vet some of those ideas on Quest before submitting one for approval.

1. Will we be able to use an Oculus Quest to try out our ideas before submitting a concept document?
2. Will we have the same level of access to APIs and documentation as teams with an approved concept document?

jphilipp
Protege
Hi Chris, thanks for doing this! We're the indie devs of VR sandbox universe Anyland.

What would an indie team who'd love to port their title to Oculus Quest need to do to get a Quest dev kit, and are there any programs where the team could get funding? Thank you!

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- Anyland dev -