Today AltSpaceVR announced on their blog that they had marked the date for September 15th 2021, to be the date for the switch over to the new render pipeline. This has been an anticipated update that has been discussed and has frustrated many of the users in the community. Finally, we have some answers, and I will be directing this news update adding some additional commentary and thoughts.

If you would like to read the full announcement for itself, here is the link: https://altvr.com/render-tools-announcement/

Render Tools Announcement

Posted on July 16, 2021

Attn: Altspace Creators & World Builders,

As promised, we’re providing you with a preview build for the upcoming “Render Tools” update and giving you access to our new Uploader.

We wanted to give you plenty of advance notice to be able to get your updates in and not lose any of your content. And with that said, you MUST “Upgrade” by September 15, 2021. Your worlds will not be accessible after this date.

Alright, here’s what’s new and what’s changing…

Altspace Uploader 2. Our new uploader is much more user-friendly and includes some new features. As with anything new, there may be a learning curve, but the old functionality remains the same.  Get the new uploader today from the Mixed Reality Feature Tool, or use the direct link here: https://aka.ms/AvrUrpUploader

(Note: This new uploader ONLY supports the new render setup. Continue to use the old one for anything being used now.)

New templates window in basic mode

New kits window in advanced mode

New kit prefab formatter window

Once you have updated your worlds, fixed shaders, fixed lighting and uploaded back into Altspace, you can use the below preview build to test and make sure your worlds work.

Preview Build (for testing). This is not a fully functional version of Altspace, so don’t panic if some things don’t work. It’s strictly designed for testing your worlds. If your world works in the preview build, then it will work once we flip the switch on 9/15. Download the preview that matches your preferred device from the list below:

As a little refresher, here are the updates we plan on making, and the reasons behind them, which we included in our last communication two weeks ago. 

Switching to Unity’s URP
Unity’s Universal Render Pipeline has evolved into a powerful graphics solution that delivers beauty with speed and performance, and it’s supported on all platforms Unity targets. Altspace is looking at adopting this to make our worlds better across all platforms. Specific benefits include: 

  • Faster Framerate 
  • Shader Graph Support 
  • New Post Processing Effects 
  • Altspace will run better on all platforms 

https://unity.com/srp/universal-render-pipeline

*Some shaders will require updates to be compatible with URP.
**With this update pending, builders should be using URP-compatible shaders from here on out.  

Altspace Uploader 2  

  • Supports batch uploading 
  • More stable 
  • Includes tools to help you migrate old content 
  • Automatically updates shaders where possible 
  • Manages updates in-app 
  • Altspace supported 

Moving to Linear Color Space  

  • Removes the oversaturation caused by Gamma Color Space, allowing for more realistic lighting effects 
  • Improved colors from texture sampling when rendering 
  • Higher quality lighting effects at a reduced cost 

More info: https://docs.unity3d.com/Manual/LinearRendering-LinearOrGammaWorkflow.html

Switching to SPI  

  • Faster frame rates 
  • Lower CPU usage 
  • Increased detail and complexity of scenes 
  • Altspace will run better on VR 

** 

As always, thank you for your support of Altspace, and your patience as we continue to improve the product and experience. 

Please do reach out via the usual channels with questions as they arise.  

And again, please start working on these updates so as not to miss the September 15 deadline. We don’t want anyone to lose any content.


Do I upgrade or do I wait?

I can understand a lot of people would be hesitant to follow another update process, but I’m going to make a few short recommendations in good faith to help people sort out the complexity of this process.

  1. If you have kits, MRE’s, worlds etc that you have finished as completed work or don’t plan on working on in the distant future. My advice is to use the preview builds and update them and my rationale behind this is updating is time consuming and it makes sense to update these first.
  2. If you have a Unity project that is still a work in progress my advice is to keep building using the current world uploader up until a date closer to the deadline. The reason for this is if you update your world now, you would need to use the preview client to see the latest changes. The alterantive is using two uploaders or manually changing your project render settings which would be too complicated for the average person and not something recommended at all.
  3. Try and finalise as many projects as you can to be completed so you can build and upload for the last time, migrate and make the world/kit available on the new render pipeline.

For Example:

I have heaps of uncompleted projects because, for me, worlds are never completed. However, logically I need to update the projects I haven’t touched for months and update them so that they are available and easily updatable in the future. Also, I really want to have projects available in AltSpace in the coming days, so I will be using the current builder. But I plan to take a break from building before the 15th of September, so around the 10th, I will update my current projects and take a short break from building.