Virtual Reality (Blog)

Since the start of the year, I've become a little obsessed with virtual reality.

The thing is, I didn't ask to be put on part-time hours from my employer. I didn't ask for all this free time I suddenly found myself with. So, while January may have seen me concentrate heavily on Hudokai (and successfully complete a big milestone right before February), the rest of my free hours needed to be filled with something other than just writing. This is when I discovered a few of my online friends had virtual reality (VR), and I really wanted a slice of that pie.

At the start of 2021, I had none of the things I needed. Well, maybe a laptop. But even then, that laptop was primary designed for word processing and rendering videos, not running VR through a headset with its GTX 1050 graphics card. So, I had a bit of a think. After some (okay, an obsessive amount of) research, I discovered that whilst laptops can't really change their graphics cards, they can make use of an desktop graphics card using an external enclosure. These eGPUs, they're called, connected more beefier graphics cards to them via Thunderbolt connectors. They'd lose a bit of their power, but I thought it could only be a step up from what I currently had, especially given this laptop was less than a year old.

I sold a lot of unnecessary things, raised quite a bit of money, then bought an external graphics card from eBay - an RTX 2070 Super. I'm a little annoyed at how the BitCoin miners have inflated graphics cards so sharply, though, as I had to spend more than I reckon is worth on just that. Still, I managed to get it cheaper than I anticipated after a lot of failed bidding elsewhere. I then acquired an enclosure, the Razer Core X. Frustratingly, I then discovered my laptop doesn't actually have a Thunderbolt port, but a USB-C port. These are not the same thing, regardless of what everyone online said. This is an example of when research can backfire, where everyone tells you they're the same thing, but the finer details are different. So, I will spare anyone else the pain and say that whilst a USB-C port will connect Thunderbolt wires into it, it will only provide power through the wire and not the signal needed to activate a Thunderbolt device. The enclosure wouldn't work and connect with the graphics card, in short, making it useless. Most laptops have this, but as mine was built by Custom PC Specialist and, as I also discovered, they don't build any of their laptops with Thunderbolt ports despite them listing them as 'Thunderbolt/USB-C' on their website and in my laptop specs, it meant I had to look into an alternative. Luckily, I found the ADT-Link R3G unit, which may be basic, but it connected to the laptop via a spare M.2 port. I had one spare, the other being used for a SSD drive, so this meant I was back in business. I then bumped up my RAM, because I needed more memory.

The RTX 2070 Super as placed in the ADT-Link to my laptop.

VR headsets, themselves, are a funny ol' thing. There are plenty out there, these days, but almost all of them have some kind of flaw. I had to look into what was available and what people recommended, but I didn't want to spend a huge amount given the purchases I had to make with the graphics card. Turns out the Valve Index was unanimously praised, but it's stupid money. I did more research and discovered Microsoft's Occulus Quest was quite popular and cheap, but... there was a lot of compromises with display in games, people were saying. I had a friend with the HTC Vive, which was basic by today's standards, but did the job. Turns out there was a newer model out called the HTC Vive Cosmos, which was universally panned upon release. However, after seeing some reviews of updates that fixed its problems such as needing a super bright space and tracking, it actually wasn't too bad. I then turned back to my ol' friend, eBay. Long and short of it, I eventually did find a HTC Vive Cosmos going very cheap. I kind of liked how it used cameras on the headset itself instead of base station trackers, as well as options to customise and improve it later, if I wanted.

It's me in the HTC Vive Cosmos VR headset!

The big day arrives and I can finally test it all out, only to find that the headset display freezes. I looked online, up high and down low for solutions. Everyone, and I mean 99% of people, said to sell the headset and buy a Valve Index. Real useful, guys. Even Vive's support guys were super unhelpful, saying to test the connections. However, in the most unexpected of places, I eventually found a YouTube video of a guy having this problem. Somewhere deep in the comments was someone who said to roll back the NVIDIA graphics drivers to a very specific version. Now, I had originally tried rolling back some of the drivers, but to no avail. But, I didn't realise it was so specific. For those wanting or needing it, it's the NVIDIA driver 445.87.

And then it all worked!

The nights I spent in VR after were awe-inspiring for me. I relaxed on beaches to meditate. I played Beat Sabre to get exercise to sweet tunes. I played VRChat to speak with people. Honestly, it's been an experience I never expected. VRChat, in particular, has been a source of wonderment in that you can find worlds that have been created by other people, play as avatars made for the experience, and just speak with people. Ever fancied being Winnie the Pooh in Persona 5's Cafe LéBlanc? Now you can!

The social experience of VRChat has been quite liberating. I'm terrible when it comes to social encounters, at least when I have to use my voice, so it was out of my comfort zone. Meeting random people and chatting about anything and everything is an odd concept to me, but after the initial scary part of first doing it, it's actually quite insightful. Naturally, you encounter the people with no filter, but then you encounter those who are there just to hang out and meet new people. I commend it for getting me out of my comfort zone.

It didn't take long before I knew I had to design my old Sea of Seals character and online persona, Smaz. It just made sense to update him and see if I could get a model made of him. So, I did. He went through so many updates and designs to get him to a place where I liked him. I wanted to take him back to the more knight-style he once was, like in Sea of Seals, especially given I want to write some new stuff with him in future.

Smaz, as redesigned for future endeavours...

After finally settling on a new design, I commissioned a good friend of mine to create the model. I watched parts of the process and with every new addition, I became increasingly excited! One week later, and with some of my own input regarding aspects that worked better in 3D than in 2D, Smaz was complete.

It's so exciting to play as something you designed and have full control of in first person. Interestingly, it's a confidence boost when approaching people online in your own avatar, too. It makes for a good conversation starter if nothing else. He even has a little sword he can pull out and sheath!

Virtual Reality Smaz

VRChat really elevated my birthday, this year, too. I managed to see Poly during the day, what with us still maintaining our friendship post-divorce and her birthday also being the day after, which was lovely. However, the evening could have been very dull on my own without VRChat. We're still in a lockdown period as I write this, with COVID-19 sweeping the world (Poly is vaccinated already, otherwise that meeting could not have happened). I managed to spend my evening online with a few of my friends, playing games in VRChat or just chatting once things wound down. It gives a whole new dimension to just a Skype or Discord call, quite frankly.

So, until lockdown lifts, band starts up again, and outside of doing work on Hudokai or Band Cramp 2 (more on that another time), VRChat will continue to be the social experience I crave and no doubt keep me happy for many nights to come.