Gamespace Graphics and Environment Requirements Follow
Introduction
This article provides the technical requirements your venue environment needs in order to run a Gen 3 Zero Latency system with minimal tracking interruptions.
On this page:
Why my venue's Environment is so important
How Gen 3 tracking works
A Zero Latency Gen 3 system uses HTC Focus 3 Headsets that use inside-out tracking.
Inside-out tracking is when cameras on the Headset itself; look outwards at the surrounding environment to know where the Headset is during operations.
The HTC Focus 3 Headset has 4 cameras, and when combined they can see a very wide view of the gamespace environment; providing greater success of continuous tracking.
Although the Focus 3 Headset can see such a wide angle, the cameras are very low resolution meaning only larger shapes are trackable, and can only see in grayscale; making only contrasting patterns visible to it.
The more patterns and graphics your environment has, the more tracking points that are available for the headset to track against. The more tracking points that are available, the more accurately the player position will be, and the more quickly the headset will be able to find its initial position when loading players into their experience.
Having a high number of tracking points also improves the safety of players in the system as it reduces the possibility of tracking errors; ensuring everyone is kept safe.
Why my venue's Environment is so important
When you set up your venue you will use the Focus 3 Headset to scan the environment, allowing you to build a Map for it to lock down and share with the remaining headsets.
During the scan, the headset will create virtual tracking points around only the outside of patterns it sees (large, high contrasting patterns) and will save these points on the server to be shared from that moment onwards.
Once a map has been shared, all of the headsets share the same Map scan and know the state of your gamespace environment.
Making changes to the gamespace environment like changing any of the patterns, will confuse the headsets because the points that were originally there will now be different in that area, confusing the headset enough to make it lose tracking. The only way to recover from this would require a new Map scan to be performed and for that new Map to be shared with all of the headsets.
Ensuring your venue has controlled lighting is very important. If your gamespace has strong lights, it can over expose the headset cameras, blinding the headsets vision, making it difficult track a players location.
It is also important to ensure your graphics on the floors and walls are non-reflective. Having reflective flooring for example, will reflect the above lighting on the ground, causing the same over exposure issue for the cameras on the headsets.
The following articles provide further detail on environment requirements.
Lighting requirements
The lighting within the game space should filled with white artificial lighting that is not very intense, distributed evenly, whilst avoiding windows with direct sunlight.
Ensuring a consistent light level across the game space is vitally important for reliable tracking, as dark areas or overly bright spots will make tracking points invisible to the cameras.
Requirements List
- Target average light intensity between 150 and 400lux (How to Test Game Space Light Intensity).
- Consistent light intensity across the space, with minimal variance between light and dark areas.
- No intense light sources such as spotlights.
Example
Below is an example of lighting that is evenly spread throughout the gamespace, resulting in a good even light for optimal tracking performance.
Wall Graphics
Wall graphics should be placed inside of all walls which face into the gamespace environment.
- Graphics should be between 1 - 2.5 meters in height, surrounding the gamespace itself.
- Tracking graphic files for walls can be found here.
- Zero Latency VR Logo can be found here.
Example
Flat Top Down Illustration only - showing surround walls with tracking graphics, Zero Latency VR Logo and flooring as described in the below article.
Floor Graphics
Important note:
It is important to have full flooring graphics as described below for system functionality. Especially in environments that experience significant changes in lighting or movement in furniture in the surrounding area.
Full Floor Graphics Option
Standard Game Space tracking graphics, with highly detailed pattern printed on hard-wearing vinyl flooring. This option provides the most amount of tracking points, for the best possible tracking accuracy, but also comes with a higher installation cost. Flooring graphics can be found found here.
Example
Rectangle and Square layouts with Vinyl floor graphics.
Network Devices
Camera and Wireless Access Point requiring network cable runs. Cameras are placed in oposite corners of the gamspace, whilst Access points are to be placed center to the gamespace, with at least 2 meters of space between each other.
Example locations
Article Keywords/Phrases:
Gamespace Graphics
Environment
Tracking Graphics
Tracking
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