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What is your development process?

madibasoft
Honored Guest
As a longtime mobile developer, I'm trying to enter the waters of VR developement with my Samsung S7 and Gear VR Oculus.
After much gnashing of teeth (Framework incompatible with current Android NDK 12, Oculus keys, state of documentation) I managed to build and deploy my first sample app.
But I must be doing something wrong, as the development lifecycle I'm following is too ridiculously complex to be feasible for iterative development, so I'd love to hear what other people are doing to ensure rapid development?

Right now I need to :
1)Build the app
2)Plugin in my S7 to my laptop via USB cable
3)Run the application on my detected S7 using Android Studio
4)Watch the debugger log messages flash by, hoping the apk has copied
5)Unplug my S7 from my laptop
6)Unlock my S7 screen
7)Search for an open my newly installed application
8)Open it and watch the message "Insert this in your VR device"
9)Insert it in my VR device
10)Place VR device on my head, and try look sideways at the tiny Cube sample app message "Your application *** unexpectedly"

Then start again.

There is no way any developer could follow this process every time, so I must be doing something wrong. Can we run an emulator locally?

many thanks

8 REPLIES 8

Fulby
Heroic Explorer
I'm developing Starfighter Arduxim in Unity and use its built-in player to do the vast majority of testing. When running on the phone, it's something like:

Plug phone in via USB (I could use wi-fi but find it really slow to copy the APK)
Select 'build and run' in Unity. Wait until it's done.
Unplug phone. The app has already started and the 'insert' dialog is open
Put phone in Gear VR
Put Gear VR on head

delphinius81
Rising Star
I have an application manager script that I use to detect if a VR device is present. If no VR device is found, I add some traditional mouse look controls to my camera to emulate moving my head (I'm developing in Unity3D). You can't see VR specific issues this way, but it let's you test out other game/app mechanics. I haven't done native android VR development though, so I'm not sure if the same process would work there.

madibasoft
Honored Guest
It's mindblowing how many obstacles there are to developing anything on this platform.
In the slim event anyone is listening out there, I'd suggest 2 things if you really want to get developers creating content :
1)A simple female usb connection on the GearVR? So we don't spend the prime of our lives jamming our expensive phones in and out of a set of plastic goggles?
2)An android emulator which runs locally on the development machine. Or a way to run on the standard Android SDK emulator devices.

I appreciate it's all very new, and things are changing rapidly - but content creators are the most important aspect of your platform.

delphinius81
Rising Star
You can also try enabling developer mode on your phone. This never really worked for me (moving the phone never changed camera orientation), but maybe it will for you.

CodingJar
Protege
You want to enable WiFi debugging mode.  Here's the commands on your PC which must be executed while the phone is plugged in:
adb tcpip 5555
adb connect <ip address of your phone>

After that completes successfully, you can disconnect your phone.  Then when you do a build/deploy it will deploy over WiFi.  Keep your headset plugged in while developing or it will run out of juice quickly.  Enabling GearVR developer mode may also help if you're not testing VR stuff (e.g. performance).  If you're doing that, connecting a bluetooth keyboard to emulate controls would also help a lot in that mode (or adding controller support).

Using that the iteration times are acceptable, though not great as the deploy still takes time.  I used Unity to do the deploy step, so everything was done automatically for me (I just uncheck a bunch of scenes so the build time is fast if I'm testing a small subset).

Good luck trying to get them to take developer feedback.  If you look at this forum, you'll see it's full of people experiencing 3-week+ app submission times and their official policy (which goes against their stated policy in their documentation) is no feedback on your submission.  So after spending months on your product, you'll have to wait another month for submission and if you're rejected you'll have no direction as to why.  We stopped working on GearVR and are now really excited for DayDream.  The GearVR phones all support DayDream so it's likely GearVR will support DayDream apps.  If you're looking to make a serious product, you're probably better off developing for that platform.  We learned the hard way after spending 2 months in submission, learn from our mistakes!
Developer of Elementalist X: Immersive and intense tower defense for Gear VR.

mattsydney
Explorer

CodingJar said:

You want to enable WiFi debugging mode.  Here's the commands on your PC which must be executed while the phone is plugged in:
adb tcpip 5555
adb connect <ip address of your phone>

After that completes successfully, you can disconnect your phone.  Then when you do a build/deploy it will deploy over WiFi.  Keep your headset plugged in while developing or it will run out of juice quickly.  Enabling GearVR developer mode may also help if you're not testing VR stuff (e.g. performance).  If you're doing that, connecting a bluetooth keyboard to emulate controls would also help a lot in that mode (or adding controller support).

Using that the iteration times are acceptable, though not great as the deploy still takes time.  I used Unity to do the deploy step, so everything was done automatically for me (I just uncheck a bunch of scenes so the build time is fast if I'm testing a small subset).

Good luck trying to get them to take developer feedback.  If you look at this forum, you'll see it's full of people experiencing 3-week+ app submission times and their official policy (which goes against their stated policy in their documentation) is no feedback on your submission.  So after spending months on your product, you'll have to wait another month for submission and if you're rejected you'll have no direction as to why.  We stopped working on GearVR and are now really excited for DayDream.  The GearVR phones all support DayDream so it's likely GearVR will support DayDream apps.  If you're looking to make a serious product, you're probably better off developing for that platform.  We learned the hard way after spending 2 months in submission, learn from our mistakes!


Hi mate have you abandoned development for GearVR? We are considering cutting out losses and looking at alternatives to Oculus. It's not feasible to waste resources when you have no idea if your app will ever be published

CodingJar
Protege


Hi mate have you abandoned development for GearVR? We are considering cutting out losses and looking at alternatives to Oculus. It's not feasible to waste resources when you have no idea if your app will ever be published


Yup.  We've abandoned GearVR... four months too late I suppose.  We're super excited for DayDream and so far the Google Cardboard team has been really receptive to our game, so we're hoping that continues into DayDream.  I spent months demoing our app to people on GearVR, and at the last conference I just felt really dejected demoing GearVR to people for hours, knowing that I'm pushing an Oculus product and they've treated us so poorly.  The very next week Google announced DayDream and it's like a huge weight has been lifted.  At least any effort you put into your app/game can be leveraged.
Developer of Elementalist X: Immersive and intense tower defense for Gear VR.

mattsydney
Explorer

CodingJar said:



Hi mate have you abandoned development for GearVR? We are considering cutting out losses and looking at alternatives to Oculus. It's not feasible to waste resources when you have no idea if your app will ever be published


Yup.  We've abandoned GearVR... four months too late I suppose.  We're super excited for DayDream and so far the Google Cardboard team has been really receptive to our game, so we're hoping that continues into DayDream.  I spent months demoing our app to people on GearVR, and at the last conference I just felt really dejected demoing GearVR to people for hours, knowing that I'm pushing an Oculus product and they've treated us so poorly.  The very next week Google announced DayDream and it's like a huge weight has been lifted.  At least any effort you put into your app/game can be leveraged.


Yeah will probably give up on GearVR too. Glad you have some positive news and your effort wasn't totally wasted. Hopefully DayDream will be more developer friendly!