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IOBT (tracking your arms and chest from the headsets perspective) is the most game changing feature of VR hardware since tracked controllers in 2016. It will create a generational divide as games begin to require it, a transition that is accelerated by Quest 3s at $300.

Adding a physical spine and arms to the player: 4 months to install, 4+ years to polish. I wouldn’t change a thing about the decision to do it, it was necessary to get where we want to go with VR. Thanks for supporting the journey.

Deep in the long tail of implementing IOBT (torso and arm tracking). At the moment I’m on week 3/? of reworking the GoKart seat to work with a tracked spine. The amount of engineering VR requires to accomplish the obvious is staggering.

Boneworks 5th anniversary. We had a clear idea of VR driving a physical avatar, unlocking unprecedented agency within a physics sim. We’re glad that the prototype captured enough of that vision to spark your imagination, launching a decade long effort to realize its potential.

We’re well aware that the only game that has surpassed the physicality of Boneworks is Bonelab. It’s brutally hard, impossible to rush, expensive, and the gaming public doesn’t tend to fund second movers until the first stall. In time, hopefully Marrow can enable more access.

Marrow has been enabled by the success of Boneworks. We’re in the rare position of complete creative control. Because of this we’ve resisted external pressure to milk it. Instead we labor on the core because it’s simply not good enough yet. We’ll get there, we’re on our way.

2024 was a busy year! SLZ released Patches 4, 5 and 6 for Bonelab corresponding to Marrow 1.0 (0.6 at the time), 1.1 and 1.2. Marrow has never been feeling, looking and running better. Lava Gang made awesome mods and levels! We also progressed on what’s next for 2025!

‘25 goals: Release Patch 7, 8, 9 for Bonelab with Marrow 2, 2.1, 2.2. Bring Boneworks to Quest 3 in parallel on Marrow 2. Pre-production for the next game. By x-linking Marrow, we’re aiming for compatibility. Boneworks is the nearest kin but is still tricky. Godspeed, SLZ!

A few notes about the IOBT that is shown in this clip: -The tracked chest keeps it in sync with the arms while the head stays forward. -Tracked arms form a more natural pose allowing better access to your range of motion and stacks bones for more power. -Latency is equivalent to

Hard to think in the smoke, I’ll be coding under the blue sky today. May be the perfect day to work out some pre production docs!

Body tracking doesn’t replace the body IK. They are both needed in tandem. Track is input, the IK adapts the input to the virtual body and environmental interactions. IRL you’re standing, in game you’re running. IRL your hands are .5M apart, in game the constraint is .6m, etc.

3/14 Status: Design has Boneworks 90% done in Marrow 1.2. In parallel, engineering has been making great progress on Marrow 2. Once ready, Bonelab/works will make it to Marrow 2 in two hops: first to a 1.3 version of Marrow, then 2. Still a long road ahead, but smooth progress!

VR games aren’t yet good enough to attain scale larger than the Quest 2. Boneworks goal is to push a flagship title that is worthy of larger scale. To this end: we are leveraging Quest3/3s’s compute, IOBT, engineering Marrow 2 well beyond 1, and adding/polishing UX/art/design.

Context for my IOBT enthusiasm: I’ve been asking for more in box tracking for 10yrs. When shown the Vive Wands/Touch I asked for an IMU in the wrist strap. Index/RiftS? The cameras should track the arms. Hand tracking? The arm is just a 6th finger. We finally got it in the box!

Because of Nintendo’s unfortunate April 2nd date selection I have to wait a whole year to joke that Bonelab and Boneworks are now $80. Jokes aside, hopefully VR can serve to reset game budgets and prices back to a lower level.

Still a few stages of verification to go, but it’s looking increasingly likely that we’ll steal a base by double jumping to Unity 6. Released Bonelab is in ‘21, unreleased is in ‘22, getting to 6 represents bonus tech, another year of support, and one less time mods break.

As games reach diminishing returns in visual fidelity, the next step is interaction fidelity. The more the visual gains rely on techniques that prohibit interaction, the larger the visual step back or years spent to develop parity will be. VR requires interaction fidelity.

I underestimated the challenge of making a generic physics human for VR (merging the player, enemies, and NPC’s). I expected ~2 years to shippable from 2020. It’s been 5 and counting…but it’s very possible, progressing every day, and will be worth the 30k+ hour effort.

Integrating IOBT well requires a lot of IK remapping work. This is the same real life pose with a virtual crouch applied in the second image. Marrow 2 is progressing nicely, the player feels more like ‘you’ than ever before.