Discovering > Space™

Take your seat for an awe-inspiring journey

to places we can only dream to visit;

to see vistas we can barely imagine;

to feel the isolation and remoteness

of deep space and beyond.

Discovering>™ SPACE is a free form virtual reality flight around space

Built for the Oculus Rift DK2. .

You take control of your purpose built VR spacecraft

and are free to travel anywhere you like

to see anything you wish to see.

Getting started

Installing the game

Download and unzip DiscoveringSpace_***.zip to your preferred folder.

Run: DiscoveringSpace_DirectToRift.exe (Do not put on the headset yet)

This will take you to the main menu where you can then launch the game.

Run the game with LAUNCH > GO.

Put on the headset.

Getting underway

You start on a large star ship, inside a large hangar.

You are free to wander around the ship and explore the hangar, using the

directional controls on the controller (Note: this is just for fun)

When you are ready to get into the ship, look at (or walk towards) the ship and

press select (XBOX A button)

Wait for the ship to “boot up”

Apply a tap of thrust to close the canopy and prime the ship for flight.

When the canopy has closed, gently start to apply thrust. This will apply a bit of

vertical thrust and start to move you forward. Note: Your speed is limited inside

the hangar.

Once you are clear of the hangar, apply more thrust (gently) to increase speed.

Gently apply some pitch / yaw / roll to get used to the controls.

These will feel sensitive at first, but you will soon get used to the feeling.

Navigation

Look down at your display to see the places to explore in your vicinity.

Select the place you wish to go to, using the “NEXT” button.

To select a button, simply look at it (it should highlight), and press select (XBOX A

button).

Note: The “NEXT” and “PREV” buttons will stay selected to allow you to quickly

move through the listed items.

Exploration

You are free to explore the solar system at your leisure.

When approaching an object / planet your scanner will start to detect the object.

Once in close enough range, your information panel will become available.

If the information panel is active, the information will be automatically displayed.

If you point your ship away from the object, the scanner will lose lock, and the

information panel will stop. Once you have regained a scanner lock, the

information display will continue.

Recording your travels

The main aim of the game is to explore and discover new horizons

In order to record your journey you have a camera that can be used to take a

framed photo of whatever you are looking at.

Use the “SNAPSHOT” key to take a picture.

This picture will be stored in the Screenshots folder under your game install

directory. You are free to use this however you wish, but it would be appreciated

if you could preserve the discovering space logo.

Release information

Demo v2 : UPDATED 25 October 2015:

Full game: v1 : 26 October 2015

The DEMO is FULLY FUNCTIONAL, and contains almost all elements of the full product.

New ship

Launch Hangar

Improved ship displays panels / interaction

Performance optimisations

User selectable game preferences (gfx effects)

Numerous subtle improvements / effects

Demo limitations

Exploration limited to the local Earth and Moon system.

Jump gates disabled.

The full game contains

The full solar system to explore - planets, moons.

Unlimited range.

Full use of jump-gate system.

Full narrative content - discover and learn as you go.

Two spacecraft - single seater and full luxury ship with selectable passenger.

More hidden objects to find.

System Requirements:

Minimum

Oculus Rift Development Kit 2 - make sure your firmware is at 2.12 or above.

Please ensure that you have correctly calibrated your Oculus Rift Headset for IPD, eye relief, and tracking camera position.

Windows 64bit

Recommended (developer's reference performance level)

CPU: i5 3.4 GHz (or above)

GFX: Nvidia GeForce GTX 660Ti (or above)

RAM: 16 Gb 8Gb (or above)

Analog controller (ie Xbox 360 control pad)

Ensure you set your Rift Display Mode set to “Direct HMD Access from Apps”

Bug Reporting:

Note: this game is still under active development so please report any issues to the author below.

Please report any issues directly to the developer.

Controls

For best control, it is recommended that you use an xbox 360 controller or analog joystick. However, controls are also mapped to the keyboard. See the images below for default

mappings. If you wish to remap the controls, use the CONTROLS menu in the game start-up menu.

Default Ship Controls Default Navigation / Interface / Game Controls Miscellaneous controls / switches

Escape - to exit game

key-1 - Vertex lighting

key-2 - forward (not currently working correctly)

key-3 - deferred lighting

Space - to toggle the Oculus headset info (fps, ipd etc).

F1 - toggle low persistance mode (headset setting)

T - toggle timewarp (headset setting)

Other control setups

It is possible to remap the controls using the Unity start-up form. Use the Input tab to re-configure to different inputs. Control settings should persist between sessions.

Cockpit

Display: NAVSCREEN – main destination selection Display: MAP – top down view of all Navigation objects Display: SCANNER – radar scan of directly ahead Display: CAMERA – long range view of selected destination / object Display: SPEED – ship speed / fuel Display: SYSTEM – system status information Display: MESSAGES – system messages

Button: NEXT – select next navigation item Button: PREV– select previous navigation item Button: NAVICON– toggle HUD NAVIGATION ICON off/on Button: MAP/LABELS– toggle HOLOSPHERE / WORLD LABELS Button: NAV MODE - Select between WAYPOINTS, NEAREST, POI Button: INFO PANEL– activate / deactivate scanner NARRATION Button: SPOTLIGHT– toggle exterior SPOTLIGHT Button: INT LIGHT– toggle interior lighting Button: +/- increase / decrease cockpit screen brightness

Navigation

Your ship is equipped with a manual navigation system that points you in the direction of the destination of your choice.

Select your destination using the main NAV SCREEN, and the NEXT and PREV cockpit buttons.

BUTTON: NAV MODE - Select between WAYPOINTS, NEAREST, POI

WAYPOINTS (predefined list of major destinations)

NEAREST (shows the nearest 12 major destinations)

POI (shows the nearest 12 points of interest)

BUTTON: NEXT – select next navigation item

BUTTON: PREV– select previous navigation item

The direction and distance to the selected navigation object is shown by the red arrow in your HUD. This can be toggled on/off with the NAV ICON button.

“it’s over to the right” … Navigation Icon … destination and distance

Hopping around.

In the full version of the game you have access to the many jump-gates which are strategically placed around the solar system to speed up long distance travel.

In order to use a jump-gate …

Simply line yourself up, and slowly approach the central core.

As you approach it will start to charge.

Once at full charge it will draw you in.

A successful jump will transport you quickly to a new location.

Be careful – do not jump too early – do not jump too late.

o If a jump-gate is under charged then it will result in a failed jump.

o If a jump-gate is over charged, then it will discharge automatically.

Hopping around – jump gate locations

Locations of the jump-gates are shown in the following map.

Exploration and Discovery

You are free to explore the solar system at your leisure.

When approaching an object / planet your scanner will start to detect the object.

Once in close enough range, your information panel will become available.

If the information panel is active, the information will be automatically displayed.

If you point your ship away from the object, the scanner will lose lock, and the information panel will stop. Once you have regained a scanner lock, the information display will

continue.

Recording your travels

The main aim of the game is to explore and discover new horizons

In order to record your journey you have a camera that can be used to take a framed photo of whatever you are looking at.

Use the “SNAPSHOT” key to take a picture.

This picture will be stored in the Screenshots folder under your game install directory. This is in jpg format, and you are free to use this however you wish, but it would be

appreciated if you could preserve the discovering space logo.

Credits

Player Spaceship / Hangar models used with kind permission and under

license from Kibarreto.

Second solar system textures : Robert Stein III http://freebitmaps.blogspot.co.uk/

Second solar system Ship Models : Created by Herminio Nieves

Xbox360 controller model : William Burke

In game music : Harry Teal.

End music : Stephen Lu.

Unity 3d assets:

Space Graphics Toolkit.

Captain Scott Dow.

cMonkeys : cInput.

Paladin Battleship.

Catlike Coding-Textbox.

VR Body Movements.

NGUI