Content Licensing: How To License Games
For game licensing, head over to the Your Games page: or From there click on the “Content Store” tab and you’ll see all the games available for licensing. On the left side you can either use the filters by clicking on them (green is selected, white is not selected). Or you can search by entering the name or part of the name in the top field and then pressing Enter on the keyboard. When you hover over a game, you will be given two options, the first, “Visit Page” will take you to the game page on games.synthesisvr.com in a new tab which will give you details about the game, including info on pricing, system requirements, etc. Clicking on License will open up a new portion on the same screen on the right side. On that new tab, the first thing you have to do is ti check the box next to the “I understand that, once subscribed, Licensing affects all stations in the arcade regardless if the game is installed via third party.” Once. you’ve agreed to this, then the License Now button becomes available. Once you’re ready, click on that button to license the game. Once you’ve licensed the game, you will be presented with one of 2 options. If the game is delivered through Steam, you will be presented with the following choice for installation: Click on the stations you want the game installed on and click on “Install”. The game should then be licensed and downloaded on the selected stations. On the stations you are installing the game to, you would need to do one more step. When the install is initiated, you will need to click on the Next button on this screen: Accept any agreements that pop up after and installation should begin after that. If, for some reason, the game doesn’t install, please check your library and locate the game and see if it’s stuck on “Installing”. If that’s the case (and it doesn’t show up in the Steam Downloads section, you will need to cancel the install by right clicking and choosing Cancel and then exiting Steam. Once you restart, you can attempt to initiating the install again remotely or find the game again in your library, right clicking and then choosing install and you should see the prompt above. If there are still issues, please send us an email with details to info@synthesisvr.com. If the game is delivered through our CDN, the popup will show all stations detected as online and allows you to choose per station where to install the game both in terms of which station as well as what drive (if you have multiple drives installed on your system): Once you’ve chosen the stations and drive locations, you can click the “Install” button below all the stations and the game will begin to install on those stations. If you check your Access Point app and click on the Content Events button, you should see the game being installed: If that is not the case, please refresh your Access Point app via the Refresh button and you should see the Content Events button and the game in there. You can start it manually if it hasn’t started. The need to do this manually is rare, but is more reliable than Steam installs. Once a game is installed (via the auto methods above), you will then be prompted to add to a category. Select the categories you want and click on the “Add [GAME} to [X] Categories” button at the bottom. If you’ve only installed the game on some, but not all, stations and want to go back and install remotely, then find the game again using the search feature and click on “License” when you hover over the game icon. You’ll now see a button that says “Install [GAME} and when you click on it, you will be presented with the same choices as above for installing on stations. If you want to change a game from Usage to FIxed Fee, then find the game again using the search feature and click on “License” when you hover over the game and you will be presented with choosing between Usage and Fixed Fee. Click on the Fixed Fee and you will be asked how many licenses you need for that. Choose the number of licenses and then click on Add To Cart. Remember, this is a floating license so you man not need as many fixed fee licenses as you have stations unless you expect the game to be played a lot on all your stations at the same time. Once you’ve added the right number to your cart, the cart option will appear above the game and you can click on “Checkout” if all seems correct. Your card will be charged the amount shown on the screen. This amount will be a prorated amount for the remainder of the month. If we’re close to the end of the month, you will see the prorated amount as well as the upcoming month added together. If the game is already installed, nothing more needs to be done. If it’s not installed, then the process is exactly the same as described above.
Leaderboard Add-on – Getting Started
Installation: Under SynthesisVR Web Administration portal, navigate to “Administration >> Arcade Setup >> SynthesisVR Subscriptions” and get your stations subscribed for “Leaderboard Application” (it is free for stations that are already subscribed for the full SynthesisVR version). Note: If you are offering Project CARS Pro, you have to also subscribe for the “Project CARS Pro Leaderboard” plugin. Upon subscription, click the Refresh button for all your Access Point instances Go to https://games.synthesisvr.com/games/synthesisvr-leaderboard and click the “Install SynthesisVR Leaderboard” button. The application can be installed on ANY Windows based PC in your local area network. Run the installer, follow the steps and launch the application. You are presented with an option to install Plugins. Do that for the games you are offering. Optional: Go to “Administration >> Games & Licensing >> Your Games”. Find one of the supported games and click on it. Under the popup, switch to the “Plugins” tab and install the “Customer Name” plugin. This will allow you to click on the station name under the “Your Arcade” page and change the customer name on the fly (doesn’t require a running session).
SynthesisVR Log
For troubleshooting purposes and support related issues SynthesisVR log files provide a necessary insight on what could be the issue or for support team to better decipher a certain problem or track an activity. In cases like this knowing how to access to log file and sending it over to support is very important. To access log file – On your right bottom taskbar you will find a SynthesisVR icon as shown below: Clicking on the Load 1000 Lines to bring up the most recent entries. You can then copy all the text into a text file and send that or just paste it into an email for support.
Replace Text-To-Speech with Audio files
By default, SynthesisVR uses TTS to provide audio feedback to the players. The full list of supported languages is available under: Administration >> [tab] Advanced Settings >> Customizations >> Branding & Voice Prompts –> Voice Language If your preferred language isn’t among the supported ones, you could use pre-recorded audio file instead. To do that, you have to edit the first 8 settings from the “Branding & Voice Prompts” list of settings. Example: End of session announcement: playfile:C:\audioFiles\session_end.wav Bonus time announcement: playfile:C:\audioFiles\bonus_#bonusMinutes#.wav Post-paid time announcements: playfile:C:\audioFiles\postpaid_#timeSinceStart#.wav Voice announcement about the time left: playfile:C:\audioFiles\time_left_#timeLeft#.wav Last voice announcement before the end of the session: playfile:C:\audioFiles\final_announcement_#timeLeft#.wav Audio notice on session start: playfile:C:\audioFiles\session_start.wav Audio notice on request for help: playfile:C:\audioFiles\help.wav Audio notice on game start: playfile:C:\audioFiles\game_#title#.wav With such settings in mind, each of your VR stations should have the folder C:\audioFiles\ and the folder should contain files like: session_end.wav — announcing the end of the session bonus_5.wav — announcing the player received 5 free minutes bonus_10.wav — announcing the player received 10 free minutes session_start.wav — announcing the start of the session help.wav — telling the customer they will be assisted shortly game_Arizona Sunshine Arcade.wav — announcing that Arizona Sunshine Arcade is about to start game_Fruit Ninja VR.wav — Fruit Ninja VR is about to start time_left_15.wav — the session will end after 15 minutes final_announcement_5.wav — the session will end after 5 minutes and you can encourage the customer to extend the session
Making Sure Time Is In Sync
To make sure your arcade is operating effeciently, all stations and server/proxy pc (if you use a separate PC for the server/proxy) should have the same, and ideally correct, time. We recommend using the app NetTime. To download, head over here:http://www.timesynctool.com/And download the latest stable version (3.14 at the time of this writing)Install should be straightforward. Once you click on finish, NetTime will run and be placed into the Task Tray. You can check by clicking on the Task Tray arrow and you will see it running. Right click on the NetTime icon and click on Update Now. A confirmation will pop up, you can then click on OK and it should now keep that station at the correct time. You will need to be sure to restart your SynthesisVR and SynthesisVR Server/Proxy on the PC you just added and do a refresh from the Access Point app.
Synthesis VR API – Gift Cards
1. Create a new API rule (similarly to https://synthesisvr.com/knowledge-base/reading-leaderboard-through-api/) or edit an existing one and assign the following permission: Gift Cards Important — SynthesisVR RECOMMEND using the “Strict Access” option and limit the endpoint access to your trusted IP addresses. Generate new Gift Card: 2. Get the key for the rule and construct an HTTP GET request like this: https://api.synthesisvr.com/data/giftcard/<KEY>/generate/<AMOUNT>/<EXPIRE_PERIOD> Example: https://api.synthesisvr.com/data/giftcard/11111111-1111-1111-1111-111111111111/generate/15.50/2 months Response data: { “code”: “REO6CUWR”, “valid”: “2018-02-22T00:00:00”, “amount”: 15.50, “status”: 1 } Delete an unused Gift Card: 3. Construct an HTTP GET request: https://api.synthesisvr.com/data/giftcard/<KEY>/delete/<CODE> Example: https://api.synthesisvr.com/data/giftcard/11111111-1111-1111-1111-111111111111/delete/REO6CUWR
Using SteamVR Environments with SynthesisVR
To use the default environment (the branded SynthesisVR Holodeck), follow these steps: In the Access Point app of each station, go to Settings / SteamVR Settings / SteamVR Home Settings Inside of the SteamVR Home Settings, click on the Environment Subscription which will open the SynthesisVR Holodeck page. Click on Subscribe on that page. Note that if the Steam app doe not open to that page, please go to the Steam / Exit menu, reopen Steam, and then click on the Environment Subscription button again in the Access Point and the Steam app should now open to that page. Once subscribed, check the “Enable SteamVR Home” box in the Access Point. The new SteamVR home environment will be downloaded by Steam and should refresh into it. Using a Different SteamVR Home Environment If you want to use a different SteamVR home environment, you first need to locate the URL of the environment. If you haven’t already phone the environment, head to either of the following URLs in a web browser (they will give you different results if you want to browse through them): https://steamcommunity.com/workshop/browse/?appid=250820&requiredtags[]=Environment or https://steamcommunity.com/workshop/browse/?appid=250820&requiredtags[]=Destination Browse through the available options and once you’ve found the environment you want to use, not the number in the URL: Before the next step, you will need to go through and log into each of your store’s Steam accounts via browser, head to the full URL of the environment and subscribe to it. This is necessary for the environment to be downloaded to your stations. Once all stations are subscribed, go to the Branding and Voice Prompts settings in your SynthesisVR dashboard: In the Branding tab, enter the number you took from the URL of the environment and put it into the SteamVR Environment ID field. Click on Save Changes and then refresh your Access Point apps in the method of your choice. Once your stations are refreshed (and the Enable SteamVR Home box is checked as per the initial instructions above), you and your customers will now be standing in the SteamVR Home environment.
Install SteamVR off Steam
Please refer to the following article under our new Knowledge Base: Steam & SteamVR
Multiple networks
Required SynthesisVR version: 3.12.4 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
A game stay on "Installing" in Steam, but nothing happens
If you just licensed a game, but it stays on “Installing” inside Steam, you are experiencing an issue that started with the Steam’s update to their new interface. To sort it out: Go to Steam – Settings Go to “Web Browser” menu and click the Cache and Cookies: Go to Downloads – Click the CLEAR DOWNLOAD CACHE button You will be logged out of steam. Please login and try to download and install the game. This also fixes various issues with steam like games not showing up properly, games not loading etc.