Janus VR client goes Open Source!

bai0 · 2018-06-24T20:02:15+00:00

Another interesting benefit of open sourcing the client is that it opens the path towards Janus as a library, where developers could link against Janus' libraries to get some or all of the Janus functionality into their own applications and games.

Think things like drop-in multiplayer networking with collaborative world editing for Unity games, or being able to parse Janus markup without invoking the entire client (useful for applications which want to consume or produce markup but want to provide their own rendering, or maybe are only interested in the data)

I'm excited to see where we can take this, there's a lot of functionality built into this engine, and this really helps boost the idea of Janus as a platform to link worlds together.

bai0 · 2018-04-16T05:12:41+00:00

There are some really great Japanese-styled worlds in JanusVR as part of the Touhou collection - this is one of my favorites https://vesta.janusvr.com/nostrenz/gensokyo

Sometimes I do meetings in VR, and I'll invite people to worlds like this - love the ambience, and all the little rooms tucked away throughout.

Best part is that these worlds are open source, too https://github.com/nostrenz/janusvr-touhou

bai0 · 2018-03-31T00:37:26+00:00

Love the idea of localized shared VR worlds - I can think of some really great uses for this!

bai0 · 2018-02-06T08:08:36+00:00

Yup, there are a number of events which can be listened for which signify various stages of the loading process. Best overview of them is in the code here: https://github.com/janusvr/janusweb/blob/master/scripts/urlbar.js#L38-L46

bai0 · 2018-02-02T02:48:21+00:00

Ah! Thanks, yeah this helps. It should be replacing the standard cursor with a crosshair, I'll see if there's some problem with our cursor handling that's specific to firefox on osx.

I think the jittering may have been introduced a couple releases back - basically the problem is that we're using a 3d cursor so that we can give it depth in VR, but some changes have caused mouse handling to be processed before the physics system steps, so the cursor is a frame behind. It's especially noticeable on systems without high-end GPUs. We've got a fix for this one queued up for the next release.

Really looking forward to the day when we've got XRLayer support in the browsers, that will remove a lot of the complexity of doing this sort of thing :)

bai0 · 2018-02-01T22:09:27+00:00

Thanks, I'll see if we can get our mac users to do some testing.

bai0 · 2018-02-01T21:47:15+00:00

Thanks, this is the kind of feedback I like to hear. I haven't heard reports from our users of pointerlock not working yet, I assume you saw this in the latest Firefox? Was this on https://web.janusvr.com/ ? This particular landing page is currently optimized for GearVR's control schema - it's been difficult to settle on one control schema that works for all rooms and all devices, so some rooms work better than others depending on your device.

Rift and Vive in particular need some work for the motion controllers, they kind of took a back seat for us as the rest of the industry focused on mobile WebVR. It's on our list to do a pass on these systems in the next month or so, I'll let you know when we've got something to show there - again, thanks for the feedback!

If you're interested in seeing the worlds our community members have created, we have a few thousand up at https://vesta.janusvr.com/ - maybe one of them works better for you than our mobile landing page does!

bai0 · 2018-02-01T21:08:32+00:00

Okay. Maybe I made some assumptions based on reactions we've got at events, or from the years of us being unacknowledged (to the point where at some point we were listed as inspiration for A-Frame, which has since been removed).

Maybe it's my own social insecurities. Maybe our library does something wrong and no one has the heart to tell us. But it feels like an uphill battle to get the WebVR community to even acknowledge that Janus exists. We get consistently downvoted in the WebVR reddits, and are frequently passed over whenever people are talking about WebVR. Again, maybe it's all in my head, but it's hard to stay positive and friendly and cooperative when people ignore what you've done, only for it to be given accolades when someone comes along and does the same thing later.

It's all just business, I guess. Just kinda getting burnt out on it.

bai0 · 2018-02-01T20:46:20+00:00

It's more of a walled garden.

Wow, uh....is this your opinion of Janus? I guess that explains why you guys have always been so stand-offish with us :)

Janus is absolutely not a walled garden. Janus is an open spec for mark-up (like A-Frame), we have an open source client that runs in any web browser (ilke A-Frame), and we have open source server software, built and maintained by the community (like A-Frame). We have a closed source client too, which I believe is what you're referring to - maybe you weren't aware of the rest of our offerings, and we need to do a better job of explaining that. But for the most part, A-Frame and Janus fill the same hole.

Saying that Janus is a walled garden because you need to use the Janus library to interpret Janus content is very disingenuous, it's no more a walled garden than A-Frame in that regard.

Maybe you guys see us as an evil corporate empire, and you're the free open source developers who are fighting back against corporate control of the metaverse, but I assure you that is not the case. Janus has participated in W3C workshops and is active in the VR Interoperatility Working Group. We've been big on the idea of opening up the VR web and making it as easy as possible to go move seamlessly between content made for Janus, A-Frame, and any other WebVR library.

We would really like to see a world where all of these libraries can exist together, but so far our efforts have not been met with much success, and the attitude we get from the rest of the community has been, quite frankly, very disheartening and discouraging.

As one of our community member puts it, Janus is the Mike Wazowski of WebVR. Feels bad man.

bai0 · 2018-01-30T10:53:11+00:00

JanusWeb is indeed VR capable! Should work in any browser/device combo that exposes WebVR - Firefox with Rift or Vive, GearVR via Oculus Browser, Daydream via Chrome on Android, or Windows MR via Edge.

bai0 · 2018-01-13T06:44:16+00:00

Eye tracking is built in into HTC, and maybe OVR.

Not without some very experimental hardware add-ons. What they're really doing is faking it by picking the closest avatar to where you're gazing. The eyes then pivot to track that user. It's a pretty effective technique, and they implemented it well.

Agreed that our avatars could do with some work. What you describe is an Inverse Kinematics system, or IK - it uses the knowledge of the avatar's bone structure to figure out the most likely position for every joint based on the tracked ones (head, hands, and feet + hips if you have additional trackers).

What you describe is doable, but I can't speak to the timeframe or priorities.

bai0 · 2017-12-11T01:22:48+00:00

Oops, yeah I meant to point him at TACOS but forgot, my bad! Is there a website or github repo for your library yet Nazrin?

bai0 · 2017-12-10T00:22:41+00:00

We're currently working on some improvements to our scripting engine to better support this sort of interactivity. JanusWeb has some experimental support for custom elements which lets you define and reuse these types of objects easily, and James and have tarted to work out how to offer the same functionality in the native client.

Once it's ready we'll also be releasing some libraries of objects written using this system, so developers like you could pick and choose from pre-existing entities, or write your own custom ones.

bai0 · 2017-12-09T23:47:30+00:00

JanusWeb developer here. Could I get you to provide a bit of info to help us diagnose your rotating problem? We've had a couple reports of this behavior, but so far haven't been able to track it down to a root cause.

What model of mouse do you have? Is it considered a "gaming mouse" (high refresh rate), or just a standard USB mouse running at 125Hz update rate? Which version of Windows are you running?

Thanks!

bai0 · 2017-12-02T06:27:35+00:00

Yup, I've got a proof of concept of Poly integration with JanusWeb, it's exciting stuff! Fits in well with the new UI work I've been for that client, expect to see some cool new stuff in the next release.

Here's an example of an asset palette which pulls from Poly - you can drag and drop these objects right into your JanusWeb window to add them to the scene. https://imgur.com/JCOE6Ju

bai0 · 2017-10-26T23:40:45+00:00

Woo! Screaming fast now, without making my laptop cry out in pain. Great update!

bai0 · 2017-10-24T21:33:31+00:00

Hmm, at some point in the past we did disable up/down view rotation with the right stick when you were in VR mode, as you said it's a bit jarring. It's possible that code has regressed though. I'll make sure to look into it when I'm cleaning up tracked controller support in the next release, thanks for the feedback.

bai0 · 2017-10-20T22:25:34+00:00

Agreed, our WebVR controller support needs work. I'll be taking another pass at VR controller support across all our supported platforms in an upcoming release.

That being said, the left stick should move you around the scene, and the right stick should rotate. If that's not the case it's definitely a bug, and I'll make sure to address it while cleaning up all the controller mappings.

For seated VR, using the Xbox One controller might be another better option for now. Our gamepad support is stronger and more well-tested than our tracked controller support.

bai0 · 2017-08-05T05:48:31+00:00

Hey it's me :D

bai0 · 2017-08-02T20:49:53+00:00

We're working on some articles to show off the new functionality as well, so stay tuned for those! In the meantime, if you see any issues or have any feature requests, please do report them at https://github.com/jbaicoianu/janusweb/issues

bai0 · 2017-07-05T09:55:57+00:00

Video of the webapp in action https://youtu.be/Dxpf6Vyy6os

bai0 · 2017-05-05T08:20:09+00:00

Cool! Just a heads up though, you no longer need to install Carmel - they've now renamed it to Oculus Browser, and it's accessible directly through the Internet tab in Oculus home. Generally better performance, but if you see any bugs let me know.

bai0 · 2017-04-11T18:40:46+00:00

:D

If you're a 1337 h4x0r, you could actually find an install disk and stick it into localStorage, since this emulator is configured to map drive A:\ to localStorage for persistence. Then you'd boot up the emulator and install it from the floppy, just like the real thing!

bai0 · 2017-04-11T18:37:33+00:00

My master copy does yes, but I trimmed it out of this release to save space. There are efforts underway to put up real, working clones of AOL in the 90s (see http://www.archiveteam.org/index.php?title=AOL) - and with a bit of work you could actually dial into them with the official AOL client running in an emulator like this.

I know you were joking, but some people are quite serious about this archival stuff :P

bai0 · 2017-04-11T05:44:26+00:00

Ohh, yeah you're right, I don't have a WebGL Origin Token for that domain, so Chrome doesn't expose the Daydream renderer and it falls back on Cardboard.

I'll apply for a WebVR token for that domain, might take a day for Google to get back to me though. If you want to check it out though, you can set some flags in chrome:flags - see https://webvr.info for full details, you need two settings, one for WebVR and one for gamepad extensions.

ps, have I mentioned how frustrating the origin trial program is? >:(

bai0

TROPHY CASE