RoomWithAView Alpha 0.6 - Tracking Real World Objects

This weeks update brings the start of some really cool new features.

First up is dynamically adding new objects to the game. There's a new "Object Import Menu" in the inventory bar which allows downloaded .obj files to be imported into the game*.

This is super cool for room decoration purposes. You can use the desktop viewer to find any .obj 3d model, download it, and import it into your room, all from within the game.

Second up is the also really cool real world object tracking.

I've recently upgraded to the Valve Index, and it's new controllers. Which means I have a couple Vive Wands which weren't being used. I've added the ability to import these additional controllers as tracking points in the game.

So for instance, I've taken one of the wands and attached it to my desk chair. Using the above .obj importing functionality I've assigned a quickly made model of a chair to the controller. The end result is that now my actual chair is in the game.

Up until now the only furniture models in the game were static. That's fine for a couch or a table which never move, but creates issues when you have something like a chair or rolling tray that moves frequently. This new functionality lets these moving items be tracked in the game.

It's really cool to be able to grab your chair in real life, move it, tilt it, etc. and see it reflected in the game. That's what I think the main use of this functionality will be. But anything can be tracked, maybe you want to see where your roomba is? Attach a tracker to it and load in a roomba model. Want to see your dog in game? How amenable do you think it'd be to having a controller strapped to it?

I've also implemented all the UI functionality to facilitate all the loading. I'm pretty pleased with how it looks, and at some point want to go back through and update some of the older UI models. There's a couple panel location type issues I've seen in the new UI, I'll have them fixed in the next release.

I've also noticed a couple new bugs. It seems if you hit a keyboard key while the game is selected on your regular desktop monitors, it causes a crash. I'm pretty sure this is due to the new controller functionality from Alpha 0.5. It can be worked around by just making sure another window is selected first before you go to type. There's also a issue when the environment is first loaded that sometimes causes a crash on startup, trying to open the game again eventually fixes it. I'll have both sorted in the next release.

*for the .obj import textures are not yet supported. Having a bit of an issue with the UV maps for the Godot importer that I ported over from C++. Vertex colors are supported, and I'll be working on that, as well as supporting other model types in the future.