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GearVR - Splash screen disappearing

Discussion in 'AR/VR (XR) Discussion' started by timsk951, Sep 3, 2015.

  1. timsk951

    timsk951

    Joined:
    Jul 29, 2015
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    Hi!

    I believe I've found a bug with the Oculus integration with Unity. Splash screens don't seem to appear, meaning we have 2-10 seconds of "black screen" when putting on the headset.

    This is very frustrating, most users assume something went wrong and take the headset off... embarrassing for the user, frustrating for the developer!

    This is very easy to reproduce, and I've uploaded a bug report. Here are the reproduction steps:
    • Create empty project
    • Import a texture and set as splash screen
    • Build for android and watch your splash load in all it's glory.
    • Now turn on Virtual Reality support in Player Settings.
    • Add your osig file for your device.
    • Build for android, connect to headset (or use oculus dev mode)
    • Cry as your splash screen is replaced with a black screen.
    Now the strangest thing about this? I had a license issue a few days ago, and had to run builds with the Personal Edition. The default Unity splash screen shows up...

    Really hoping we get a fix for this. It's impossible to demo to clients, let alone anyone else in this state.

    I'll add bug report number when I receive the email...
     
    timsk951, Sep 3, 2015
    #1

  2. timsk951

    timsk951

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    Case #724946
     
    timsk951, Sep 3, 2015
    #2

  3. Rudy-Pangestu

    Rudy-Pangestu

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    Hi there, I also encounter the same problem in here. In fact, I know from the beginning that Unity has its own VR splash screen by default. I want to replace it with my own custom splash screen, but all I get is black.

    Can you post it here when there is a solution to this?
     
    Rudy-Pangestu, Sep 4, 2015
    #3

  4. JDMulti

    JDMulti

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    Didn't know you could have your own splashscreen :O
    However I think a good work around for this issue would be having a first scene with a world space GUI with your splashscreen. Because the splash screen might be black, but the game will start sometime anyway. ;)
    I always use this approach, never tried a normal splash screen.
     
    JDMulti, Sep 4, 2015
    #4

  5. timsk951

    timsk951

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    Well, considering we have paid a lot of money for the privilege of adding our own splash screen, I expect it to work!

    We have the usual small "loading" scene that loads the real app. But we still have the 2-10 seconds (seems quite random) of black screen as it loads the engine + our first scene.
     
    timsk951, Sep 4, 2015
    #5

  6. timsk951

    timsk951

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    Is there any movement on this?

    Has it been seen by QA? Reproduced? Being fixed? Anything?
     
    timsk951, Sep 7, 2015
    #6

  7. timsk951

    timsk951

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    Bump...
     
    timsk951, Sep 14, 2015
    #7

  8. vicator

    vicator

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    Ive also noticed an insanely slow startup lately.
     
    vicator, Sep 16, 2015
    #8

  9. vicator

    vicator

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    I've experienced too much problem with asyncloadlevel that it will hog headtracking giving stutters. Unusable. Very unsatisfying in these modern times.
     
    vicator, Sep 16, 2015
    #9

  10. timsk951

    timsk951

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    I think those are different issue Vicator. My loading times aren't particularly long (it's usually 2-4 seconds, but sometimes longer). The issue is that it's just a black screen, and not the splash screen that you would normally see (when not running in VR mode).

    When using asyncloadlevel you need to use allowSceneActivation with a bit of smoke and mirrors. Set it to true when locking the main thread won't matter too much. The thread locking isn't totally avoidable as Unity is single threaded, but you can do your best to mask it.

    I would really like to get some feedback on this, there's been no official activity in either this post or the bug report.
     
    timsk951, Sep 17, 2015
    #10

  11. EdBlais

    EdBlais

    Unity Technologies

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    Hey guys, the behavior you are seeing is actually the intended current behavior for the VR splash screen. The normal Unity splash is 2D and it doesn't allow for head tracking, so it becomes a static image in front of the user. If the load times for the first level are too long, this can make users feel sick pretty quickly. Thus, we decided that the splash screen should be black for Pro users. This still leaves the possibility for you guys to create your own 3D splash scene after the black splash as discussed above.

    We have planned to update the 3D splash to be modifiable, but to what extent it should be modifiable is still unknown. Being able to look around during a splash screen isn't something that players may be used to, but it opens up more for developers to do with their splash.

    For now, creating your own splash scene to display after the black splash is the solution. This should also reduce the black splash duration and you can push the actual first level load to asynchronous during your splash scene.
     
    EdBlais, Sep 24, 2015
    #11

  12. timsk951

    timsk951

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    That's a real shame. It would be nice to have something there to indicate that it's loading and something hasn't gone wrong. VR still feels unusual to most people, so we find first time users are more on there toes (and kinda expecting things to go wrong I guess?). But I agree a non-headtracked solution is worse than a black screen.

    Thanks for the response, nice to have an official message to pass on.
     
    timsk951, Sep 25, 2015
    #12