Hi all. Vivecraft will update to 1.13 as soon as we can. Vivecraft is built on top of MCP, Forge, and Optifine and we can’t even start on the update until those are released first. I know it’s been a while, we appreciate your patience!
-jrbudda
Author: jrbudda
We’re updating our Privacy Policy!
New policy: Privacy’s pretty good, I guess.
Old policy: Privacy is OK, better than a poke in the eye with a stick.
I need to get out more.
Anyway, happy Memorial Day weekend to you all, and thank you for joining me for this Vivecraft update. If it’s not Memorial Day weekend where you are in the world, then happy Stroopwafel day or whatever it is there.
This was going to be a stop-gap release to just update Forge and Optifine to the latest and greatest while our fancier new features were still being worked on, but we found a number of very useful and exciting things to add anyway. Onward to features!
New Keyboard
We’re finally moving away from the SteamVR keyboard, which has actually gotten worse since the launch of SteamVR 2 years ago. The new keyboard is much more minecraft-y and basically works like the old one, except you can actually type with 2 hands and it doesn’t take like 5 seconds to show up! There’s a lot more little details about it in the release notes, but for brevity have a gif.
New Radial Menu
A long term complaint about VR Minecraft, especially for heavily modded users, is the lack of availability of controller buttons. We’ve tried to make the controller button binding system as configurable as possible, passing literal raw keyboard inputs to the PC, etc, but there has never been enough dang buttons. So I copy/pasted the new keyboard tech and made a radial menu! This handy guy can hold 2 sets of 8 keybinds, for a total of 16 inputs. You map the radial menu to a button, and either press or hold that button to pop up the menu and make your selection to send to the game. This is super helpful, even in vanilla. Behold!
Horses and Boats
Our contributor, finaltransmit, who you may remember from last year as the dude who made roomscale swimming and other neat things happen, is back! He’s got some really cool stuff still in the cooker, but here’s 2 new things for right now.
Horses now have ‘roomscale’ riding with reins! Coconuts optional.
Due to an unforeseen equine emergency shorty before release, the roomscale horse riding has been temporarily disabled while the horses are retrained. Still.. they have reins!
And boats have proper oars and oar-ing!
New Forge and Optifine
The included version of Optifine is now 1.12.2 D3, up from C9. I do believe this one has some nice chunk load speed improvements in it.
Forge is updated to 2702. There was some significant breaking changes around 2655 or so, this will keep you running with the latest versions of all them fancy FTB modpacks.
In the Works!
No vague promises this time, I have video evidence!
What you see here is a preview of finaltransmit’s new physical inventory system! We’ve very excited for this feature, but are still working out the kinks!. Our hope is to have this in the next version of 1.12.2, before 1.13 drops!
I have also previously mentioned an overhaul of the roomscale interaction system to allow the physical pressing of doors, levers, buttons, gates, etc. That’s still planned and will hopefully release with the physical inventory. Immersion overload!
Speaking of 1.13, don’t get your hopes up for a quick update. Mojang is updating the underlying java/OS library (called LWJGL) for the first time in forever. The good news is the new version has built-in support for OpenVR and much fancier opengl techniques, the bad news is we have no idea if we’ll be able to use any of it! So there will be an extensive research phase before any updates can be started. We’ll also have to re-write all the mouse and keyboard input code too! Hooray for Progress!
-jrbudda out.
Instructions for installation can be found on the Downloads Page.
Long Overdue
Sorry for the long delay between posts. It’s been almost 4 months since the last one. Hanukkah, Christmas, New Years, Presidents Day, Valentines Day…. so many missed opportunities for puns and sad headline jokes.
So here’s a sad headline joke I just happen to know:
Hey have you heard about corduroy pillows? They’re making head lines!
Good. Now that’s out of my system, on to business.
Vivecraft for Minecraft 1.12.2 has been receiving trickle updates over the past couple months, mostly addressing little bugs and niggles, and a few new features thrown on top. Perhaps you’ve seen these builds on github or discord, and a large thank-you to our discord users who act as my hapless testers. If not, then, well, keep reading!
Features!
One cool new, much-requested feature is a ‘third person’ desktop mirror. This is a great middle ground for youtubers and twitchers (twitchies? yea lets go with twitchies) between a first person view and a full-blown mixed reality setup.
The ‘camera’ for this view is the same as for the Mixed Reality mode, meaning it can be placed manually, or moved around with a 3rd controller or Vive tracker. You also get a view inside the hmd of where the camera is and what it’s seeing, which is neat! See the mixed reality page for details.
F5 also now cycles thru desktop mirror modes so you don’t have to go digging through menus.
And… that’s it pretty much for new features. I’ve updated Optifine twice, re-enabled ‘walk-up-blocks’ for locomotion, fixed shadows using shaders, made some changes to the installer to allow custom Forge versions and compatibility with the new MultiMC, but the 3rd person mirror is the only really ‘new’ thing. See the full change notes over on github.
Contribute!
Another great new announcement is that the newer Vivecraft versions are now actually buildable from Github again. We sat down and overcame some technical hurdles so that anyone can now grab the source code and get up and running a dev environment for modern Vivecraft without jumping through hoops. I also fixed some dead links and rehosted files that were making even the older 1.7.10 version unbuildable without fiddly edits.
I’ve updated the readme’s on the 1.10.2 and 1.12.2 Github pages with instructions on how to get a working build for yourself. (1.11.2 is discontinued and I’m not working on it anymore.)
If you want to contribute I highly recommend stopping by the discord channel, I promise we do not bite much.
Around the Community!
This is hilarious. And shows fantastic usage of the climb claws.
I don’t know what’s going on in this next one but it’s got a half million views so it must be good.
I know there’s more videos out there but youtube search is so godawful it’s very hard to keep track.
Also since the last updates I’ve added several new Vivecraft servers to the Server List, check it out if you’re looking for somewhere to play.
Pay Me!
If anyone of you new bitcoin millionaires want to sponsor my early retirement, please send me an email, or just a suitcase of money.
For everyone else, we do have a Patreon page. Big thank you to all my current Patrons and especially thanks for sticking around through the last couple months of not-much-happening. Becoming a patron gets you a special role in the discord chat, and one of those cool in-game HMD’s you see in the gifs earlier in this post.
What’s Next?
I mentioned in my last post seventeen years ago about a big overhaul of the roomscale interaction system. A lot of the groundwork for this system is actually in place now, we just haven’t added any palpable changes yet. With most of the little technical issues put to bed in this release, the work now begins on the real fun gameplay stuff. Look out soon for interactable door, chests, button, levers, trapdoors, furnaces, etc etc etc. A previous contributor, finaltransmit, has popped back in with some cool new improvements to roomscale horse riding and boat rowing which are already in for the next version, expect more cool stuff from him too!.
–jrbudda out
Instructions for installation can be found on the Downloads Page.
Back in Black Friday
Oh, hey there.
We’re still here! I am sorry there haven’t been better updates. I am a poor custodian of this, the most auspicious of VR mods for games more than 10 years old that also run on java. Thank you all for your patience. Thank you too, to the patrons who are still contributing, desperately hoping for any tiny nuggets of news.
Where have I been, you ask? Erangel, mostly, if you must know. I’m sorry for all those times I shot you around a corner.
In all seriousness, there have been a few updates since the last blog post, mostly updating from 1.12.0 to 1.12.1 and then to 1.12.2. The discord has remained active and I encourage you to hang out there if you really want to stay up-to-date. So version updates and a few bug fixes here and there, but nothing exciting.
That changes today! New Stuff!
The full change notes, as always, are on the Github page, but please continue on for a brief overview.
This is a 1.12.2-only release at the moment.
Something about eggs and omelettes
Since Mojang is busying itself breaking everything I thought it a fine time to undertake the same adventure.
In this iteration of Vivecraft we have re-written significant parts of the VR Movement system, the whole controller input and binding system (thanks, Techjar), and much of the GUI rendering.
The movement re-write comes with many palpable improvements, including a ‘smooth rotation’ setting, significantly improved handling of how vehicles and ladders work, much better roomscale rowing, and many little fixes to how you (the human), and Steve (the player), decide who’s actually the one in charge.
Techjar’s input rework has led to a much better button-binding menu as well as a new setting for splitting up the Vive trackpad into button regions. I believe he has added at least 37 different modes, including one in which each button occupies a slice of the pad 320 arcseconds wide and supports four thousand buttons.
These changes, especially the input handling, are just the beginning and pave the way for bigger and better things down the road. For a rundown of some of the really cool new stuff I plan to add with these new systems, keep reading!
Loot Boxes!
Just kidding.
LAN Play Now!
This was going to be the big headline of this release but then we just kept working and working on it and now it almost feels like a footnote. Both Vivecraft and the Non-VR companion can now host a LAN game supporting VR animations and movement. This saves the step of setting up and maintaining a server. Great for homes with a VR-rig and a couple old laptops floating around. Works with Forge mods, too!
I regret it is still not possible for a single PC to play VR and Non-VR simultaneously, but that is on the wishlist and we’re hoping Minecraft 1.13 brings us a way to make that happen.
To start a LAN game: Load up a world on the PC you want to host and from the in-game menu select ‘Open To LAN’. The other PC(s) should then see the LAN game on the Multiplayer selection screen.
MultiMC
Another great new feature is easier installation of Vivecraft into MultiMC. This is a great little launcher for managing many different instances of Minecraft with wildly different settings. Especially in this age of the ‘new’, ‘improved’, ‘totally-not-garbage’, ‘doesn’t-deserve-to-be-set-on-fire’ vanilla launcher.
It was previously possible to get Vivecraft working on MMC but required some tricky json edits and whatnot. Now our installer will simply detect multimc.exe, allow you to select your instance, and do the legwork for you. I should have switched to this thing for my own use months ago.
See this page for detailed instructions for both this, and older versions.
Pre-release Warning
Due to the extensive changes I am putting this out as a release candidate with full blog post and everything because, frankly, I need your help testing it. You will find things broken; For example turning on the Mixed Reality mirror mode currently causes Minecraft to leak into our reality. There was an enderman in my basement last night and I do not wish that experience upon anyone, so avoid that option for now.
There are multiple avenues for you to tell me all about the cool new bugs you’ve found. Github Issues are great. I regularly check the forums here, and am pretty much always on the discord. Emails, reddit messages, steam message, too are all acceptable. Bring logs and screenshots.
Yes I do plan on bringing this new stuff to the older versions of Vivecraft, or at least 1.10.2, but only after the bugs have been worked out. So it’s in your best interest to try this one out.
The Future?
So this update fixes up some of the more annoying and janky internal bits of Vivecraft. With these out of the way we can get back to work on real features.
By far the most requested new thing is more and better VR interactivity. Minecraft is chock-full of things that should be touchable but aren’t. Doors, chests, levers, buttons, crafting tables, the list goes on. Up til now we’ve relied on the stock Minecraft ‘left click’ and ‘right click’ buttons for standard things, but these will only ever work where the crosshair is pointing. Other VR interactions like ladders and animals I implemented by just ‘touching’ the thing with the controller, (no buttons involved due to lack of availability), but this has serious limitations due to accidental activation. Hence no doors or chests. Well with our new input system, we can fix all that!
My goal for the future is assigning a ‘VR Interact’ button to each controller that will be a context-sensitive override to the normal function of that button. For example touching a door will turn one of the buttons on that hand, lets say the grip (usually ‘sneak’ or ‘pick block’), into a ‘open’ or ‘close’ command. Sounds cool, right?
The biggest hurdle to this, now that we have the infrastructure to handle the buttons, is providing visual feedback to the player that the use of a button has changed. So that’s what we’re going to work on. Engines like Unity and Unreal make it very easy to highlight a controller button and show some text… but of course Minecraft has no such systems and we will have to start from the polygons and work our way up. Once we have a good feedback system in place, expect all the existing VR interactions to switch to this system as well a whole lot more becoming available. I’m really excited to get to work on this so stay tuned!
-jrbudda out
Instructions for installation can be found on the Downloads Page.
New locomotion options
Helloo Internet. How are you? Tubes clear? Cats doing ok? good.
I’m happy to report that most of the ‘backend’ work we’ve been doing over the past few releases is behind us. Vivecraft is all nice and up to date on Forge and Optifine and most of the associated bugs have been squooshed. We’re now back to the much more fun job of adding features, streamlining gameplay, and just overall making the world a better place.
Today I have for you a long-awaited and much-requested feature: Onward-style touchpad locomotion! That’s right, you now have a 4th ‘free movement’ style control scheme to choose from alongside controller-directed, hmd-directed, and run-in-place. The new scheme allows for analog movement speed using the Vive touchpad or Touch joystick on the left hand. There’s a number of minor adjustments you will need to make to your keybindings, these are laid out on the release page(s).
Speaking of releases: all 4 versions of Vivecraft are getting this release so no matter which one you play, you can take advantage of the new locomotion. Our QA department also informs me that they are both under-staffed and imaginary and that with so many versions and configurations to test unintended consequences may occur using the new locomotion. Please report bugs.
Also bundled into this update is a new keybind-selection screen, no more cycling thru individual actions, you get a nice list to pick from. Should make customizing your controller setup a lot quicker and less frustrating.
Finally I’ve added some new options to all 7 installers (including the non-vr companions). You can now choose a custom name for your Vivecraft profile in the Minecraft launcher and you can also point the profile at a modpack during installation (because, frankly, the new Minecraft launcher is hot garbage and made doing this step manually a pain in the patoot).
I’ve updated the FAQ page with instructions (and this picture!) of how to use the new installer to easily set up Vivecraft with a modpack.
Around the Community
Quite a number of neat videos have come to my attention. Some I had to go digging for. Youtubers: Please include ‘vivecraft’ somewhere in your video title or description if you’re using the mod, if only so I can find your video. (a link to this site wouldn’t kill ya, either)
Here’s youtuber ‘Brometheus’ with a 3-part series, 2 of which use Mixed Reality mode, which we always like to see.
Everyone’s favorite JoshDub put out a Vivecraft video playing the (sadly now shut down) Pixelmon mod.
Here’s a VR episode of Vikkstar123’s ‘How to Minecraft’. I guess it’s popular.
And this one too, at near a half million views, I feel like maybe I’m in the wrong business.
We’ve also added a new Vivecraft compatible server to the list, go check out Hexadecimal MC by BlueSnow.
-jrbudda out.
Instructions for installation can be found on the Downloads Page.
Vivecraft for Minecraft 1.12
Hoo boy it’s hot out. July here in South Carolina comes with the triple threat of humidity, tourists, and mosquitoes. I can’t say which is worst. Especially the latter 2, one of which is a parasite that feeds on human misery and the other is a flying insect.
This is why I stay inside and play video games, and you should too. I know the steam sale is over but to help you get some more mileage out of your VR gear for limited time only I’ve offering Vivecraft at a 100% off discount. My computer tells me this brings the price down to $NaN, whatever that means.
Jokes aside, Vivecraft for 1.12 is now ready to be released into the wild. Minecraft 1.12 now comes with Parrots, some new blocks, and most importantly, the Recipe Book! Mods have long brought in-game screens to view recipes but having one built into the vanilla game is just great news for casual players. You can access the recipe book from the normal survival inventory screen.
Vivecraft 1.12 does release with Forge support, though the mod selection is low and has not gone through a lot of testing.
Vivecraft 1.11.2 and 1.10.2 also both received an under-the-hood update to bring the included Optifine and Forge versions up to the latest available.
Seems to be a bug in the newer Optifines that is affecting Vivecraft by making the whole world go invisible when scrolling through the Desktop Mirror options. If this occurs hit F3+A, die, or restart the game. We’re working on a fix.
Around the Community
Youtube has been a little quiet lately but here’s a cool Twitch channel of the Mixed Reality Vivecraft exhibit at Universe Science Park in Denmark. Watch people fumble around in VR live!
- jrbudda out.
Instructions for installation can be found on the Downloads Page.
School’s out for summer
TGIF. ‘Nuff said.
Today I am officially releasing version 10 for both 1.10.2 and 1.11.2. We’ve gone through at least 63 pre-release builds of these and both contain a veritable cornucopia of minor fixes. You should update.
Barring the need for emergency bugfixes these will likely be the last updates until Vivecraft for 1.12 is out. When is that, you ask? Good question, I say! It will be after MCP, Forge, Optifine, and Spigot all update and get themselves stabilized. I can’t say any more accurately cause I dunno!
What I do know is I’m very excited for 1.12, and you should be too. Why, you ask? the recipe book, I say! Yes indeed vanilla Minecraft now comes with a built-in recipe book!
This is great news for the VR experience, especially Vivecraft newbies. Stay tuned!
Now what will become of 1.11.2, you ask? Let’s wait and see, I say. The FTB modpack makers seem intent on making 1.10.2 the new standard after 1.7.10. And of course vanilla servers tend to update to the latest and greatest ASAP. That leaves 1.11.2 as the odd-version-out. I’m going to be busy getting the 1.12 version out so no major decisions need to be made until we start adding new features in, afterwards. We’ll look at the community at large and any feedback, and then decide if 1.11.2 updates will continue.
What updates, you ask? Hmm, I got a couple planned, I say! After 1.12 the next thing likely is going to be an Onward-style touchpad/joystick locomotion scheme. This is tricky due to all the buttons but I’ll work something out. Beyond that… hmm.. roomscale fishing? voice chat? the sky’s the limit.
Around the community
Here’s a nice entertaining 2-part let’s play, in English, nonetheless.
And I will continue to plug Ochi’s series, though it be in German, just due to his sheer tenacity. 111 episodes. Killing an Ender Dragon. In VR.
- jrbudda out.
Instructions for installation can be found on the Downloads Page.
Vivecraft is 1 year old today!
Today, Vivecraft is 1 year old.
Hopefully within the next few years it will cease pooping itself.
The support and enthusiasm for this little mod for an 8 year old game has been incredible. Especially the r/vive reddit community, you guys rock., thank you.
Also big thank you’s to Techjar, for all his hard work. To the discord users for all their bug testing and feedback. And to the Vivecraft patrons, who for some reason feel exchanging real money for sparkles that come out of your butt is a fair deal.
Couple quick announcements.
New Updates
All 3 versions of Vivecraft have received an update with a new ‘backpack’ hotbar switching mechanic. You can now reach behind you to quickly switch to the first slot on the hotbar, so stick your sword there. In 1.10+ you can swap the 2nd hotbar slot with the offhand slot by reaching behind your back with the offhand controller. Please note this does not work with bows. It would sweet to have the sword on your right and bow on your left but bows just don’t work equipped offhand, it’s a vanilla limitation and I’m sorry. The releases are all still flagged pre-release as I’m trying to track down a few remaining bugs, so keep an eye on the download pages over the next few days in case there are important changes. The Non-VR companion for 1.10.2 and 1.11.2 have also both been updated with bugfixes.
Forge Server Mods
Techjar has completed his Vivecraft Forge Extensions mod for both 1.10.2 and 1.11.2. These are server-only mods for supporting VR animations, teleporting, and other misc VR oddities. (the 1.7.10 version is still for client and server both). Head to the downloads or multiplayer pages for links and instructions if you want to set up a modded server.
New Modded Server
Speaking of modded servers, Norn, of the popular Vivecraft server Nornia, has set up a sister server based on Forge 1.10.2 with a carefully curated modpack. He’s got a new website with instructions, and also just offically launched it today. Norn’s servers are well-run and a great option for folks looking to play minecraft in VR with other people but don’t have any people of their own.
Instructions for installation can be found on the Downloads Page.
Mod Compatibility Updates
Happy Monday y’all.
the 1.10.2 version of Vivecraft got a big update this weekend bringing the included Optifine version up to speed (C2 -> D8) and fixing a number of reported mod bugs. We’ve had discord users reporting that several of the very large FTB packs (100+ mods) are working!
We’ve fleshed out the Mod Compatibility sheet some more, if you have feedback for this, good or ill, let us know somewhere.
1.10.2 additionally now has a NON-VR companion that also supports Forge. There is a spigot plugin for 1.10.2 you can use, and the Forge server mod for 1.10 and 1.11 should be coming very soon. (The non-vr companion allows 2d players to see VR players animations and Patreon rewards)
Minor updates to the 1.11.2 and 1.7.10 branch as well to fix a couple minor things. You should update if you play those versions.
Please report bugs on the github issues page(s). I know it requires logging in but bugs mentioned on Reddit or Discord tend to get lost and/or forgotten. Thank you!
Here’s some recent lets-play of Vivecraft I found amusing.
Instructions for installation can be found on the Downloads Page.
Forge is back, baby!
Here at last! Thank you all for your patience, I am happy to report it has been rewarded.
We finally have Forge support in both the 1.10.2 and 1.11.2 versions of Vivecraft! Much testing remains as there are just so, so many mods out there but hey, it’s a start! The next couple versions of Vivecraft will be aimed at improving compatibility.
I’ve added a link in the sidebar to the evolving Mod Compatibility List. If you find a bug with a Forge mod please report it on the correct github issues page as we’ll take a crack at it!
The 1.10.2 version has been brought up to speed and is functionally identical to 1.11.2. So that means climbey items, multiplayer animations, and all the other cool stuff added in the last 6 months are in this version as well.
The 1.7.10 version did get a tiny update today to include the new installer features. I do not foresee many more updates to this version going forward. We’ve made it about as compatible as we can with Forge mods for that version, and more and more mods keep coming to 1.10.
The Forge server mod(s) for Vivecraft will be out in the next few days. In the meantime you can use Forge servers but you will be subject to the limitions outlined on the Multiplayer page. Keep an eye on this site for updates.
An updated Spigot server plugin is now available for 1.10.2 here.
Next a MASSIVE shout out to all my patreon supporters. I love you and want you all to have my babies.
I’m also very happy to promote the T-Square mod, written by giltwist. This is a voxelsniper-style mod for organic block painting and it was written specifically with Vivecraft in mind as all mod commands are handled via in-game items. Please do check it out.
Another cool thing is I’ve added native support for the KAT WALK omni treadmill into Vivecraft. Look out for some cool new media from those guys in the near future.
As always please please report bugs or request features on Github.
Instructions for installation can be found on the Downloads Page.