Post by Anthony on Jul 6, 2016 21:38:57 GMT
CALL OF DUTY Black Ops 3's multiplayer producer tells us about the struggles of VR, why Neo and Project Scorpio won't solve everything and motion sickness.
It's no secret that behind the scenes the Call of Duty brand is investigating the power and potential of VR.
Activision has already announced that during Call of Duty XP, the series big eSports event taking place this September in Los Angeles, Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare will showcase a special Virtual Reality "experience" using PlayStation VR.
Little is know other that the fact this VR experience will allow fans to "feel what it's like to pilot a Jackal, the personal fighter jet in Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare"
But as reported by Eurogamer, this is very much a one-off experience and not part of the finished game.
Recently we had the opportunity to sit down with Miles Leslie, Multiplayer Producer at Treyarch and just one of the creative geniuses behind the Call of Duty: Black Ops series.
During our chat the conversation of VR came up and from there Leslie gave us an insight into the potential pit falls and problems with moving a series like Call of Duty into the world of VR, and how it can't be solved simply by releasing a more powerful console like Neo or Project Scorpio.
Initially the conversation turned to (rather cheekily) fishing for hints that the Treyarch team might be exploring VR right this second for a future Call of Duty project but Leslie was fairly forthcoming with setting out the developers stall on that particular area of research:
"VR is really exciting, but honestly, we’re not at that stage where we can tackle it," explained Leslie.
"It's not to say we’re not going to do it, and we can’t comment on that yes or no, because the technology is fantastic.
"Sony gave us a load of dev kits early on and we were looking at these things as if the sky was the limit, but it's also really tough.
"I’m sure Infinity Ward is going to run into this with their upcoming VR experience, but the big question is how do you give a great VR experience that players are going to respond to?
"Right now, we’re not taking on that challenge, but it is something the guys at Treyarch are very excited about."
The issue then becomes how do you give Call of Duty players a 'good' VR experience? This as it turns out is a problem rooted in the games commitment to smooth 60 Frames Per Second gameplay and an issue Leslie doesn't have a solution for.
"The biggest problem is performance," Leslie tells us. "This is why you have Neo coming out and the new Xbox getting more power."
"Call of Duty Multiplayer is a 60 FPS game, that's how it is. But VR is a tremendous burden and that would mean we couldn't hit that target.
"We've had a little experience, as we did full 3D for Black Ops 2 - where you could play the whole game in 3D - but that meant it ran at 30 FPS.
"So you instantly have this problem of 'oh yea it's cool in VR' but it's not 60 FPS, which is not the authentic Call of Duty MP experience.
"Where are we getting the extra power? You have to start talking about having to cut things, and its not a good experience."
Conversation moves on to the impending introduction of PlayStation Neo and Xbox's Project Scorpio and whether that makes the task easier further down the line for Call of Duty developers.
Apparently though, that's just where things could start getting messy.
"Lets say you magically get all the performance you need, you then have the issue of how you make it a fun experience.
"I’ve had these experiences on demos, which don't get me wrong are really cool, but they're also really slow. Nothing has that quick, fast paced gameplay we have in CoD.
"I tried RIGS and it's cool the industry are latching onto this fun FPS, but its not super responsive and you can tell it's very much in its infancy and needs exploring more.
But that's not all, because you look at the recent issues surround Resident Evil's VR demo causing large groups of people to get motion sickness and you run into an even bigger complication
"You look at the movement in CoD and you've got double jumps, sliding, vault running and you see what happened with Resi and you just know movement could be a huge problem.
"How do you fix that? I don't know. Maybe we'll just have people vomiting left and right while playing the game.
"Ultimately that will be the biggest challenge, for any studio, how do you create a fast paced FPS VR experience in Call of Duty that still nails the motion controls.
"I’m excited to see how other studios do that, especially as it will help inform the rest of us in the industry."
It's no secret that behind the scenes the Call of Duty brand is investigating the power and potential of VR.
Activision has already announced that during Call of Duty XP, the series big eSports event taking place this September in Los Angeles, Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare will showcase a special Virtual Reality "experience" using PlayStation VR.
Little is know other that the fact this VR experience will allow fans to "feel what it's like to pilot a Jackal, the personal fighter jet in Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare"
But as reported by Eurogamer, this is very much a one-off experience and not part of the finished game.
Recently we had the opportunity to sit down with Miles Leslie, Multiplayer Producer at Treyarch and just one of the creative geniuses behind the Call of Duty: Black Ops series.
During our chat the conversation of VR came up and from there Leslie gave us an insight into the potential pit falls and problems with moving a series like Call of Duty into the world of VR, and how it can't be solved simply by releasing a more powerful console like Neo or Project Scorpio.
Initially the conversation turned to (rather cheekily) fishing for hints that the Treyarch team might be exploring VR right this second for a future Call of Duty project but Leslie was fairly forthcoming with setting out the developers stall on that particular area of research:
"VR is really exciting, but honestly, we’re not at that stage where we can tackle it," explained Leslie.
"It's not to say we’re not going to do it, and we can’t comment on that yes or no, because the technology is fantastic.
"Sony gave us a load of dev kits early on and we were looking at these things as if the sky was the limit, but it's also really tough.
"I’m sure Infinity Ward is going to run into this with their upcoming VR experience, but the big question is how do you give a great VR experience that players are going to respond to?
"Right now, we’re not taking on that challenge, but it is something the guys at Treyarch are very excited about."
The issue then becomes how do you give Call of Duty players a 'good' VR experience? This as it turns out is a problem rooted in the games commitment to smooth 60 Frames Per Second gameplay and an issue Leslie doesn't have a solution for.
"The biggest problem is performance," Leslie tells us. "This is why you have Neo coming out and the new Xbox getting more power."
"Call of Duty Multiplayer is a 60 FPS game, that's how it is. But VR is a tremendous burden and that would mean we couldn't hit that target.
"We've had a little experience, as we did full 3D for Black Ops 2 - where you could play the whole game in 3D - but that meant it ran at 30 FPS.
"So you instantly have this problem of 'oh yea it's cool in VR' but it's not 60 FPS, which is not the authentic Call of Duty MP experience.
"Where are we getting the extra power? You have to start talking about having to cut things, and its not a good experience."
Conversation moves on to the impending introduction of PlayStation Neo and Xbox's Project Scorpio and whether that makes the task easier further down the line for Call of Duty developers.
Apparently though, that's just where things could start getting messy.
"Lets say you magically get all the performance you need, you then have the issue of how you make it a fun experience.
"I’ve had these experiences on demos, which don't get me wrong are really cool, but they're also really slow. Nothing has that quick, fast paced gameplay we have in CoD.
"I tried RIGS and it's cool the industry are latching onto this fun FPS, but its not super responsive and you can tell it's very much in its infancy and needs exploring more.
But that's not all, because you look at the recent issues surround Resident Evil's VR demo causing large groups of people to get motion sickness and you run into an even bigger complication
"You look at the movement in CoD and you've got double jumps, sliding, vault running and you see what happened with Resi and you just know movement could be a huge problem.
"How do you fix that? I don't know. Maybe we'll just have people vomiting left and right while playing the game.
"Ultimately that will be the biggest challenge, for any studio, how do you create a fast paced FPS VR experience in Call of Duty that still nails the motion controls.
"I’m excited to see how other studios do that, especially as it will help inform the rest of us in the industry."
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