The SynthesisVR Environment Profiles cover headset variables such as boundaries, button states, scheduled HMD restarts, and other configuration and environment adjustments.

With the growth of the LBVR segment and the VR industry in general, we do see more and more standalone HMDs released for business purposes. As of March 2023, there are multiple established platforms and HMD models:

• SteamVR – HTC’s Vive + Vive Pro + Vive Pro 2 ; Valve Index ; Pimax ; etc
• HTC Focus 3 + LBE License
• Pico Neo 3 Pro
• Pico Neo 4 Enterprise
• Meta Quest 2

What SteamVR has been great at for so many years is providing a unification between all the PCVR HMDs. Regardless if you go for HTC Vive, Valve Index, Oculus, PiMax, or another PCVR HMD, they always get linked to SteamVR and become a viable LBVR option. With the growth of standalone HMDs, this has dramatically shifted. The manufacturers bundle their products with custom software and functionalities that cannot be used on a competitive brand. This all creates a bit of chaos and not to make it any easier – all of the standalone HMDs have the option to operate as Wireless PCVR HMDs (as a way to fuel more power / stunning visuals). Getting familiar with the specifics of all manufacturers and making them part of your daily operations can be challenging.

SynthesisVR is the first LBVR platform to unify the environment variables into Environment Profiles in a simple yet powerful interface.

Setting up a new Environment Profile:

Step 1) Find the Environment Profiles page

Head to “my.synthesisvr.com >> Administration >> Devices” and switch to the brand new “Environment Profiles” tab:

Step 2) Creating an Environment Profile

There are a few simple concepts behind the Environment Profiles:

• You can have as many Environment Profiles as you need to
• The Environment Profiles are loaded automatically based on your preconfigured Experience Types . You can assign multiple Experience Types to a single Environment Profile
• If you are setting up an Environment Profile that will serve Free-Roam games, you likely need to share the same boundary between all involved stations
• If you are using an HMD for streaming (paired to a PC), then the HMD is not part of the session, but the Environment Profile could still apply
• If you have overlapping Environment Profiles, the latest updated profile will be used

Example Configurations:

Room-Scale:

Free-Roam:

Room-Scale profile for PCVR->HMD streaming:

Free-Roam profile for PCVR->HMD streaming:

Step 3) Specify the hardware platform that will be used for the specific Environment Profile:

Please note that upon applying your selection, you no longer would be able to change it for the current Environment Profile. Luckily, deleting a Profile and creating a new one is quick enough.

Upon defining the hardware platform, the next step is to define platform-specific actions.

Examples:

• HTC:

An HTC Focus 3 profile that disables the Focus 3 popup menu and, if there are any boundary changes (like switching between room-scale and free-roam spaces) – then the HMD gets restarted. Once the session is over, the Focus 3 popup menu is re-enabled and the HMD is shut down to save battery:

• Pico:

A Pico profile that automatically turns on the screen at the start of the session and disables the screen upon the session ends. During session, the screen will be always on, regardless if the HMD is actually in use:

• SteamVR:

Disable the 2D menu for Free-Roam sessions:

Step 4) Export and Sync the boundaries:

Click the boundary icon right from the Environment Profiles page:

The pop-up will guide you through what devices(=HMDs) are online and which ones match the hardware platform:

As can be seen on the screenshot, the Environment Profile won’t let you export SteamVR chaperone data from a PC streaming to an HMD. In that case, you have to run Synthesis on the HMD and use an Environment Profile with the appropriate Hardware Platform.

Upon clicking the Save button, the export signal is submitted to the HMD:

Please wait until you see a confirmation popup:

Your boundary data is saved in two locations:

• Under your SynthesisVR Proxy instance
• Under the SynthesisVR Cloud (so it can be automatically restored in the case of reinstalling your Proxy or moving it to a different PC)

Known Limitations:

HTC Focus 3:

• You cannot use the full set of Environment Profile functionalities without the LBE mode
• The upcoming VBMS system is still in extensive testing and gives some issues that are not there with the VBC tools. We are working with HTC on getting the VBMS issues sorted out before the official launch of the VBMS platform.

Pico 4 Enterprise:

• The Synthesis app is not properly rendered upon HMD restart. It has to be started manually through the PicoUI, which we consider a major hurdle for running standalone sessions. We are in process of addressing the issue with Pico. The issue is non-existent on the other Pico LBVR HMD -> Pico Neo 3 Pro

Meta Quest 2:

• Meta Quest is not an LBVR HMD and does not support any of the advanced functionalities, including boundary sharing. If Meta ever changes their mind, we’ll be happy to add advanced Quest support as well.

The post Environment Profiles – Store and Swap VR Boundaries appeared first on Synthesis VR.

2. Subscribe for the SynthesisVR Proxy Image on the AWS Marketplace and launch your instance

• https://aws.amazon.com/marketplace/pp/prodview-4kvrdal74fp3a

We do recommend the Medium General Purpose AWS instances (t2.medium ; t3.medium ; t3a.medium).

As with any other AWS Windows-based instances, make sure your RDP port allows external connections or you could be unable to connect to your instance.

3. Complete your installation

Upon RDP connecting to your instance for the first time, the “Local Manager” app will automatically launch in full-screen mode and will ask for the Activation Code from step 1. Enter the code and wait for the installation process to complete. It could take a couple of minutes.

4. Finalize

Your Proxy installation is done and your SynthesisVR Access Point instances would automatically detect and connect to your newly installed Cloud Proxy.

Note: The Cloud Proxy installation process is streamlined, but it also may not be straightforward for businesses who do not have previous experience with AWS. Please do not hesitate to seek assistance from hundreds of certified AWS professionals or hire a SynthesisVR engineer as well.

You don’t know what a SynthesisVR Proxy is or looking for self-hosted options?
Find out here:

The post Synthesis VR Proxy – Cloud Proxy for VR Arcades – Amazon / AWS appeared first on Synthesis VR.

1) Access the “Run” prompt by press the Windows key + R

2) Type: services.msc

3) Scroll down the list until you find SynthesisVR – Proxy

4) If the service is not running, click on the “Start” option on the left side (or the Restart button). You should see the following popup:

When the popup disappears, the service status should be changed to “Running”.

5) If the status remains empty (meaning – not running) or you don’t have permission to start the service, you could simply restart the computer. By default, SynthesisVRMainService is configured to start automatically along with Windows.

6) If SynthesisVR – Proxy still isn’t starting, please reach to us at info@synthesisvr.com

The post Synthesis VR Proxy – Troubleshooting appeared first on Synthesis VR.

The post localmanifest.json Cheatsheet appeared first on Synthesis VR.

Creating New Membership Plan

Login to your SynthesisVR admin Account and go to “Administration >> Extras  >>  Cards”

Click the Three Dots on the top right corner – then click Add New Batch of Membership Cards

Fill in your settings

Title = This is the name for each of the cards. When the “#code#” special string is placed in the title, it would be replaced by the actual code of the card

Generation Pattern = keep it without any spaces inside. The # character would be replaced by the actual number of the card. If you plan to have 1000 cards, you should have at least 4 # characters (example: card:monthly:####)

Quantity = the total number of cards to be generated

Digital Cards Only = you may want to print the cards or just have pseudo cards (no hard copy). The printed cards are assigned to the customers via the “Scan QR Code” functionality on the sidebar and the digital cards are assigned via the “Customers” page.

Generating Codes and Printing Physical Cards

Now that you have created your membership option you have to generate them so the cards can be distributed among your customers

1. If set to Digital Only when setting up card
   • You will have to generate the actual cards, for that purpose click the “Generate” button

1. If your new batch of cards isn’t set to “digital only”, you’ll get a download button, where you will find the downloaded excel file.
   • What you have to print on your plastic cards is a QR code based on the strings in column B of the downloaded excel table.

Configuring Membership Cards

As the next step, you can configure one or multiple modes for your cards. For this click on the “+ Add” button, to get the following popup

Settings

Title = Since a batch of cards could have different kind of discounts and promotions, use that field to identify the specific mode.

Card Cost = You may want to sell the cards to distribute them for free.

Give System Points Per Minute = This is no longer in use. If you want to create a points based rewards system, please subscribe to our points module.

Discounts Applies For Sessions Up To [NN] Stations = This is to select how the concession rate is applied and to how many stations.

Days of week = The days when the card can be used in your arcade. If it is a free card, you may want to restrict its benefits to apply only during the weekdays.

Discounts are valid everyday = You may want to select if the discounts are valid for all days or selected days.

Active period = how long after activation the card would expire. If you charges $200 for the card, it may expire after one year, so you can collect the next membership fee.

Combine With Regular Discounts = You may combine the discount with an existing discount.

Recurring Billing Period (optional) = You may select on what interval the bills are made. (Example: 30days or 15days)

Mail the customer every time the card is used = You may want to send mails to your customers every time their cards are used.

Packages

Discounts = Here you can apply discounts to certain Experiences or All experiences. You can also add multiple discounts by simply clicking the Discounts + button. As example, the customers owning the card may have 10% during the weekdays. If the regular work hour rule cost is $30 our system will calculate the discount percentage and the customer will only be charged the discounted new amount.

Included Free Time = As membership benefits, you can include free time for certain experiences so the customer does not have to pay. For example: The card owners would have 60 free VR Experience minutes every 30 days. Both the “free time” and the discounts can be used simultaneously. If the card has 60 free minutes then the customer will not be charged for the first 60 minutes of this experience. You can add multiple free minutes by clicking the + button. This way you can create different types of membership benefit programs.

Carry over unused free time from month to month = Unused time will be transferred only if the renewal period for the free experience type is set to `1 month`.

Free Time Renew Base = The `First Day` option works only if the renewal period for the free experience type is set to `1 month`.

Points Collection

Provide Points for Usage + = From here you can add points to visitors for: Session / Per Station; Minute; Session / All Stations for every of your Experience types for each day of the week.
Point System can be chosen from: Membership; Room Scale Points; Session Reward Points; Global Points System.

Membership Widget Setup

Here you may select how the Membership widget needs to look like, by selecting the widget text color, card color, desired descriptions and the cover image.

Assigning Membership to Customers

Now you have the membership cards and their modes being setup. How you are using them depends on their mode (digital-only or not).

Go to Customers on the left menu and search for the customer you want to sell the membership – Click Sell Card as Shown Below

Select which membership card you would like to sell from the pop up

On the pop up if you need you can still change the membership if you selected the wrong one in the previous step.

You are ready to assign/sell the card (Note: all the non-free cards would affect the financial reports)

You can choose a payment method and click Add Payment to assign this membership to this customer

At the next step, go to “Stores >> Sell Ticket – Pick a customer for the next reservation”. The displayed cost would be reflected by the membership card settings.

Every customer may have only 1 membership card. If you would like to assign more, you would have to create another account for this purpose

The post Membership Add-On – Convert Your Visitors To Regular Customers appeared first on Synthesis VR.

In some setups, you may have Synthesis running on a VR station having 2 or more network adapters. In those cases, Synthesis will use the first connected adapter to determinate its settings.
If you would like to change that, you have to add the following line to both your Access Point and Server Mode (Proxy):

• "preferredMac": "001122334455",

where 001122334455 is the MAC address of the adapter you would like to default to.
For the “Access Point” app, add that line to:

• %localappdata%\SynthesisVR\app\Resources\localmanifest.json

For the Server Mode (Proxy):

• C:\Users\synthesisvr\AppData\Local\SynthesisVR\op.json

The post Multiple networks appeared first on Synthesis VR.

Scripting variables

How to perform automated network discovery:

How to determinate if the current PC is the server:

Is this a multiplayer session:

What is the server IP:

2) Create a new game variant:

​

3) Go to “Administration >> Games & Licensing >> Game Categories” and assign “Arizona Sunshine – Multiplayer” to the list:

​

5) The “Advanced Game Settings” button would appear and it will lead to the following settings:

​

The post The SynthesisVR Engine appeared first on Synthesis VR.

Setup:

• In the old interface – go to “Administration >> Global Arcade Settings”
• In the new interface – go to “Administration” and click on the name of your arcade.

• Fill your website domain name under the “Domain” field (don’t use http or https). Example: myarcadedomain.com
• Locate the “GPS Latitude” and “GPS Longitude” settings and set the exact coordinates of your arcade

Usage:

• Start a VR session with an actual customer assigned to it. The customer can be also assigned after the start of the session
• Play the game
• End the session

The post Location Based Virtual Reality League (LBVRL) appeared first on Synthesis VR.

1. TCP
   • 2010 – Video Streaming(optional)
   • 5060 – VoIP(optional)
   • 5066 – VoIP(optional)
   • 8005 – SynthesisVR communication port(mandatory)
   • 8088 – SynthesisVR communication port(mandatory)
2. UDP
   • 5060 – VoIP(optional)
   • 8070 – Synthesis communication port (recommended)
   • 8071 – Synthesis communication port (recommended)
   • All ports above 10000 (VoIP Audio –optional)

 
Access Point:

1. TCP
   • 5060 – VoIP(optional)
   • 8006 – SynthesisVR communication port(mandatory)
   • 8007 – SynthesisVR Leaderboard
   • 8079 – SynthesisVR communication port(mandatory)
   • 8080 – SynthesisVR communication port(mandatory)
2. UDP
   • 5060 – VoIP(optional)
   • 8070 – SynthesisVR communication port(mandatory)
   • 8071 – SynthesisVR communication port(mandatory)
   • All ports above 10000 (VoIP Audio –optional)

The post Firewall and Network Information appeared first on Synthesis VR.

Overview:

As LBVR progress through the years, we sees a good number of new VR related hardware coming to the market. Often, to ensure fast and flawless operation, the new hardware have to be integrated in Synthesis. As long as we are working toward native support for as much hardware as possible (KATVR + KAT I/O as an example), we feel there is so much more you could achieve if you have the right tools to unleash your creativity. This is what the “Command Calls” are purposed for. Working with hardware in LBVR normally comes down to 4 simple events:

1. Session is started
2. Game is started
3. Game is closed
4. Session is ended

An extra 5th event is -> manual actions
What if you could write a simple code in ANY programming language and attach it to any of the 4+1 events?

Idea 1) You can turn the Graphic Card color to RED when the station is occupied and back to GREEN when its free

Idea 2) In a conversation with the studio behind an upcoming game title utilizing the “fear of height” (like Richie’s Plank Experience), we came up to the idea it will be great if they could send a simple UDP START message when a person is falling down and STOP when the person “reach the destination” If the develop do this (which is pretty easy for them), we’ll develop a very tiny open source app that will let you catch the START/STOP states and convert that to turning the power on/off for one the PC USB ports. On that port, you could attach a USB powered fan and that will have a great impact to the customer immersion with a very tiny investment on your end.

Idea 3) If you are running hydraulic racing simulators, you have to use SimTools. What if SimTools can be taken care of by a script or by a direct call to the SimTools executable?

Idea 4) Start the Vive Wireless Adapter software along with the session and stop it once the session is over.

The “Command Calls” event system makes it all possible.

Setup Guide:

1. Go to “Administration >> Advances Settings >> Extrass (tab)  >> Customizations >> Command calls” 

1. Add Command: Click the Three Dots on the top right corner and click Add Command
   

    

   • Full Path To the Command Executable – please ensure this file exists under the very same location across all the stations where it matter. You can specify anything that can be executed, but what mostly makes sense are exe files and bat scripts.
   • Arguments to be passed to the command – if you attach the same executable to multiple command calls, you can use arguments to tell the executable what is the reason for calling it. Every gets a default, non-adjustable argument:
     • -callfrom=web|game_start|game_close|session_start|session_close
   • Enabled – must be on, unless you need it off (yup – priceless description)
   • Allow As Interface Option – you’ll be able to execute the command at any time:
   • Most of the settings under the “Conditions” tab are very self explanatory and aligns with the described “event” based logic. One to specifically note is “Upon game start – wait for the command to complete“. Normally, Synthesis will start your commands and ignore any response. However, if the event is fired automatically upon starting a game, it could be important to wait for your executable to end before Synthesis continue with its normal job. The maximum time Synthesis could stay on hold here is 60 seconds. Unless you hit a case where you need this wait behavior, it is better to keep the option disabled.

Example:

In our example, the content of the startcmd.bat file is:

• START %windir%\notepad.exe
• START %windir%\system32\calc.exe

For test purposes, you can attach it to a session start. Then, the opposite endcmd.bat will be:

• taskkill /f /im notepad.exe
• taskkill /f /im Calculator*

As result, Notepad and the Windows Calculator will open upon start of the session and close along with the session end.

The post Command Calls – Create/Execute Custom Scripts & Commands appeared first on Synthesis VR.