Laser Dance is delayed until next year.
If you’re not familiar with it, Laser Dance is the upcoming Quest 3 & 3S game from Cubism developer, Thomas Van Bouwel. The game involves blocking lasers in your house from reaching and clicking buttons on your walls, and is set to launch later this year, shortly after Quest 3S.
Laser Dance Makes a Strong Case of Wanted 3 Mixed Reality
Laser Dance is an amazing showcase of the potential of mixed media on Quest 3. Read on to see what we’ve seen:
In a thread on X, Van Bouwel explained the reasons for the delay. Here is his full comment:
“Making a game that has to adapt to almost every room is difficult, especially when you build on MR API’s that are growing fast and have recurring problems (like drift) 😅
The original window was announced when development was done on Quest 2, but upgrading to a lot of new APIs on Quest 3 (meshes, IOBT, depth) and dealing with other issues like drift drift has taken my dev off. time this year.
All the new MR tech is worth it in the long run Laser Dance though, because it will make you feel even more immersive. But the last thing I want to do is run a game on a non-standard technology, where the game has never been as exciting as the technology.
I certainly also underestimated the length of the level-design would take. I am constantly changing my tools to simulate levels in different room designs, but even so the leveling process can be slow, as it needs to be tested against different scenarios.
All that said, I’m very grateful for the support people have given Laser Dance so far, and I’m still excited to bring it to Quest next year!
In Meta Connect 2024, Meta CTO Andrew Bosworth apologized to all Quest developers because “the landscape is constantly changing over the years”, committing to a stable platform going forward.
“It can be very confusing, and we know it’s been difficult for developers over the last few years.”
Story of Scene Drift
When it comes to the problems Van Bouwel mentioned, many developers told UploadVR that they have experienced similar problems with Meta Quest 3 and Apple Vision Pro, finding them to be a major obstacle to building the type of mixed media they envision. .
“It makes us feel like we can’t create a reliable experience.– Alex Coulombe of Agile Lens.
“I really like experiences that are more connected to the real world, like things on the wall or tables that you can hit or knock on to give real world haptics, and the distraction kills that.” – RJ White, creator of Stabby, FireZone, and Punch Buddies.
“It is a major problem that prevents many businesses from using it.– Russell Varriale, co-founder of Resolve.
“On Vision Pro it’s terrible. That’s the only reason I haven’t shown PianoVision yet.– Zac Reid, PianoVision developer.
However, some of this may come down to exactly how developers use their actual content, and how Meta solutions and best practices have changed in recent years.
Van Bouwel tells UploadVR that he is currently using Spatial Anchor for all Laser Dance events, with all the lasers and buttons created with it. According to Meta’s documentation, however, Spatial Anchors should not be used on objects larger than 3 meters, warning that “any errors that are created are magnified if the object moves away from its anchor”. And to avoid developers needing to manually manage Spatial Anchors, Meta is now promoting the use of its new Mixed Reality Utility Kit (MRUK) World Lock, which claims to work under the hood.
But as Van Bouwel explained in his speech, Laser Dance has been developing for many years, before these new tools and systems, so they were affected precisely by the “unsettled ground” Meta’s CTO admitted. Van Bouwel wants to investigate the move to use RMUK for his World Lock show eventually, but for now, his goal is to build a permanent home with a habit of preparing for larger trials, before the expected launch next year.
Quest 3 Now Has Internal Body Tracking & MR Occlusion
3 searches within the upper body are now available, and unbreakable locks can now be sent in apps.
Overtime is not just about planning. As Van Bouwel said in his speech, Laser Dance includes internal body tracking to make laser dodging as accurate as possible, as well as Depth API for dynamic occlusion, two APIs that haven’t been around for a year.
Based on what my friend Henry Stockdale revealed earlier this year, it looks like Laser Dance will have to wait.
#Laser #Dance #Delayed #Citing #Meta #API #Drift #Issues