Roblox in Virtual Reality
"So you're telling me this game doesn't support being played in virtual reality by default?"
"Nope."
"Damn. Guess I'll have to make that change myself."
What Is This?
In late 2022, I was introduced to a game on Roblox called Mechanica. This game served as an advanced physics sandbox, giving players a huge variety of simple machines and logical components. These parts gave way to complex contraptions such as vehicles, functional buildings, and even working calculators. The possibilities were endless, save for the fact that this game did not work properly with users who were in virtual reality. There are no components that allow for the tracking of one's headset or controllers to manipulate objects in-game.
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Due to this, on the 22nd of February in 2023, I took it upon myself as a programmer to write code that would control physical parts of the game to follow my movements through virtual reality.
This code snippet shows a massive array of strings that informs the assembler what is to be done with each physical part of the model. The script locates each part using its color, making sure it matches any joint address.
Once the part is found, objects are inserted into the part to allow it to be moved by the script. In Roblox's physics engine, components called AlignPosition and AlignOrientation are used with Attachments to actively manipulate physical parts.
