Updated 13/09/18

Making VR videos less shaky

No matter how hard you try to move smoothly in VR the sensitivity of the head tracking results in shaky videos that can be a little uncomfortable to watch. Let's see if we can improve that.

It's common practise for game developers to have hidden features that are used when producing trailers. For VR in particular I think it's time some of these modes were made available to users that want to make videos.

Controls

A gamepad (not tracked motion controllers) is required to access these features.

[Ctrl]+[Alt]+v - unlock video mode
This just unlocks the controls described below.

Top face button (Y) - toggle HQ mirror mode
A separate virtual camera is used to capture the scene and display to the mirror for capturing in your video. The virtual camera benefits from motion smoothing to remove the camera shake that's usually seen in videos. The following controls can also be used while in this mode.

D-pad Up - screen shot

A high resolution screenshot will be saved to [somewhere sensible -I'll have a look soon]

D-pad left / right - decrease / increase HMD pixel density

Performance may be a problem because we are rendering another view. Use the D-pad to change the pixel density in the headset while keeping a high quality mirror for your video. The scene will look blurry while playing in your headset but will probably be smoother.

Bottom face button (A) - toggle between headlocked or flying mode
Unlock the camera and fly around the scene. This is best done by removing the headset and covering the sensor to resume the game. Now use the following controls to fly around while watching your monitor:

Right trigger - up
Left trigger - down
Left thumbstick - move
right thumbstick - rotate
Either shoulder button - move faster

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