Post Process Material not working in VR

Engine version: 5.0.3
HMD: Valve Index

Post process material works just fine in the editor viewport, but not in the HMD when I hit Play in VR.

Material is set in the character blueprint.

I’ve seen a few forum discussions on this topic but none of those suggestions are working: changing Blendable Location from “After Tonemapping” to “Before Tonemapping” in Post Process Material, ensuring “Mobile HDR” is enabled in Project settings, trying different “PostProcessInput” channels.

Thoughts?

Back when UE5 was in early release and then RC I converted the project to UE5 as a test to ensure it worked and everything did actually work as expected aside form the controls which I switched to oculus inputs.

So, my thoughts would be there is probably a difference in your code somewhere that accounts for the difference. Check your code against the end of lecture.

If you started the course in UE5 however, it is possible there is a different setting that needs to be enabled somewhere. I found starting with the VR template instead of a blank project worked better when I experimented with 5. They obviously have some different settings in the project.

One last thing. The radius of the blinker could be too small and so doesn’t show in the VR because of the FOV angle. I think I had to set mine to 0.5 or something before it became effective. It looks huge in screen preview but in vr it works quite nicely.

Thanks for the reply!

My intuition is that it’s not related to code. When I just apply the post processing material to my VR Character it seems like it should work right out of the gate, as it did with Sam. In other words, it wasn’t the code that made it stop working, it never worked at all once I moved the material over the the VR Character directly. I had the same thought as you regarding the radius, but sadly that had no effect either.

However, I think you may be onto something with your idea about starting projects using the VR Template. I haven’t verified that it works yet, but if it does, I think it would be very helpful to everyone to know exactly what setting we were overlooking.

In the end, though, I cannot foresee using this type of movement for any projects that I will be working on so it isn’t too upsetting to have this not work. My main concern is that I would be carrying forward a significant delta to Sam’s project which might hinder following along to later lectures.

Follow up:

I started a new UE5 project with the VR Template, created the same post processing material, added a post processing component to the pre-existing VR pawn, and finally applied that material to the component. At that point, everything worked as one would expect. I compared the Project Settings between the two projects and noticed that the “Mobile HDR” setting is disabled in the VR template version whereas it was enabled in the blank new project. I disabled it in the course project and it still didn’t work.

So unless you’ve got more insight into this, I’m afraid this problem is going to go unsolved.

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I really don’t.

There are a few other things that might cause issues with UE5.

First, the VR template does seem to perform better. I was getting freezes and crashes with a blank project.

Next, live coding. It absolutely has to be turned off. This causes so many issues and resolved so many peoples issues just but turning it off.

Lastly, not having a good PC setup. For VR, the requirements are a good bit higher. I had to buy a new GPU to get the projects working. You need at least an Rtx 2060 but I have a 3060ti and it does occasionally stutter on startup. I was planning for a 3070ti but budget did not permit and the card I got is decent. Also at least an 8 core cpu plus 8 threads and I would recommend 32gb minimum ram and 2 SSDs as well, one for os and one for project work (not usb)

The last one is more about random crashes and performance. However, as for the shader, I have never had issues with this and since your code worked in a new project, it could be you have live coding on.

If you want to share the original project, I will take a look remove binaries and intermediate first however before zipping.

Follow Up #2:

Rather than give up on the problem and move on (my stubbornness would not allow that apparently), I decided to recreate all the lessons thus far in a new UE5 project built using the VR Template, and it is working as intended.

All things being equal, the problem appears to be caused by either a setting in Unreal of which we are unaware or it is somehow a bug in that project. I’m uncertain how likely the latter would be, so I’m inclined to think it’s just some setting. Though it seems odd that the problem does not occur more often in the class. I am in version 5.0.3, so perhaps something changed recently. I’m not sure how many people are currently taking the class using UE5 anyway.

Because of your multiple mentions of Live Coding, I checked to see if it was enabled, and it was enabled by default in both projects, which would lead me to believe that it was not the culprit since it works in the second.

I am happy simply to continue the class with the second project I created, but if you believe that it would benefit current and future students, I’m happy to share the project with you. Would you please let me know what the best way to get that to you would be?

Thanks!

Follow up #3:

Something odd just happened. While I was preparing the project to be zipped, I had the thought that I should unzip it and open it to ensure that it opens and compiles for you. After testing that it would work for you, the problem with the post process material is now gone. :confused:

I guess that supports that it was a bug all along. I have no idea. I suppose this renders the whole issue a moot point. You’re certainly not going to be able to recreate the problem with any zip that I can create now.

I thank you for your help.

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This is what is the problem with live coding is. If they can resolve it, living coding will be a brilliant feature but for now it’s still like a pre release feature. I do hope these sorts of issues go away in the next releaae. Often, not always mind you, classes fail to update causing problems like this.

It’s not obvious and things do appear to be working until they don’t and then they wreck your head.

I suspect this was the issue all along.

The main thing is you got to the bottom of the cause.

Creating new complete classes always seems to work, but when you tweak or add, it often does not pick up the changes.

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