Flipside Alpha Update #4

February 27, 2018 - 3:00pm - by John Luxford

Starting with last week's update, we decided to try for weekly updates as we approach Flipside Studio 1.0.

With that in mind, each update will be smaller and mainly focused on these areas:

• Bug fixes
• Stability
• Performance
• Usability
• Finishing incomplete features

We're also working on a public roadmap that we can share with the community to better understand where we're going, not just for 1.0 but for future versions as well.

Meet Ruth and Steve, our newest avatars!

Ruth and Steve (internal names only, since Flipside characters don't have visible names) are the newest members of our built-in character set. They're an elderly couple who just don't understand what all the fuss is about with this new technology.

Highlighting objects

One big usability change with this update are objects that you hover over will highlight if they're grabbable. We notice a lot of newcomers to VR don't reach out far enough to grab things, so this is meant to provide a visual cue to show that you're within reach. This should also help to know which object you're grabbing when several objects are close together.

Bug fixes

• Hand interactions could sometimes get flipped on the Vive controllers (but not anymore!)
• Fixed more bugs in the character importing process
• Minor visual fixes

As always, the updates should happen automatically via Oculus Home or Steam. Looking forward to seeing your feedback and creations in the Flipside Creator Community!