Menu in VR? > Solved by V7!

Q&A about the latest versions
Frankster69
Posts: 105
Joined: Mon Sep 18, 2017 12:54 pm

Hi Hopki,

Now that I have come around to getting me an Oculus Quest 2, I can now also really build for VR. I have managed to set a button in my controller to enter VR, and it works, the tour is shown in VR.

Now, when in VR mode, how do I add buttons/thumbnails/menu's in there? At the very least I need a button to leave VR mode. But I would also like to have a thumbnail menu to navigate if possible. How would I go about doing this? I've searched but can't find any pointers.

I see Krpano has this, built in html5, so it should be doable, I think perhaps also with Pano2VR? See here:
https://krpano.com/plugins/userplugins/ ... nails/#top

regards, Frank
Last edited by Frankster69 on Wed Feb 02, 2022 3:22 am, edited 2 times in total.
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SMerriss
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Hey Frank,

If I were to build a menu that was to sit in VR, I would build it on top of a point hotspot since hotspots can be given 3D distortion. I have not gotten to use Pano very much in VR, but I assume your problem is that when trying to look at a menu like you would with a mouse, the perspective is changed and you cannot actually look at the menu. Putting the menu in a hotspot would allow you to place your cursor over your menu.

- Spencer
Spencer Merriss
Multimedia Specialist

Website: https://www.spencermerriss360.com/
Email: merriss.spencer@gmail.com

Feel free to reach out! 🌟
Frankster69
Posts: 105
Joined: Mon Sep 18, 2017 12:54 pm

Hi Spencer,

My first issue would be to actually see any menu. Sofar (and I'm just starting into this VR but know P2V quite well) I don't see any menu.

I added a button to enter VR, by giving it the click action 'Enter VR'. That goes well, and the tour opens in VR in my headset. But I can't seem to make a button appear in that VR space to 'Exit VR'. So that's my first issue: how to show a single button in VR.

From there I want to build up to menu's. If I can get there, preferably something like Oculus or SteamVR homescreen. Floating panels that you can open up via the menu button on the controller.

I've gotten very proficient in building tours that you view on a PC, but now that I have an Oculus, I'ld like to start going into real VR territory :)

To build it on a hotspot is actually a nice tip, thanks. Now to first figure out how to show things in VR.

regards, Frank
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Hrvoje
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Location: Zagreb, Croatia
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Hi
I also recently got myself Quest 2 and starting to play with VR again.
I did many nice aerial panos with my M2P drone so I trying to create better menu instead of current hotspots only mode.
In this post: viewtopic.php?t=14982 Hopki stated that VR will get more love in V7.
So I wonder, is something already added/improved VR feature-vise?
Is it still viable to expect more VR options in V7?
Thanks
Regards

Btw. I like V7 so far, congratz for pushing the limits up yet again!
Translate functionality arrived just in time for some of my dormant projects,
because previous system needed too much of workarounds for projects with more 4+ languages with more content.
Frankster69
Posts: 105
Joined: Mon Sep 18, 2017 12:54 pm

Hi Hrvoje,

Well, v7 could not have come at a better time indeed. I have just discovered that indeed there is more love for VR. In the export options for Web (html5) under the VR heading there are now skins available for VR. Two skins are present, and (notably) a separate skin-editor.

I still have to see what this brings (I have little time this week sadly) but in the new VR skins I can already see several hotspot templates (node/image/video) and a VR thumbnail menu :D

Also, via the skin editor in the VR tab, I see I can add all sorts of things, but we'll have to see how they translate in VR.

I've already upgraded so I'm definitely going to play with it this weekend (and sooner if I can find some spare time) to see how VR has changed here.

regards, Frank
deedee123
Posts: 285
Joined: Wed May 20, 2020 10:38 am
Location: NL

hi,
yes it's very exciting indeed, especially the promise of what could happen..! right now it's hit and miss with a menu appearing or not when i try venis_vr skin in my oculus quest 2, i have no idea how to influence it, tried many things. also to see thumbnails or the old-style rotating balls... i get different results in different projects with the same vr skin. seems sometimes it 'gets' it and sometimes not. no doubt it will be ironed-out and looking great soon.
david
Frankster69
Posts: 105
Joined: Mon Sep 18, 2017 12:54 pm

Hi deedee,

From what Hopki tells me in another post, there is a feature request for the button.

When you try this and get different results, are you trying it on a new project or an allready existing one?

regards, Frank
deedee123
Posts: 285
Joined: Wed May 20, 2020 10:38 am
Location: NL

Hi,
I try on existing and new test projects but i can't get any consistent results showing up in my Oculus. And i have no idea where to start testing or tweaking because it feels so random. Puzzled..., but no doubt it will be o.k.
Do you get consistent results for the menu and node images? what makes it trigger 100%?
best,
David
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Hopki
Gnome
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Hi,
The menu shows when you look up if you are using a VR headset such as the Oculus Quest.
Should also work on phones but due to their lack of support for VR this is still a work in progress but does work on my iPhone 11.
Regards,
Garden Gnome Support
If you send an e-mail to support please send a link to the forum post for reference.
support@ggnome.com
https://ggnome.com/wiki/documentation/
deedee123
Posts: 285
Joined: Wed May 20, 2020 10:38 am
Location: NL

Hi,
Most of the times i get the menu button, but apart from it going from hamburger to cross, i don't see anything else... not the actual menu entries.
also the node hotspot images, i see the old style rotating balls even when i apply the skin with the other image type. (all on oculus quest 2 with built-in browser, checked from web server).
but i'll do some more checks and see if i can get it to show the VR menu as well as the other hotspots consistently.
David
deedee123
Posts: 285
Joined: Wed May 20, 2020 10:38 am
Location: NL

hmm when i open https://ggnome.com/samples/pano2vr_7/neto/ i do get the VR button, and the oculus browser asks for permission to open immersive, and then the VR looks cool with menu and everything.
but when i check the neto normal skin, the command for the VR button is onclick -> enter VR, just like my own projects. But then Oculus browser isn't asking anything, and also only showing the old style VR. I guess something is going wrong there (do both skins need the same name or something?) but still don't know.
nevertheless , it looks promising. once i found out what's going wrong...
David
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k.ary.n
Gnome
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deedee123 wrote: ↑Thu Feb 03, 2022 1:01 pm hmm when i open https://ggnome.com/samples/pano2vr_7/neto/ i do get the VR button, and the oculus browser asks for permission to open immersive, and then the VR looks cool with menu and everything.
but when i check the neto normal skin, the command for the VR button is onclick -> enter VR, just like my own projects. But then Oculus browser isn't asking anything, and also only showing the old style VR. I guess something is going wrong there (do both skins need the same name or something?) but still don't know.
nevertheless , it looks promising. once i found out what's going wrong...
David
The Neto example on our site is using the feather_vr skin. Neither skin was altered. What's different with v7 is that the VR skin is separate...just to be sure, did you add the VR skin?
vrskin.png
vrskin.png (35.13 KiB) Viewed 9641 times
deedee123
Posts: 285
Joined: Wed May 20, 2020 10:38 am
Location: NL

hi,
yes of course, i tried with unaltered feather and venis as VR skin, my own skin as the normal one. and even with clean neato skin as normal skin, just to see if that would influence it.
but when opening (after deleting cache) in the oculus, seems it just doesn't 'get' the VR skin.

i'm probably missing a small thing.. but still no idea.

i do see it all nicely in the website examples..

as a side note, in VR the ggnome examples look good with menus and everything, but not when the fireplace (pinned video) is in the field of view. the whole image is stuttering a lot then.

i keep researching why im not getting my nice VR skins...

david
deedee123
Posts: 285
Joined: Wed May 20, 2020 10:38 am
Location: NL

aha bingo!
i changed my HTML file template back to the default one, it was adapted a bit to accept external values. apparently that breaks the VR custom skin option.

finally i can move on with the VR skin functionality :)

david
BParker
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Location: Redlands, CA
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The "neto" example mentioned above works beautifully with my Oculus Rift but when I create a simple five pano test project using the stock feather_vr skin, I see the text associated with each thumbnail in the vr menu but not the thumbnail images themselves. I notice that a ht_node_image and a node_image file have been created for each pano in the output/images_vr folder but they are all zero size. Do the thumbnail images need to be created manually in that folder, replacing the zero byte files? Thanks for all these new VR-related enhancements!
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