mirror of
https://github.com/Toastconcern/FrameStudio.git
synced 2026-10-29 01:02:16 +01:00
ToastconcernandClaude Opus 4.8
d22cc04cb3
On the Steam Frame a layer inside SteamVR's compositor draws the home where it would draw Aurora, so the home is the environment itself: at boot, during game loads, behind the Steam menu, with the controllers and passthrough, and it steps aside for a game the instant it opens. On a PC this was faked with SteamVR's home-app slot and a flat 360 photo in the gaps, which launched and handed off like an app and showed a picture, not the live home. This does it properly on any PC that runs SteamVR, the Frame's way: - Windows: the compositor is Direct3D 11, so the layer is a proxy d3d11.dll beside the compositor (layer/ frame_home_layer_d3d11.cpp, built from the .def that forwards every other export to the real d3d11.dll, kept as fh_d3d11real.dll). It wraps the compositor's device, finds Aurora's draws by their shader bytecode and draws the home over the sky, leaving the floor and stars off; everything else passes straight through. Pure pass-through in any process that isn't vrcompositor. - The home's frames cross from Frame Home (Vulkan) to the compositor (D3D11): the layer owns kSlots shared textures and hands Frame Home their NT handles over a named pipe; Frame Home imports them (VK_KHR_external_memory_win32) and renders into them. No cross-API lock — a slot is published only once the GPU has finished it and the four rotate, as on Linux. The shared State stays Frame Home's. - The Environments panel runs frame-home --system and keeps it alive (one at a time, a pid file across panel restarts), the same systemEnv path as the Frame. The installer places/removes the proxy and marks the layer with a root/layer folder, in place of the old home-app registration and background pictures. - Safe like the Vulkan layer: no home, or one stale over half a second, and the compositor draws Aurora as usual; the layer turns itself off after two unhealthy compositor starts, and root/layer/off turns it off by hand. Linux keeps its Vulkan layer (unchanged). Verified without a headset on the null driver: the proxy loads and wraps the compositor without crashing, recognises Aurora's shaders, and the frame hand-over completes (Frame Home connects, imports the textures, renders). The compositor only draws the environment while presenting to a headset, so the final on-headset image is the one step the null driver can't exercise. Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.8 <noreply@anthropic.com>
73 lines
4.7 KiB
Markdown
73 lines
4.7 KiB
Markdown
# Frame Home on a PC (SteamVR)
|
|
|
|
Frame Home also runs on a PC with SteamVR, exactly the way it runs on the Steam Frame: a small layer inside SteamVR's
|
|
compositor draws your home where it would draw Aurora, so your home *is* the SteamVR environment — it shows at boot,
|
|
during game loads and behind the Steam menu, with the controllers and passthrough, never a separate app that launches
|
|
and hands off. The **Environments** panel in the Steam menu switches homes, as on the headset. It works with any
|
|
headset SteamVR drives, including a Steam Frame streaming from the PC.
|
|
|
|
On a PC, Frame Home shows the environments in Frame Studio's **My Environments** (`Documents\Frame Studio\Environments`):
|
|
save something in Studio and it's in VR straight away. Bundles (`.fbundle`) dropped there are unpacked by the panel.
|
|
|
|
## Install
|
|
|
|
**From Frame Studio:** **Properties > Headset**, section **This PC**: **Install Frame Home on This PC**. The same button
|
|
updates it after you update Studio; **Remove from This PC** takes it off.
|
|
|
|
**Without Studio (Windows):** download `FrameHome-PC-windows-x64.zip` from the
|
|
[latest build](https://github.com/Toastconcern/FrameStudio/releases), unzip it, and double-click
|
|
**Install Frame Home on this PC.bat** (or **Remove Frame Home from this PC.bat**). From a terminal:
|
|
|
|
```powershell
|
|
powershell -ExecutionPolicy Bypass -File install-frame-home-pc.ps1 # install or update
|
|
powershell -ExecutionPolicy Bypass -File install-frame-home-pc.ps1 -Uninstall # SteamVR's own environment back
|
|
```
|
|
|
|
SteamVR can be running or not: running, the change happens at once; not running, it's written to SteamVR's settings
|
|
and takes effect when SteamVR starts.
|
|
|
|
## How it works
|
|
|
|
Both platforms work the Steam Frame's way: a layer inside SteamVR's compositor draws your home in Aurora's place, and
|
|
`frame-home --system` (which the Environments panel starts and keeps running) renders it. Because the swap happens
|
|
inside the compositor, your home shows wherever Aurora would — at boot, during game loads, behind the Steam menu,
|
|
with the controllers and passthrough — and steps aside for a game the instant it opens, coming back when it quits.
|
|
|
|
**Windows.** SteamVR's compositor is Direct3D 11, so the layer is a proxy `d3d11.dll` placed beside the compositor
|
|
(`SteamVR\bin\win64`). It wraps the compositor's device, finds Aurora's own draws by their shader bytecode and draws
|
|
the home over them; every other Direct3D call passes straight through to the real `d3d11.dll`, kept beside it as
|
|
`fh_d3d11real.dll`. Frame Home renders in Vulkan and shares each frame to the compositor as a Direct3D 11 texture.
|
|
|
|
**Linux.** The same, as a Vulkan layer in the compositor (`layer/frame_home_layer.cpp`), since the Linux compositor
|
|
is Vulkan. (Linux PCs are supported but haven't been tested on a desktop yet.)
|
|
|
|
If the layer ever can't draw the home — Frame Home isn't running, or has stopped for more than half a second — the
|
|
compositor draws Aurora as usual, so Frame Home stopping or crashing never blanks the headset. The layer turns itself
|
|
off if the compositor starts twice without a healthy frame, and `%LOCALAPPDATA%\Frame Home\layer\off` turns it off by
|
|
hand. The installer saves the SteamVR settings it changes (`enableHomeApp`, `environmentMode`) and puts them back,
|
|
and removing the two files from `SteamVR\bin\win64` takes the layer off entirely.
|
|
|
|
## Files
|
|
|
|
| Where | What |
|
|
|---|---|
|
|
| `%LOCALAPPDATA%\Frame Home\bin` | `frame-home.exe`, `frame-switcher.exe` |
|
|
| `%LOCALAPPDATA%\Frame Home\current` | the environment shown |
|
|
| `%LOCALAPPDATA%\Frame Home\settings.json` | Frame Home's settings (the panel's Settings page) |
|
|
| `%LOCALAPPDATA%\Frame Home\logs` | logs (`frame-home.log` the renderer, `frame-layer.log` the compositor layer) |
|
|
| `%LOCALAPPDATA%\Frame Home\layer` | the layer's off switch and crash guard; its folder marks the layer installed |
|
|
| `Documents\Frame Studio\Environments` | the environments |
|
|
| `SteamVR\bin\win64\d3d11.dll`, `fh_d3d11real.dll` | the compositor layer and the real Direct3D 11 beside it |
|
|
|
|
On Linux everything is in `~/frame-home`, as on the headset.
|
|
|
|
## Troubleshooting
|
|
|
|
- **Aurora still shows after installing:** the layer loads when the compositor starts, so restart SteamVR (or your
|
|
headset) once after installing. If it still shows, see `frame-layer.log`.
|
|
- **Nothing in the Steam menu:** the panel starts with SteamVR. In SteamVR's settings, **Startup / Shutdown > Choose
|
|
Startup Overlay Apps** should list **Environments** switched on.
|
|
- **Black world:** Frame Home needs a GPU with Vulkan 1.2. Its log is `%LOCALAPPDATA%\Frame Home\logs\frame-home.log`.
|
|
- **Turn it off without uninstalling:** make a file `%LOCALAPPDATA%\Frame Home\layer\off` (the layer checks every
|
|
second and draws Aurora); delete it to turn the home back on.
|