VRChat World Creation Project: Event Horizon Lounge

[Gerald_Sphinx]

For anyone here who hasn’t followed along in the now-archived Vanguard channels of the EVE Online Discord, I posted a series of threads showing off the Unity projects that were kicked off with the help of Impossibly Optimistic Opossum and Thaddeus Reynolds whom provided me with the world assets and avatar assets respectively.

The world is already Public in VRChat and you can find it directly by searching for it under the name ‘Dust 514 Event Horizon Lounge’.

For those who are not aware, the Event Horizon Lounge was a world made by CCP Games for use as a promotional booth of sorts within PlayStation Home on the PS3 to showcase EVE Online and Dust 514. But with the help of two Mad Lads, I was able to get that Lounge working in VRChat using Unity v2022.3.22f1 and the VRC SDK 3.0.

The Lounge now features the Caldari Quarters which anyone can travel to by merely clicking on the first door to the right of the spawn. The Caldari Quarters was a separate project that featured VR Stage Lighting for DJs and even supported YouTube and Twitch playbacks and livestreams. However, upon bringing the Caldari Quarters to the Lounge as part of the initial merger, the Quarters had to lose their VR Stage Lighting and Video Player because of the conflict it had with the Lounge as the Lounge also has VR Stage Lighting and a Video Players for the same function. Basically I had to remove redundancy and I wasn’t able to figure out what a proper solution.

However, you can still access the old Caldari Quarters which still has the stage lighting function as a smaller separate world within VRChat but you will have to opt into the VRC Community Labs to access it.

The lights are mostly baked for optimization purposes. Parts of the light are still dynamic for the AudioLink and the moving light projectors. There are a lot of things added to this world that were not available on the Event Horizon Lounge back then such as the stripper poles (because why not?), the Gallente Assault Rifle that can be picked up at the bar (don’t ask), some friendly birbs to keep you company, and a really cool Stage Lighting system.

It’s still a work in progress and it will be a bigger world than how it already is. The main function of this world is to promote EVE Online and EVE Vanguard while it’s secondary function is to be the go-to place for DJ events. I have a friend who is already curious about using it to host a pop up DJ event within VRChat.

VRChat is free on Steam and you are not required to have VR for it to function. Hell, it can run on a potato if you stick with Desktop mode.

In case of any concerns or doubts about the legal use of these assets that were taken out of the PS3 games and, in the case of the featured avatars, Vanguard, they do fall within the Terms of Use established by CCP Games years ago.

EVE Online Content Creation Terms of Use

So this thread is going to be a blog showing off the project.

I hope you all enjoy it! Pay the world a visit and let me know what you think.

o7

Maken Tosch

[Gerald_Sphinx]

So as a summary of the recent update I made to the world, I added the Gallente Quarters which is now located to the left of the spawn. Just go down the dead-end corridor to the left and click on the door as you would with the door leading to the Caldari Quarters. I had to rebake the lights but this time it only took 30 minutes to bake within Unity since I was able to optimize the settings for the Lighting Data. It’s still a significant amount of time to wait, but it’s better than waiting over an hour with the old settings.

I added the Minmatar rifle to the world and relocated the weapons to a dedicated rack that can be found at the DJ area right by the big window overlooking the planet.

One additional note is that traffic to the world has increased suddenly.

Over 650 visits with over 40 users favoriting the world. I imagine that number is only going to grow given the visibility this project has received on Discord and on my YouTube channel @MakenToschVR.

Pending now is work on the War Room, the Amarr and Minmatar Quarters, and an overhaul of the VR Stage Lighting. I hope you all find this project fascinating. XD

Cheers,
Maken Tosch

[Gerald_Sphinx]

As of today, the number of visits to the world stands at 1,156 with 71 users favoriting the world. That’s about 1 out of 16 users favoriting the world as they visit. However, VRChat does not make it clear if those visits are per unique users visiting or just a handful of users visiting multiple times.

Overall though, according to the limited metrics given to me by VRChat on their website, the world is seeing significant interest which is a good thing. The world has also held a party last week hosted by a furry group known as the WickyLeeks (supposedly a bunch of Wickerbeasts with Leeks in their mouths). This is the first instance in which a small DJ event of 43 people people attending was held at my world. Obviously that bumped the numbers quite a bit.

As for the progress made on the world itself, there continues to be changes. A couple of which are major changes coming soon and are explained in the video below.

Event Horizon Lounge Progress Report

I will also be routinely keeping everyone updated on the official EVE Vanguard Discord regarding any changes I make to the world. I like to thank Thaddeus Reynolds (aka Ryu Takeda) for providing me with the Orca files and another thanks to OrcaToaster for texturing that ship with an awesome audiolink which enables the ship to react to the beat of the music.

That’s it for now.

As Usual, Fly Safe!
o7

Maken Tosch

[Gerald_Sphinx]

As of the time of this posting, the VRChat world ‘Dust 514 Event Horizon Lounge’ has reached 1,554 visits, is on the favorites list of at least 84 unique users, and has undergone a ton of updates.

VRChat World Update - Advanced Progress on the Lounge

The VR Stage Lighting system, created by AcChosen and available on Gumroad, utilizes a combination of AudioLinked light fixtures and DMX lights. These two systems can be toggled on and off independently to suit the needs of the DJs performing a set.

The difference between AudioLink and DMX is that the lights only react to the Bass, Treble, High-Mids and Low-Mids of the streams being played for the AudioLink lights. The lights for the DMX (Digital Multiplex) utilize an industry standard to how lights are controlled in realtime.

A great example of how this works within VRChat is a public world created by AcChosen as a sample of all the different ways to control the lights in DMX using the VR Stage Lighting system created by the same person. You can access the public world and try it out yourself if you know how to handle DMX in real life. Access to VRChat is free on Steam and it can run on Linux.

LD-VRSL-GITEST by AcChosen

That was just the first major overhaul. The next one involves expanding the project for multiple uses and it has already hosted two popup events with live DJs. The first that hosted an event was a furry group known as WickyLeeks, so named after a bunch of Wickerbeast fursonas with Leeks on their mouths.

Photo Courtesy of OrcaToaster, DJ Coordinator at Club Entropy, and Camera Operator at Furality.

Then came along another popup event with people from Club Entropy partying with live DJs doing their sets.

Photo by me.

The popups ran from 6PM to 11PM EST and saw 40-45 concurrent visitors at their peak. The lowest I have seen was about 13-15 concurrent visitors. The world is designed to accommodate 80 visitors in a single instance of the world at any given time. 80 is the maximum capacity allowed by VRChat.

There is so much more left to do though. I’m barely halfway through all of this and there is still work to be done for the War Room section of the Lounge. Yes, I’m going to incorporate the War Room from Dust 514. You know, the area where people kept having fun trying to kill a merc by pushing them against the edge? The one where the Tram System is always under routine maintenance? Yeah, that area.

That’s it for now though.

And as usual, fly safe!
o7
Maken Tosch

[Gerald_Sphinx]

The Dust 514 Warbarge world is now up on VRChat! Since it is in its experimental stage, you have to manually opt into the Community Labs from within VRChat in order to see it when looking at my profile name Maken Tosch. However, you can immediately access the world through the link below but you will need VRChat installed on your PC. It is free to play on Steam.

Dust 514 Warbarge by Maken Tosch

This is the second version of the Event Horizon Lounge in a 3-version series with each version serving a very specific purpose. Two of which dedicate for use by DJs and the VR club scene within VRChat and one of them (this one) made exclusively as a showcase world only. I will be posting a video about it later in the week when I get the chance.

Maken Tosch

[Gerald_Sphinx]

The world has gone through some changes over the past few months. Hard to believe it only started with one small room.

[Gerald_Sphinx]

Would you believe me if I told you it all started with this one room?

[Gerald_Sphinx]

Other than waiting for the Classic Dropsuit meshes to be rigged and weight painted for public avatar use, the Warbarge world in VRChat is practically finished. It will be curated regularly with updated Monthly Economic Reports plastered on the walls and the video playlist being kept up to date with the latest news from CCP.

When I have the time, I’ll come back to address any issues I find over time.

This means that I can finally move on and get work started on the DJ version of the War Room, which will be it’s only separate world in VRChat. I hope you all enjoy it!

Maken Tosch

[Gerald_Sphinx]

Posting this before the thread automatically locks at the end of the day. Yes, this is my new project. The recreation of the Palatine Keepstar. Avatar is not mine though.

The Event Horizon Lounge, Warbarge, and Ishukone worlds are practically finished. It will just be routine maintenance of those worlds from this point forward.