We have made content for Virtuix Omni motion platform, we have done some tests with Leap motion and subpack and we are currently waiting for our Hardlight VR Suit unit, so… when HTC launched the Vive Trackers, it was obvious, we had to make something for it.
Something that all people could try, enjoy with their family and something that required hands and feet?? Yeah VR Soccer!
Our first question was about foot/ball physics… Should be real?? should we fake it to make the experience funnier? After some test we decided to use the more realistic physics that we could, helping it with some tweaks for effects, clamping the force you can apply to the ball, playing with mass, etc… the result was very satisfactory.
We wanted the feeling of being in a real stadium so we had to include a lot of elements: animated audience, flags, confetti, referee… and all with 180 screen percentage and 90 fps. Yes, definitely it was another challenge. A tip: instanced static meshes and vertex animation… awesome!
Develop the AI for the goalkeeper was very fun and not so trivial as you think: In a traditional soccer game, you know the controller direction and the kick force, the AI just have to decide if the goal keeper goes to the right direction or not, time to do it, etc… but in a VR experience you can’t know where the user will kick the ball neither the force. We made a prediction depending of the kick momentum and obviously its not perfect but the goalkeeper not seems a dumb and performs some beautiful stops. There are too some random behaviours like the real soccer when the goalkeeper does not predict anything, just goes to a side. it works nice.
Of course in Be Football you can be the Player or the Goalkeeper. This role is very fun too and dangerous hehehe. Our goal has the real size… ok don’t worry about that, the AI only will shoot close to you but… VR is very immersive and probably you will want to move and extend you arms to catch the ball, hitting to everybody, to the forniture and breaking the controllers! hahaha yes, i’m overstated but you will play better in a clear space. For this reason we designed a structure for a live show, with harness, artificial grass, advertising billboards, etc…
I think this project is fun, has a lot of branding potential, a lot of live uses and of course, a version for steam is not discarded, with improvements like header mechanics, corner kicks, free kicks, different stadiums (Real Madrid stadium is included, but its a secret for now… hehehehe), players, gloves, boots, career mode, etc…
Screenshoot gallery:
GAME::DEV::TROLL 