Radiant UI (wiggly) laser system, New Virtual Camera, 2nd beta anniversary!
Hello and welcome to our weekly update!
It’s a day late, but for a pretty good reason. We’ve released another piece of the new Radiant UI - the laser system, the new virtual camera is out as well and it’s Neos’ second birthday as beta! It’s been two years since we first released Neos on Steam and a pretty wild ride!
The new laser system gives you a lot more control and fluidity when interacting with interfaces and grabbing things, with smoothing and snapping behavior for better ease of use and several other benefits. Read more for details!
[h2]Radiant UI Laser System[/h2]
Following the new context menus and gripping system, the laser is the last piece of the core world interaction UI being replaced as part of the UI/UX overhaul. These three elements form the foundation of interactions in Neos worlds and have been redesigned together to allow for better ease of use, remove common beginner frustrations and allow much more flexibility going into the future.
First obvious difference is that the lasers are now wiggly! The end has a subtle smoothing effect depending on how fast you move your hand, to give you more precision and better sense of physicality. This helps with shaky hands when interacting with the UI panels or when trying to place grabbed objects. They will also automatically snap if there’s no other object, making it easy to grab or click small elements.
The lasers will also no longer activate on their own (unless interacting with a private UI), but are explicitly activated/deactivated by pressing the trigger. This allows for better immersion and avoids accidental grabs or clicks.
They work with the new context menus as well. The menus will no longer open in awkward positions with certain items and the laser cannot be blocked by other objects when interacting with the context menu, rendering through any object (the context menus will soon do that as well).
[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]
Another improvement thanks to the rework is that messing up the world or avatar you’re currently in won’t block interactions with your private UI anymore! This prevents situations where users might get stuck due to a giant collider or breaking their avatar.
And as a cherry on top, they are more performant as well. With the old system, each user had to calculate everyone’s lasers hit targets on their own end and the system was performing a lot of relatively expensive hierarchy scans for interaction components, but that’s no longer needed with the new system.
There is still a lot more to come with lasers, both in upcoming days and in the future. See the What’s Next section to know what’s still cooking!
[h2]New Virtual Neos Camera is out![/h2]
In other news we’ve also released the new Neos virtual camera to the public! Apart from a visual redesign, it offers new UIX based touch display, allowing you to adjust the resolution (1K, 2K, 4K and 8K), camera mode (standard, stereo photo, 360 and object cutout) and newly also set of filters (you can even add your own!) and other features and effects (frustum, light, over-head display, timer and screen space reflections).
You can find the camera in Neos Essentials in place of the old one. There are still a few quirks to work out, but it should be good to go! Feel free to customize it and make it your own as well.
On our last livestream, we took this camera for a spin and took a bunch of photos around various worlds:
[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]
[h2]Danger Testers - help test big changes early![/h2]
We couldn’t be talking about the new laser system without mentioning our Danger Testers! It’s a group of volunteers on our official Discord server that helps test and provide feedback on major changes like this early on, to make sure they are polished enough for first release and any major bugs get caught before going live.
If you’d like to join, ask a Neos Team member to be assigned the role on our Discord and watch the #testing channel! It is open for everyone, so even if you’re not part of the group you can help test, but by having the role you get a ping anytime there’s something to test.
Here’s special thanks to people who helped test and provided their feedback for initial release (not in any particular order):
PeterTheThinker, Coffee, Turk, .bat, Hayden (PolyLogiX - ZyroDesign), Railu The Avali, DeliriousJax, Shifty, Alex from Alaska, H3BO3, Kal, Zane, Cyro, Abysmal, ohzee, alex derpy avali 🐦, Snooper Fox and Lewi-bean.
[h2]Neos Beta second anniversary[/h2]
Today on May 4th 2020, it’s exactly two years since we first released Neos VR on Steam. It’s been a crazy ride and awesome experience seeing the community build and our support to grow.
It’s thanks to that support that we’ve been able to continue working on making Neos better every day for the past two years and develop it into a mature social VR platform, with many unique abilities and support for a wide variety of hardware.
And even more importantly a passionate and creative community, who spends every day in Neos hanging out and building awesome things! You are what breathes life into this platform and we’re very grateful to have you here and to be able to work on building the future of the metaverse together.
It's been amazing seeing the platform grow from barely few user online, to consistently 40-60 concurrent users every day! I can't wait to see where we're going next.
As a memento, here’s our original beta release trailer. It’s currently hidden on YouTube, but it’s a good reminder of how far we’ve come, featuring the old infamous “jello IK” and funnily a short clip of Neos 4 years ago in its alpha stage:
[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]
There’s still some maturing to do, but with the progress on the new UI and some more upcoming major features we are now close to Neos having all the core features we wanted and opening doors for many high level ones, building on top of a well rounded system and bringing it to the level of creation that we originally developed as tech demo concepts back in 2015:
[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]
[h2]What’s Next?[/h2]
There are still some additions to the laser that will be added in the following days. Mainly a cursor and some polishing for visuals and having the new context menu render through objects as well.
We’ll be polishing some behaviors as well and fixing and adjusting any more problems based on feedback. It’s never late to provide more, so either post in #bugs-and-feedback or make an issue on our official GitHub if you find a bug!
With the context menus, gripping system and new lasers replaced, we can start working on the biggest part of Radiant UI - the Facet system and new dash! This will be one of the most exciting parts, as it will seal the deal on the new UI system and open doors for heavy customization.
Thank you for reading the weekly update and thanks again for your passion and support for this project! We wouldn’t be able to do this without you!
It’s a day late, but for a pretty good reason. We’ve released another piece of the new Radiant UI - the laser system, the new virtual camera is out as well and it’s Neos’ second birthday as beta! It’s been two years since we first released Neos on Steam and a pretty wild ride!
The new laser system gives you a lot more control and fluidity when interacting with interfaces and grabbing things, with smoothing and snapping behavior for better ease of use and several other benefits. Read more for details!
[h2]Radiant UI Laser System[/h2]
Following the new context menus and gripping system, the laser is the last piece of the core world interaction UI being replaced as part of the UI/UX overhaul. These three elements form the foundation of interactions in Neos worlds and have been redesigned together to allow for better ease of use, remove common beginner frustrations and allow much more flexibility going into the future.
First obvious difference is that the lasers are now wiggly! The end has a subtle smoothing effect depending on how fast you move your hand, to give you more precision and better sense of physicality. This helps with shaky hands when interacting with the UI panels or when trying to place grabbed objects. They will also automatically snap if there’s no other object, making it easy to grab or click small elements.
The lasers will also no longer activate on their own (unless interacting with a private UI), but are explicitly activated/deactivated by pressing the trigger. This allows for better immersion and avoids accidental grabs or clicks.
They work with the new context menus as well. The menus will no longer open in awkward positions with certain items and the laser cannot be blocked by other objects when interacting with the context menu, rendering through any object (the context menus will soon do that as well).
[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]
Another improvement thanks to the rework is that messing up the world or avatar you’re currently in won’t block interactions with your private UI anymore! This prevents situations where users might get stuck due to a giant collider or breaking their avatar.
And as a cherry on top, they are more performant as well. With the old system, each user had to calculate everyone’s lasers hit targets on their own end and the system was performing a lot of relatively expensive hierarchy scans for interaction components, but that’s no longer needed with the new system.
There is still a lot more to come with lasers, both in upcoming days and in the future. See the What’s Next section to know what’s still cooking!
[h2]New Virtual Neos Camera is out![/h2]
In other news we’ve also released the new Neos virtual camera to the public! Apart from a visual redesign, it offers new UIX based touch display, allowing you to adjust the resolution (1K, 2K, 4K and 8K), camera mode (standard, stereo photo, 360 and object cutout) and newly also set of filters (you can even add your own!) and other features and effects (frustum, light, over-head display, timer and screen space reflections).
You can find the camera in Neos Essentials in place of the old one. There are still a few quirks to work out, but it should be good to go! Feel free to customize it and make it your own as well.
On our last livestream, we took this camera for a spin and took a bunch of photos around various worlds:
[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]
[h2]Danger Testers - help test big changes early![/h2]
We couldn’t be talking about the new laser system without mentioning our Danger Testers! It’s a group of volunteers on our official Discord server that helps test and provide feedback on major changes like this early on, to make sure they are polished enough for first release and any major bugs get caught before going live.
If you’d like to join, ask a Neos Team member to be assigned the role on our Discord and watch the #testing channel! It is open for everyone, so even if you’re not part of the group you can help test, but by having the role you get a ping anytime there’s something to test.
Here’s special thanks to people who helped test and provided their feedback for initial release (not in any particular order):
PeterTheThinker, Coffee, Turk, .bat, Hayden (PolyLogiX - ZyroDesign), Railu The Avali, DeliriousJax, Shifty, Alex from Alaska, H3BO3, Kal, Zane, Cyro, Abysmal, ohzee, alex derpy avali 🐦, Snooper Fox and Lewi-bean.
[h2]Neos Beta second anniversary[/h2]
Today on May 4th 2020, it’s exactly two years since we first released Neos VR on Steam. It’s been a crazy ride and awesome experience seeing the community build and our support to grow.
It’s thanks to that support that we’ve been able to continue working on making Neos better every day for the past two years and develop it into a mature social VR platform, with many unique abilities and support for a wide variety of hardware.
And even more importantly a passionate and creative community, who spends every day in Neos hanging out and building awesome things! You are what breathes life into this platform and we’re very grateful to have you here and to be able to work on building the future of the metaverse together.
It's been amazing seeing the platform grow from barely few user online, to consistently 40-60 concurrent users every day! I can't wait to see where we're going next.
As a memento, here’s our original beta release trailer. It’s currently hidden on YouTube, but it’s a good reminder of how far we’ve come, featuring the old infamous “jello IK” and funnily a short clip of Neos 4 years ago in its alpha stage:
[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]
There’s still some maturing to do, but with the progress on the new UI and some more upcoming major features we are now close to Neos having all the core features we wanted and opening doors for many high level ones, building on top of a well rounded system and bringing it to the level of creation that we originally developed as tech demo concepts back in 2015:
[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]
[h2]What’s Next?[/h2]
There are still some additions to the laser that will be added in the following days. Mainly a cursor and some polishing for visuals and having the new context menu render through objects as well.
We’ll be polishing some behaviors as well and fixing and adjusting any more problems based on feedback. It’s never late to provide more, so either post in #bugs-and-feedback or make an issue on our official GitHub if you find a bug!
With the context menus, gripping system and new lasers replaced, we can start working on the biggest part of Radiant UI - the Facet system and new dash! This will be one of the most exciting parts, as it will seal the deal on the new UI system and open doors for heavy customization.
Thank you for reading the weekly update and thanks again for your passion and support for this project! We wouldn’t be able to do this without you!