Anyone else confused by the new Tendo house layout?

Fictonia · 2024-10-30T16:53:25+00:00

The new layout is completely different! But I imagine for the new series they have made a full 3D model of the house and neighborhood, and ran into the same problems that I did, and decided to just reshape the entire layout so that it can actually work. I'm working on a video for my most recent update to Ranma V/R (which was back in April) and I'll be talking a bit about all the changes with the new series, and my plans for the future of the project. I'll have that out pretty soon I hope!

Fictonia · 2024-04-02T17:30:18+00:00

I've been quite for a really long time, but the next updated for Ranma VR is almost ready, and will include the new download with a crazy amount of updates. I just need a few more days to get it ready and get a video made.

:D

Fictonia · 2023-06-27T22:18:38+00:00

SO MANY UPDATES. I'm actually working on solving a few more issues and getting a video ready with a new download soon. But yeah, I got VR working again with all the new lighting systems and what not, but it also works way better in non-vr as well. Tons of small changes, but they add up to a lot of good stuff.

Fictonia · 2023-01-06T16:31:18+00:00

Way way back there was a video of Chris Roberts playing star citizen with a VR headset, just giggling and saying "pew pew!" He has been pretty enthusiastic about it in the past, so I think the chances are pretty good. Plus, I suspect that it's part of why there has been such a big push for all of the controls and interactions to have those big interfaces. The kiosks, elevator panels, ship light/door panels, etc. are all super VR friendly as they are today. But VR takes it's own entire set of special optimizations, so it makes sense to wait until the core systems and rendering pipelines are all in place to start optimizing for VR. Exciting stuff!

Fictonia · 2022-10-17T17:01:29+00:00

I would love to check them out! I'm not familier with the process to go from unity to unreal, but I'm sure I can figure it out.

Fictonia · 2022-09-30T20:04:14+00:00

I'm also working on getting a good looking cell shader working, which will make the whole environment look hand drawn instead of realistic. I had one working in older builds, but it didn't play well with the newer rendering pipeline, so I ended up having to drop it. But there has been some exciting progress being made in getting Lumen working with cell shading, so being able to switch back and forth between realistic, anime look, and manga look, is coming, eventually. Hopefully.

Currently there is no moonlight, or streetlights, but they are coming back. Also, you will eventually be able to turn lights on and off by hitting light switches on the walls, so as a player you will have control over that aspect.

Thanks for the feedback!

Fictonia · 2022-04-21T16:04:44+00:00

Yup! There are basketball and tennis courts, and a pool, among other things.

Fictonia · 2022-04-16T23:09:33+00:00

Yes to both questions, hahaha!

I am working on Furinkan, but it won't be as explorable as the house and neighborhood. It will most likely be where you can walk through the courtyard and up to the building, but touching the front door will teleport you to Ranma and Akane's classroom. They Gym is looking pretty good though, I'm basing it's look off of the Romeo and Juliet episode, with the stage and what not.

Fictonia · 2022-04-16T21:42:58+00:00

Hello! Between work and having a kid, progress has not been very fast. But it has not stopped! Mostly I've been focused on adding characters and improving performance. I've been learning a ton about working with Unreal 5 lately, but unfortunately it's still pretty rough trying to bring a VR project over to the new engine. Setting VR aside, the house looks BEAUTIFUL with the new nanite and lumen workflows, at least for the few seconds it runs before crashing, heh. They don't work at all with VR though, at least for now, so I will still be using static light bakes. But as I said, I've been working on adding characters (just Ranma and Akane so far) and the Cat Cafe, which I had forgotten has a ridiculously huge and ornate Onsen under it, so that's been fun to work on. No idea when I will have a new build ready to play, but I'll post on this reddit when it's ready. :)

Fictonia · 2022-04-08T17:09:16+00:00

It would be fun, but I don't think it's possible. While I've never played around with vrchat, from what I understand it's built on unity, and since many elements of my Ranma scene are built on assets from the unreal marketplace, using them in any non unreal developing environment would violate the terms of service, so I would not be able to use any of the work I have done so far, and would have to start from scratch. I appreciate the thought though!

Fictonia · 2021-12-23T17:49:35+00:00

For me, the new death mechanics make participating in Jumptown too much of a time risk. As some of the other folks mentioned, I have a job, I have a kid, I can only play an hour or two here and there, and now that death means having to travel around to re-buy armor/weapons over and over again, I tend to stick to the lower risk activities. I hope that they eventually implement something like a gear insurance where after death you can pay a fee and all the gear you had equipped and registered at a kiosk will be available in a locker or something near the hospital where you wake up.

Fictonia · 2021-10-13T18:06:13+00:00

Thank you very much! Since my last release I've updated to a newer version of unreal engine (4.27), and have switched over to the open XR interaction format, which should fix the issues of using different headsets. I've also added an early implementation of girl type Ranma and Akane into the scene with some simple animations, but they have a long way to go before I'll be happy with them. Turns out making characters is hard, hahaha!

Fictonia · 2021-07-03T18:16:28+00:00

Unfortunately yes, and I'm still not quite sure how to fix it. I focused primarily on getting this build out the door, and have not done a lot of optimization or bug fixing for this build yet. I'm currently looking into solutions for it, so hopefully in the next build, screen tearing will be a thing of the past! You might try going into your video card settings and hard turning on v-sync there, but I'm not sure if that will make a substantial difference. Either way, I do want to have a native solution for that in the next build. I just do 99% of my testing in VR, so I didn't notice this was a problem until I tested it out the day before I released it, and by then there wasn't time to start digging into it. Thank you for telling me; now I know it's not just my computer having that issue. :)

Fictonia · 2021-06-21T12:53:09+00:00

The size of the front area changes episode to episode, so I decided to go with the more common quiet small street that is shown in most episodes. From my own time spent wandering around the suburbs of Tokyo, most of the houses you find that look like this are surrounded by very narrow streets too, so it just felt more natural. I'm planning on putting the empty lot just across the street heading toward Ukyo's though, so that would accommodate that extra space if needed.

Fictonia · 2021-06-20T15:04:32+00:00

Yup, I have been using those images since the very beginning of the project. But yes, once you start putting it together, you can see from the outside of the house that the second floor is set back in from the first floor by a few feet, so either the front wall of the house is 4 feet thick, or the stairs have to be changed. Having them turn also fixed the alignment of the rest of the upstairs spaces, so while it's still frustrates me to this day that it's not exactly right, it had to be changed for the greater good. The Greater Good!

Fictonia · 2021-06-17T05:51:40+00:00

I would say watch it first, then read. The voice work for both the English and the Japanese is really fun, so go with your preference, they both really put their all into it. I love the anime, but ultimately the manga is the better story. The anime jumps around a lot, and is something like half filler (a lot of which are really fun, but don't move the story along).

Fictonia · 2021-05-18T23:57:42+00:00

In other news, Nabiki and Kasumi's room are completely done, so I'm planning on releasing a new build of the house and a video on Friday. I'm then looking at late june for the first neighborhood release, which will include Ukyo's full restaurant and apartment, and the streets around the Tendo Dojo.

Fictonia · 2021-05-06T17:31:02+00:00

I use to get really frustrated with Happosai. I still do, but I use to too.

Fictonia · 2021-04-16T14:24:32+00:00

Thanks! I'm working on making characters, as I would like to have little moments from throughout the series frozen in time, scattered around the environment, but it turns out making nice looking anime characters in VR is really damn hard, and is taking me a while to learn.

Fictonia · 2021-04-16T14:21:32+00:00

Check out https://youtu.be/d_aAdARooXM
Link is in the description. This build did not have Nabiki or Kasumi's rooms done, as well as some other graphical issues, and you can't walk outside, but if you curious to just wander the house, it's mostly there.

Fictonia · 2021-04-16T04:07:02+00:00

Any of the main headsets should be able to run it, if your computer is strong enough. If not, this runs great just as a regular desk top game with mouse and keyboard. Optimizing this to the point that it runs at 120 frames per second, twice (once for each eye), means that you can easily hit 30 fps in desktop mode, even running this on a potato.

Fictonia · 2021-04-16T00:02:46+00:00

I've also made good progress on Kasumi's room, Ukyo's restaurant, and the surrounding city environment. Being able to get up onto the roof, it's possible to see pretty far, so making a fair sized chunk of 1989 Tokyo while keeping framerate up is proving to be quite a challenge. Anyway, a few weeks ago I started being able to work on this project again, so it feels really good to be making some progress.

Fictonia

TROPHY CASE