What you need to know
- Owlchemy Labs used several techniques to optimize Vacation Simulator for the Oculus Quest.
- The game turns items on and off depending on what a player can see within the game.
- Vacation Simulator arrives on the Oculus Quest on December 12, 2019, and is available for pre-order for $30.
Vacation Simulator arrives on the Oculus Quest later this week, and the creators of the game shared some secrets on how they optimized the game for the Oculus Quest. The Oculus Quest runs on an older mobile processor, so Owlchemy Labs used some clever techniques to make the game run as smoothly as possible. Owlchemy Labs explains the techniques in this Twitter thread.
Owlchemy Labs made it so Vacation Simulator turns elements on and off depending on where a player is and what that player can actually see. For example, bushes, objects, colliders, snow, and bot animations can be turned off to reduce the strain on system resources.
We turn a lot of things on and off in the scene depending on where the player is and what they can actually see. Bushes, objects, colliders, scene effects like snow, even complex bot animations! Anything is fair game! pic.twitter.com/VjPH5GUmlAWe turn a lot of things on and off in the scene depending on where the player is and what they can actually see. Bushes, objects, colliders, scene effects like snow, even complex bot animations! Anything is fair game! pic.twitter.com/VjPH5GUmlA— Owlchemy Labs (@OwlchemyLabs) December 9, 2019December 9, 2019
Vacation Simulator will also reduce the resolution of areas on your screen in certain situations. When using a handheld camera, a player will most likely look through the lens, so the game lowers the resolution of the screen outside of the camera view.
Owlchemy Labs also explains that sandcastle creations are dynamically reduced to have few colliders in real-time.
Sandcastles were originally created as a matrix of cubes placed together. We created a system that dynamically reduces your sand masterpiece into the fewest number of box colliders in real-time to improve performance (fewer colliders is always better). pic.twitter.com/wQX0Vrwv7lSandcastles were originally created as a matrix of cubes placed together. We created a system that dynamically reduces your sand masterpiece into the fewest number of box colliders in real-time to improve performance (fewer colliders is always better). pic.twitter.com/wQX0Vrwv7l— Owlchemy Labs (@OwlchemyLabs) December 9, 2019December 9, 2019
According to Owlchemy Labs, these techniques add up and allow Vacation Simulator to "run beautifully."
From the same team that makes Job Simulator, this title allows you to relax in a variety of environments. You can play in the water, have snowball fights, and make ice sculptures.
