VR先驱者Owlchemy Labs

Owlchemy Labs work at the frontier of VR development. Which, you could say, puts them at the frontier of the frontier of game development. And, they like to boldly go. Studio CTO Devin Reimer enthuses about working with VR as a once-in-a-lifetime chance to shape a medium that’s going to be hugely influential.

Owlchemy Labs在VR开发的前沿工作。 您可以说，这使它们处于游戏开发领域的前沿。 而且，他们喜欢大胆地去。 Studio CTO Devin Reimer十分热衷于与VR合作，这是千载难逢的机会，可以塑造一种具有巨大影响力的媒体。

Owlchemy Labs have been using Unity since formation in 2010, and to date they’ve made 10 different games. One of these is a WebGL version of alphabetical-list-sure-fire-winner AaaaaAAaaaAAAaaAAAAaAAAAA!!! for the Awesome. Developed in cooperation with Dejobaan Games, it was the first commercially available WebGL title made with Unity.

Owlchemy Labs自2010年成立以来一直使用Unity，迄今为止，他们已经制作了10种不同的游戏。 其中之一是WebGL版本的按字母顺序排列的列表，它确定了胜利者AaaaaAAaaaAAAaaAAAAaAAAAA ！！！ 为真棒 。 与Dejobaan Games合作开发的，这是Unity制作的第一个商业化WebGL标题。

Adapting AaaaaAAaaaAAAaaAAAAaAAAAA!!! for the Awesome for another new platform (Oculus Rift) and releasing it to Steam opened a further door for the company. In November 2014, Owlchemy Labs were approached by Valve to develop a game that would show off the capabilities of what was then an unannounced platform: SteamVR.

适应AaaaaAAaaaaaAAAaaAAAAaAAAAA !!! 为Awesome开发了另一个新平台(Oculus Rift)，并将其发布给Steam为公司打开了又一扇门。 在2014年11月，Valve与Owlchemy Labs联系，开发了一款游戏，该游戏可以展示当时未发布的平台SteamVR的功能。

A mountain of NDAs later, and Devin and Studio Founder Alex Schwartz were hard at work on what became Job Simulator; a game which stole lots of hearts when showcased on the HTC Vive at GDC.

之后，无数的NDA出现了，Devin和Studio创始人Alex Schwartz努力工作，成为后来的Job Simulator 。 这款游戏在GDC的HTC Vive上展示时，引起了很多人的关注。

“I never expected a video game demo in which I grabbed a tomato (and threw it at a robot) to awe me so deeply. I … wanna play Job Simulator forever” IGN

“我从没想过会有一个视频游戏演示会在其中抓住番茄(然后将其扔到机器人上)，让我如此敬畏。 我......想玩工作模拟器永远” IGN

Playtesting is key

游戏测试是关键

Developing a playable prototype from scratch in a three-month timeframe without the luxury of a polished and tested pipeline to SteamVR, meant that the Owlchemy team had to iterate very fast to get Job Simulator ready on time. Indeed, both Alex and Devin make a point of stressing that rapid and early playtesting are key to VR development generally.

在三个月的时间内从零开始开发可玩的原型，而无需经过精炼和经过测试的通往SteamVR的管道，这意味着Owlchemy团队必须非常快速地进行迭代才能按时准备好Job Simulator。 确实，Alex和Devin都强调指出，快速和早期的游戏测试对于VR的总体发展至关重要。

“Oculus has a best practice guide for making VR content that they’re constantly updating and changing. No-one really knows at this stage what will work in VR without playtesting. You simply have to experiment and fail quickly. If, for example, the player in your game is a 50-storey Godzilla wandering around Manhattan, it’s best to prototype that mechanic and get a feeling for what playing it is actually like before you push forward to develop your game,” says Devin.

“ Oculus有一个最佳实践指南，用于制作不断更新和变化的VR内容。 在这个阶段，没有人真正知道在没有进行游戏测试的情况下什么将在VR中起作用。 您只需要试验并快速失败。 例如，如果您的游戏中的玩家是50层高的哥斯拉(Godzilla)在曼哈顿四处游荡，那么最好在开发该游戏之前为该机械师制作原型，并对其实际玩法有所了解。” Devin说。

He recalls how, when developing Job Simulator, he worked alongside a colleague adjusting the size of the game’s microwave. With someone wearing the Oculus Rift headset calling out with feedback, Devin could scale it in realtime from the Unity editor and know that it looked and felt right inside the device: “You just don’t get a proper sense of the size of an object as the user experiences it from a conventional 2d monitor.”

他回忆起在开发Job Simulator时如何与同事一起调整游戏微波炉的大小。 当戴Oculus Rift头戴式耳机的人呼唤反馈时，Devin可以从Unity编辑器中实时缩放它，并知道它在设备内部看起来和感觉到：“您只是无法正确感知对象的大小当用户从传统的2d显示器上体验到它时。”

Optimize, optimize, optimize

优化，优化，优化

With up to 5 million pixels being rendered 90 times per second, both Devin and Alex are keen to stress the importance of optimization. Alex likens it to making games for the PS2-era, and generally the studio’s long history of developing games for mobile has prepped them for the unique challenges of VR.

每秒最多可渲染500万个像素90次，Devin和Alex都渴望强调优化的重要性。 亚历克斯(Alex)将其比喻为为PS2-era制作游戏，并且一般而言，该工作室为移动游戏开发游戏的悠久历史已为应对VR的独特挑战做好了准备。

“Understanding how to keep your draw calls to a minimum and your shading simple are really important when you’re developing for VR,” says Devin.

“在开发VR时，了解如何使绘制调用次数保持最少并简化着色非常重要，” Devin说。

VR for the future

未来的VR

Both Devin and Alex see VR as having the potential to redefine not just gaming, but industries, from remote surgery to architectural visualization and beyond.

Devin和Alex都认为VR不仅可以重新定义游戏，而且可以重新定义从远程手术到建筑可视化等行业的潜力。

Indeed, having seen Devin’s grandmother (whose gaming experience is limited to say the least) pick up the HTC Vive headset and immediately and seamlessly interact within the world of Job Simulator, they’re confident that VR headsets will soon be a standard item of consumer electronics.

确实，在看到Devin的祖母(至少可以说至少具有游戏体验)拿起HTC Vive耳机并在Job Simulator的世界中立即无缝地交互之后，他们相信VR耳机很快将成为消费者的标准装备电子产品。

“I get asked the question, why VR? Why take the risk on such an unproven platform? And my feeling is that if we spent our time developing another me-too mobile title, then we’d be putting the studio at greater risk. By being amongst the first movers on a new platform that we truly believe in, we’re securing the future of our business. We’re in it for the long game with VR,” says Alex.

“有人问我为什么要使用VR？ 为什么要在如此未经验证的平台上冒险？ 我的感觉是，如果我们花时间开发另一个“我也喜欢”的移动游戏，那么我们将使工作室面临更大的风险。 通过成为我们真正相信的新平台的先行者，我们正在确保业务的未来。 我们将通过VR进行漫长的比赛，” Alex说。

Best of luck to the Owlchemy Labs team!

祝Owlchemy Labs小组一切顺利！

翻译自: https://blogs.unity3d.com/2015/05/15/vr-pioneers-owlchemy-labs/