Beta 0.8.1

Download

Download is available here.

Status

Hey there! It's been a minute. Hope you're doing alright and hanging in there during these weird times.

Since the last release, 2020 craziness aside, I've been kinda side-tracked with working on ReclaimerVR, a mod similar to MotherVR that aims to bring VR support to all of the games within Halo: The Master Chief Collection (now that it's on PC). This has been quite the endeavor, and to say that it's orders of magnitude more complicated than MotherVR would be an understatement. Luckily though, a lot of the groundwork and knowledge I've gained from working on it also readily applies to MotherVR, which will be helpful for future versions.

While I continue working on ReclaimerVR, my current plan is to get an open sourced version of MotherVR up on here by at least the end of January, and getting things moving again. There's quite a bit I still need to de-spaghettify, and some simple improvements I can now make that will make releases a lot smoother. At a minimum it should be somewhat similar to this release feature-wise, so that it doesn't get held back by some of my work that hasn't been fully implemented yet.

So, more to come!

Changes

Anyway, back to the new release. This one's smaller, with just a few targeted changes to 0.8.0.

• Epic Games Store Support - Alien: Isolation was just released on the Epic Games Store, and was also free for a day if you were quick enough to snatch it. Some things needed to be adjusted before MotherVR could work correctly, but now it should function identically on either store.
• Fix for KB+M Issue - I believe I've found a fix for an input issue that some people were having when playing on just keyboard and mouse.

Beta 0.8.0

Download

Download here.

Because people are always asking, here is my PayPal and Twitter.

Now let's jump right into it--

New Things

• VR Controller Input - You can now play the game using just the Oculus Touch or Vive Controllers! The UI even updates to reflect the VR input mappings, allowing you to switch between whichever input device you want on the fly. For actions that aren't commonly shown on screen, you can see what they're mapped to for your platform at Options ->MotherVR->Input->View Controls. Because of the lack of distinct tactile buttons on the Vive, for the Flashlight I've instead added a gesture that can action it--just hold your right hand near your head, and press Interact. It's pretty immersive, because you feel like your physically handling the Flashlight strapped on your head. This works on all platforms, but is required for the Vive (along with any other 'Y' mapped actions).
• Mirror View - You can now see what's happening in VR through the game window. I've added a few settings for it, though there's still room for improvement regarding the quality.
• In-game Settings - No more command-line arguments! Now there are a bunch of settings that you can change without leaving the game. Here they are so far;

MotherVR
	VR Runtime
		Use Oculus
		Use SteamVR
		Disable VR
	Rendering
		Mirror View [Both Eyes, Right Eye, Left Eye]
		Mirror View Symmetry
		Pixel Scale [0.5-4.0]
		Clip Blinding
	Input
		View Controls
		Snap Rotation
		Snap Rotation Segments
		Toggle Aim/Motion Sensor
	Dev. Debug Options
	Skip Startup Intro

• For Oculus - New automatic audio-device routing (no need to manually switch anymore), and the ability to close the game through the Oculus overlay.
• For SteamVR - Startup videos and loading screens now display in VR.
• And a whole bunch of other random fixes and improvements that I've forgot to include here.

Future

• Improved Controls - Controller-relative walking (sooner) and controller-relative aiming (later).
• Reworked Movement/Comfort - To allow for a more one-to-one VR experience, a lot of the character/head movement needs to be gutted before it can be improved further.
• Open Source - My personal goal is to have this done by the end of this year, but we'll have to see how that pans out. Thanks for your patience!
• 1.0 Release - There are a few things left to do to get this project to where I'm content with it being officially v1.0.

Beta 0.6.0

Here's to another release towards 1.0. As you'll maybe see, things are really kicking into high gear now, long term research finally paying off. I know that it's been a little while between updates, so hopefully there's enough here to have made it worth the wait. Still much more left to do.

The easiest way to keep up with me and future releases is probably through Twitter, though I'm thinking of maybe starting up a Discord channel. Think that's a good idea? For the people who've asked how they can support me, or to 'buy me a beer', here's my PayPal. Be sure to let me know if you run into any issues with the update!

If you are new to Alien: Isolation, or maybe VR in general (I suspect there are a lot more of you now), here are some basics;

• Alien: Isolation (and all of the DLC), if you don't already own it, can usually be found during a Steam sale for ~$10. So it can be worth it to wait for such a sale.

• It (for now at least) requires either an Xbox controller, or the keyboard and mouse. It's designed around a sitting experience, so I'd caution against standing up or walking around, until this mod improves further.

Now onto the release notes--

New Things

• Snap Turning - Snap turning has been added, for people who are playing with a controller. It is enabled by default. You can toggle it on and off by pressing LB + RB + RS (RS = Right Thumbstick Click). It automatically detects if you switch to Mouse + Keyboard (to disable), and correctly acts by not allowing you to turn when you aren't supposed to.
• Recalibration Fully Reimplemented - Recalibration (LB + RB) now correctly accounts for your rotation. When you interact with objects (like climbing in vents or pressing a button), 'forward' will now be the direction you calibrated towards, not a fixed direction like before. I've also added a Keyboard combo for initiating recalibration, which is Ctrl + Alt (on the left-hand side).
• Unrestricted Interactive Object Positioning - When you are using an interactive object (like a terminal or security tuner), you can now freely move your head further back, to help you see clearly. Previously, the game blocked you from doing so.
• Radial/Crafting Menu Fixed For M+KB - Previously, the radial menu wouldn't allow you to select most of the items if you were using a mouse. This has been fixed. I've also improved the Crafting menu, so it doesn't require you to select the small box, it just asks you to press LMB (left mouse button).
• Button Mashing Prompt Rescaled - The button mashing prompt mostly comes up when you're grappling with a Working Joe, to break out of their grasp. It was really hard to see before, but you can see it now.
• Improved Menu Positioning - Now, the fixed menus will automatically rotate to align with the ground, and move to a nicer position in front of you. It will re-adjust if you recalibrate with a menu open. Also, that game bug where it would sometimes 'forget' to bring the HUD with you after you've quit to the main menu, should now be fixed.
• Improved Hand Positioning - Hand positioning is now more aligned with your weapon and motion tracker when standing (to help you see better!).
• (Practically) All Head Bobbing Removed - Now whether you're walking, sprinting, or crouching, head bobbing should be gone. The only exception being when you're specifically holding the Revolver, its' animation forces your head to move up and down as you walk. The rest of the weapons/items should not do this, if you find something else that does, let me know. The 'pop' up that'd happen when transitioning from crouched to standing is now also fixed.
• Some Blinding During Cutscenes Disabled - Blacking out during some cutscene animations, like getting out of the pod in the Torrens, or during the initial Alien Reveal, have been fixed. Others, like when the first Working Joe turns against the human, can still cause your head to go into geometry and 'blind' you. For now, you can still add -disableblinders to the Launch Options in Steam, if you'd like to disable all geometry intersection blinding.
• Better Window Configuration - Previously there were some restrictions on what it would allow you to size the game window to. Now, it will allow you to use any configuration that the normal game does. The VR view does not yet show on the game window, but this helps to be ready for that.

Things Being Worked On

• Motion Control Support - This will be happening. It'll involve remapping all of the controls to Oculus/Vive/WindowsMR controls, and changing some game aspects around to make them make more sense in VR. It's not likely to have full 1:1 hand support, because of the heavy first-person animation aspects of the game, but things like 'Onward'-style walking are absolutely possible.
• More bug fixes - Be sure to stop by the Issues page, to help with figuring out bugs, or reporting new ones. I'm working on cleaning it up, this release has put to rest quite a few of them.
• In-game Menu Options and Configuration - Bye bye command line options, hello easy customizability.
• Visibility Through Game Window - Along with this, I will add some options to allow you to change what exactly shows in the window (both eyes, cropping etc). But for now, the game window still shows solid black, even though the game shows in the headset. If you need to, you can use OculusMirror.exe (located in Oculus\Support\oculus-diagnostics), or the Display Mirror option if you're using SteamVR.
• Better VR Runtime Support - Still need to get things like game-lifecycle (being able to close/affect the game from VR) and automatic sound device selection going. I didn't want to change too many things in this already huge update, so I've left Oculus and OpenVR at the same previous SDK versions for now. I will be updating to support Oculus Core 2.0, and other similar VR runtime improvements.
• Open Source - This release has brought everything a whole lot closer to being able to be put up, all re-done and workable. I'm excited that we'll be able to keep this game fully up-to-date for VR generations to come (lets get some of those varifocal lenses going!).

Alpha 0.4.0

Sorry for the lack of updates recently. Rest assured though, I do work on this project practically every day, even if sometimes I'm not as publicly talkative about it as I'd like to be (who has time to Tweet when you're busy making things better and getting cool things working!).

Lots left to do, before I'll be satisfied with where this project is (like a non-Alpha, proper release!). I'm going to do my best to start better utilizing the Issues and Project Boards, so you can more easily see what I'm planning/working on, and what problems I'm aware of.

Still working towards getting the code to a point where it can be open sourced. The vast majority of the work left for this project is RND regarding the functional aspects of the game, rather than the code implementation itself. So hopefully I'll be able to get it all up on here soon.

Now for the good stuff;

New Things

• Retuned UI - Most of the UI has been adjusted so that it should be easier to see and read. Text size and most UI elements have been increased. Ammo/Health bar is moved inward. Crosshair is now easily visible, but not ideal, as it's being rendered onto the flat HUD (though better than nothing). Weapon/Crafting menu hasn't been messed with yet, and it still has other issues that need to be worked out (like broken mouse support).
• Fixed Single DLL Installation - This should work correctly again, drag and drop just the one file to install, even if you're using SteamVR.
• Fixed Video Settings in VR - Before, when you started with VR it would force certain settings on you for things like Shadows and Anisotropic filtering, even if you had changed them. Now, it leaves all settings that work alright in VR alone, letting you set them to whatever you want. It also will now specifically hide settings that have no affect in VR, or ones that can cause issues.
• Supersampling - You can now manually specify supersampling by launching with -pixelscale X.X, where X.X is a value between 0.5 and 4.0.
• Ability to Skip Intro Movies - If you launch with -skipintro, it will skip over the intro movies that play when the game is starting up, and just go straight to the main menu.
• Ability to enable Debug Menu Options - CAUTION: This can really mess with your saved checkpoints and possibly achievement progression, so use carefully and backup important saves. If you launch with -debugoptions, it will allow you to use two hidden debug developer menu options that were left in the game. The first, which is Select Level on the main menu (underneath Load Game), will allow you to directly load any level that you want. The second, which is Load Game->Trigger Debug Checkpoint on the pause menu, will allow you to load special game states that the developers left in for the level/area where you currently are. So for example, you can make the area you're in believe that you just completed an objective, or instead that you are just on your way to complete it. These two menu options were not intended for you to be able to use, so they may be really buggy or break things. Figured that some people would still like to play with them though.
• Improved Error Alerts - Should better help me diagnose people's issues.
• New fix for SteamVR Theatre causing issues.
• New fix for the edge-case of SSAO still somehow being enabled.

Alpha 0.3.0.1 Hotfix

Quick fix for the 'infinitely loading' problem that was accidentally introduced in 0.3.0. Everything else is the same, so go check out those Release Notes if you haven't already.

Bug Fixes

• Fixed newly introduced loading problem when playing in Fullscreen mode

Alpha 0.3.0

Another alpha release so people can play with it while I continue to work on it. Easiest way to keep up with me and future releases is through Twitter. For people who've asked how they can support me, or to 'buy me a beer', here's my PayPal.

If you don't own the game already, Humble Bundle is having a 'Spooky Horror' bundle with Alien: Isolation! All you have to do is beat the average price that people paid on the bundle, which seems to be <$10 right now. Plus, it goes to charity! Cheap game, support charity, win/win! You can find that bundle here.

Requires Xbox Controller or Keyboard+Mouse (though KB+M doesn't have any type of 're-centering' combo). Re-center combo on Xbox is Left Bumper + Right Bumper.

Touch + Vive Controller support will be coming at some point. I hope to have Onward style direction-walking, but I'll at least try and have them emulate the Xbox Controller functions.

THIS GAME IS DESIGNED FOR SEATED PLAY. By playing this Mod any other way than seated, you do so at your own risk. You may be able to stomach this standing, but I absolutely cannot recommend it at this time. Roomscale does not work whatsoever right now. These play styles will hopefully be improved in the future.

Installation

Drag the dxgi.dll (and openvr_api.dll if you want SteamVR) into your Alien Isolation game folder. That's it. Really, that's all you do.

If you're up to date on Oculus, you can also use the images from StoreAssets_for_Oculus_1_17 to replace the auto-generated images created in \Oculus\Software\StoreAssets\

If you'd like to disable the mod (so you can switch back to play it in regular 2D), add -novr in the Launch Options in Steam

New Things

• SteamVR support! You can enable it by starting the game with -steamvr. Right now, you can't see the game when the intro videos are playing, or during loading screens. This is because the game glues them to your eyes, and I'd rather drop those frames (for now) than make people sick. If you're on the SteamVR Beta, Asynchronous Reprojection should work during normal gameplay. And a big shout out to CrossVR/Armada for the assistance, and walking me through how to get SteamVR working correctly!
• Fixed Alt-Tab crash.
• Fixed Graphics Setting crash.
• Fixed fresh-install crash (I think).

Things Coming Soon (as in, nearly complete)

• Snap turning
• Dynamic disabling of blinders during animation sequences Right now, during some first person sequences, your view may turn black when it clips you through an object. I'm going to dynamically detect and disable blinders during these sequences. For now, if you'd like to play around with them fully disabled, you can start the game with -disableblinders. Just be careful, they disabled your view in certain situations for a likely good reason. So tread lightly.

Known Issues

• Interactive objects position you a little too closely, so it can be hard to focus on them. For now, closing one eye, or temporarily adjusting the IPD downward, can help.
• Reset orientation stays relative to your tracking space forward angle, so you'll notice during first-person sequences (like when entering a vent) that it will jump your rotation back to 'tracking space' forward.
• Game window will show solid black, even though the game does show in the headset. You can use OculusMirror.exe for watching/recording with in the meantime (located in Oculus\Support\oculus-diagnostics), or Display Mirror if you're using SteamVR.
• Some HUD/Menu text can be hard to read. This is slightly more prevalent on the Vive (FOV/Resolution trade-off). Getting AA to work correctly by doing some DirectX wizardry (a-la AliasIsolation) may be the solution in a future release.
• Head bobbing still happens while crouched (though this is fixed when standing).
• Transitions to/from standing are inconsistent (standing up is instant, crouching is not).
• Audio playback doesn't change automatically, so you'll have to manually set the default playback device
• Can't close the game in VR, so you'll have to close it through the Main Menu or Windows Desktop

Alpha 0.2.0

I'm hoping to have another build or two this weekend, with this one starting it off. Easiest way to keep up with me and future releases is through Twitter.

I was going to have snap-turning in this build, but I ran into an issue with it. When the game rotates the player, it does this acceleration-smoothing (like mouse-acceleration) between the old rotation and the new one, making it possibly more sickening. So I've taken that out for now until it's fixed.

OpenVR/Vive support is still being worked on, no ETA yet. Trying to release things as I go, so updates can come out more regularly. It's still a high priority.

New Things

• Head 'bobbing' is partially fixed. Everything should be a lot more comfortable. The bobbing is removed entirely for Walking and Running, but is still present when Crouching (for now). A small quirk with this fix, is that when transitioning from Crouching to Standing, your view skips the animation, and instantly goes to Standing height. More work will be done in this area.
• HUD+Menu have been repositioned/resized. You should be able to see your ammo and other HUD things more easily. I tried to find a good balance between size and readability. It's not perfect yet, so I may have to modify the HUD in other ways (like moving sub-elements) to get it any better.
• Added some descriptive Error Alerts. This should help determine the source of some issues people are having with startup crashes. More will be added (for fresh-install crashes and other similar problems).
• Basic control for the 'blinders'. Because I can now control the blackout blinders directly, in an update soon I'll be able to disable them during first-person sequences. For now, if you'd like to play around with them disabled, you can start the game with -disableblinders. Just be careful, they disabled your view in certain situations for a likely good reason. So tread lightly.

Alpha 0.1.1

Quick bug-fix for the startup video problem (where it wasn't being correctly rendered into the headset, causing some confusion). Everything else is identical to the 0.1.0 Release, so go check out those Release Notes if you haven't already.

Bug Fixes

• Startup videos now correctly render in the headset

Alpha 0.1.0

Small alpha release so people can play with it while I continue to work on it. Easiest way to keep up with me and future releases is through Twitter. For people who've asked how they can support me, or to 'buy me a beer', here's my PayPal

Only currently works on Oculus (CV1+DK2). Basic Vive support hopefully here soon.

Requires Xbox Controller or Keyboard+Mouse (though KB+M doesn't have any type of 'recentering' combo).

THIS GAME IS DESIGNED FOR SEATED PLAY. By playing this Mod any other way than seated, you do so at your own risk. You may be able to stomach this standing, but I absolutely cannot recommend it at this time. Roomscale does not work whatsoever right now.

Installation

Drag the dxgi.dll into your Alien Isolation game folder. That's it. Really, that's all you do.

If you're on Oculus 1.17, you can also use the images from StoreAssets_for_Oculus_1_17 to replace the auto-generated images created in \Oculus\Software\StoreAssets\

If you'd like to disable the mod (so you can switch back to play it in regular 2D), add -novr in the Launch Options in Steam

Known Issues (that are being worked on)

• No snap turning (only smooth turning for now)
• Game window will show solid black, even though the game does show in the headset. You can use OculusMirror.exe for watching/recording with in the meantime (located in Oculus\Support\oculus-diagnostics)
• Startup videos don't show properly in the headset. This has to do with how the game initializes VR, it waits until those videos are over before submitting any frames. If it's bothering you, for now you can rename AMD_IDENT.USM, CA_IDENT.USM, and FOX_IDENT.USM in the DATA\UI\MOVIES folder to something else (so the game can't find them). I did that long ago, which is why I didn't realize they were still broken.
• Some Menu UI can appear off-screen (they still work though, so you might just have to memorize some buttons for now)
• Interactive objects position you a little too closely, so it can be hard to focus on them. For now, closing one eye, or temporarily adjusting the IPD downward, can help.
• Audio playback doesn't change automatically, so you'll have to set Rift Headphones as default playback device
• Can't close the game through the Oculus Overlay, so you'll have to close it through the Main Menu or Windows Desktop
• Reset orientation stays relative to your tracking space forward angle, so you'll notice during first-person sequences that it will jump your rotation back to 'tracking space' forward
• Major graphical changes that require re-initialization will crash (like changing from Windowed etc). The setting will still change, you'll just have to relaunch before seeing the effects
• Probably some more things that I haven't added to this list yet (trying to not take all day)