"For the memory of a lifetime... Rekall, Rekall, Rekall"

Amazing work. I'd pay money for this (seriously, you should link a tip jar somewhere).

this really is something special, ill be looking forward to any updates (only if you decide to of course)

@ kirokatashi

Thanks!
Yes, I spotted one of the videos is currently blocked (the Predator 2 vhs opening)
Also one of the songs is blocked.
Including the actual videos in the upload so they would't be on youtube, didn't work hence why I went with the youtube route.
I'll keep it in mind if I make modifications to get them working again.

It's very cool, but one of the tv's video got removed from youtube.

@ Lord Xantix
Thank you so much for sharing your experience :) It truely makes me happy this place has found an audience.

This environment was indeed modeled after a real place local to my area, in fact the streets you see outside is indeed where the store was located. (I took those pictures to recreate the outside setting as accurately as I could) .
The layout on the inside is different, I couldn't remember exactly how it looked but it sorta resembled it. (The theatre obviously wasn't there ;)
Thanks for the comment! :)

This environment is my default home in VR. For me, it represents a simpler time and lots of memories. Growing up, I rented VHS from a store looking almost like this one.
Thank you for this amazing piece of work!

@ IvoryDeer

It's a joy to read your comment, thanks for taking the time to give the feedback!
It was indeed made with the sole purpose of taking you back in time to relive the VHS experience.
Those of us old enough knew what it was like, it's a bit of magic that's been lost in the last few decades. I miss it so much so wanted to recreate that feeling :)
I'm glad it moved you, thanks for sharing that :)

(Apologies for the late reply, I haven't checked here in a long while ^^;)

This is clearly a labor of love! All those videoboxes you can grab and look at, even with the backsides readable!

The music, the place, the posters, the screens playing clips - all of that is so neatly made and really like it was "back then".

I nearly had tears in my eyes when I was there in VR.

Thank you so much for doing this with all the details and so much passion - I absolutely love it and it really brought me back!

Thanks for the reply - there is somewhat of a workaround via the new Steam Link quest app (or Virtual Desktop I suppose) and loading into the SteamVR background while streaming Steam from a PC.

Not the native Quest background, but at least a way to visit the Rekall store via Quest.

@ Kawsuvdeth

This environment was build and is running in SteamVr (the source 2 game engine). I'm unsure if it's easy portable to quest.
I do have the meshes but I'm assuming it'll have to be remade in Unity or Unreal to get it properly ported over to Meta.
It's not something I'm currently pursuing in doing ^^;

@ Wagamama

Thank you, very happy reading that!
I indeed tried to make it like how it was (or how remember it), it's not meant to be a 'inspired by' or 'reimagening' ;)
All the posters and sleeves are the real deal, to not break the illussion.

There is a way to play a movie in the theatre, you need to set up a movie panel:
I've detailed the process in this twitter post:
https://twitter.com/VRGuy0ne/status/1558809349786566662

I couldn't save it the environment itself so you have to manually import it.

Thank you greatly for your feedback :)

Unexpectedly, this room brought tears to my eyes. While never been to a video store in Europe, but seeing the era apapropriate posters, worn cardboard covers, seeing the shelf catagories, the non-studio affiliated chunking of titles.. just glorious. I worked in a mom and pop video store in my youth, and had no idea how much memory i had linked to those vhs sleeves, or just the juxtaposition of titles, or posters or standees that belong in a video store. Clearly you lived this, and this isn't an 80's mashup of what gen z thinks the 80's/90's were. I love what you did. how to i play a movie in the theater?

Any plans on porting this to Quest (Sidequest)? I absolutely love this environment, but have been using my Quest more lately and would love to set it as a home environment there.

@ flakhappy

Definately not in the near future.
I still have a bunch of vhs covers to use, but all these textures need tweaking and postwork.
When I do upload a new version I want the update to be significant, with more interaction (like be able to watch the trailers of the vhs cases).
Still long way removed from that.

@TTPetersen

Very glad you found it and decided to try it out!
It's reading comments like this that makes it worth it, as that was exactly the reason why I made it :D
Great to hear it transported you back in time to your childhood, I'm still impressed by this technology, and that it can evoke this feeling with people.
Thanks for leaving the comment!

This is sooo amazing! Just.. wow..!
Takes me back as a kid, just staring at all the horror movie covers every time I was at the video store. It than sparked something in little me that ended up in my long fazination and love for old horror movies! <3
And now I`m back as this young kid with BIG staring eyes.
Thanks SO mutch for this! I love it!
You are awesome!

any more updates coming?

@SRTGC link sent ; -)

Yes it is very enjoyable. Would you be able to kindly send me the link to that video? I went on youtube and I don't see it. I know it's on there but the Canadian Bill C-11 probably took that away for us to see which is ridiculous. Thanks in advance (I also added you incase you cannot send on here).

@ SRTGC
Thanks for your feedback, glad you enjoyed the place :)

That clip you mention is the opening of the Dutch retail VHS tape to Licence To Kill.
It was a clever way to introduce the entire Bond collection through one of the songs of the movie you were about to watch.
I always enjoyed popping in this tape and have this little intro play before the film started so it was an easy choice to include this opening here in the store.

This store was amazing and i got to see some movies that i have not seen or known about. What is the name of the youtube video used on the TV with the 007 James bond collection video? I really enjoyed watching that.

@DarkVisionz
In order to visit the store in VR, you first need to click the subscribe button on this page.
Then enter the VR Steamhome and click the menu button (while being in VR)
You should see a section called 'Environments'. When subscribed, you should be able to download it to your pc.Once it's downloaded, you can load it by going back into the 'environment' section. You will have to turn on the tv's manually, they are in standby mode when you enter ;)

@Andross,
Thank you so much! Very happy to read your feedback. It's a personal passion project and seeing that it brings joy and happiness to other users is the best compliment I can get. :)

Some of the VHS covers are hard to read because I had to keep the size down as small as I could (asI had hundreds of them). Unfortunately a few of the covers have a tiny font which makes them impossible to read so it's not your headset.I do still have 4K resolution texture so an update with higher texture files is possible. But it's not planned at this point as it would require high end machines to run it.

Apologies in the delay in replying!

@Garfield1974
Sounds awesome, I wish oyu much luck with your project, if you need sleevescans, I've sure collected a bunch over the years, I can get them to you if you need any ;)

@flakhappy
Thank you very much! I hope to expand it further with more vhs boxes if my not-very-high-end-systhem can take it. I do want it to keep running smooth on lower spec systhems so everyone can have a good experience.

how do i set this up

I really loved your job, I immediately used it for my home.
is it my Cv1 limit or VHS cover missing just a little bit more resolution to be perfectly readable?
i tried with supersampling and they're good, but still difficult to read perfectly.

it will be good to have a classic handle magnifier to zoom and read everything, it will be awsome!

Excellent room! love the attention to detail! I hope you add more titles in all sections.

@VRGuy0ne: Cool :) Yes it was indeed a fun time, I could watch any movie I wanted (well okay not the ones from the 'top shelf' section.. :D)
I'm working with Blender and Unreal Engine and one of my plans is to recreate that video store, so in the future I'll also be searching for posters and such ;)

@ Jerry VRcia
Thanks for checking it out :)
Regarding your issues, that sounds like a bug.
Does this happen in the default environment or in a saved environment?
I noticed that when I saved (ingame) any alterations I made, the stormtrooper got stuck in a loopanimation as well - even though nothing should have triggered him.

I've had the disappearing curson thing happen to me too in the regular steam pavilion environment, it seems to reset itself when you reboot steamVR.
I don't know the cause for this unfortunately...
I'd probably not recommend saving any alterations as that seems to be a bit wonky...


@ Garfield1974

Hey, that's so cool to hear :)
It's indeed inspired by the Dutch rental stores, I tried to include the promo materials and sleeves I remember from back then.
I first went to the SuperClub chain, which collapsed in the early '90s due to shady practises :p
Independant stores took over from there, it was a cool time to experience :)

Dude, you nailed it ;) My father used to run a video rental store in those days (an independant one) and though of course it didn't look exactly like this one, a lot of the things I see in this environment look and feel very familiar. Even some Dutch titles too I see ;)

still loving this. two notes: i can't really click on any of the boards to launch a game or anything as the cursor disappears, and when i play the video on the TV now my headset briefly goes gray every 5-10 seconds. only when the video is playing, though.

i wondered why the stormtrooper was stuck in a loop

@ Redsleeves

Thank you for trying it out and the encouraging words!

Regarding the theatre, I don't have anything planned specifically for it right now.
Maybe a meeting spot at some point but the player would need to be able to control the lights.
In a short video on my twitter (twitter link is on the right of this page) I show how the player can add a desktop panel in the theatre so the place becomes a bit more usefull.
That way you can access your pc and play moviefiles inside the theatre.
Credit goes to user IchiYamamoto who pointed this out :)

Once you have saved the enironment locally, it should load every time you enter the place.
(Note that when you make a savefile for this environment, the stormtrooper is in idle animation, otherwise he'll get stuck in a loop of whatever animation was playing the moment you saved it ;)

This is unbelievable. I loved it so much, I immediately made it my home environment. :-)

I saw in other comments that you're having difficulty playing videos in the theater; are there currently any plans to do anything else with the theater if that's not an option? I love that the theater is there but right now it's just a big dark area with nothing to do.

Anyway, keep up the great work!

@Viper
Thx!

@Jerry VRcia
Humble ty *^.^* I hope one day to include more things to interact with, a pinball would be insanely cool.

@MoxC
Thank you for giving it a try and your amazing feeback! Warms my heart reading it. Thank you kindly ^^

@Conan
Thank you!

Regarding the floating screen, you're absolutely right.
The reason why it's there is a compromise, it was originally to go in the theatre. ;)

The idea behind it was when the regular songs were playing you would see a white (unprojected) screen in the theatre, then it goes quiet for a minute or 2, the screen fades to black and the video starts playing.

The reason why this was abandonned is technical limitations.
Getting a video to play inside the source 2 engine is very tricky, the only way I found is through one of the 'friends/games' panels.
When you scale such a panel to a massive theatre size moviescreen - inside the source 2 software - it taxes the memory of your pc immensely.
If I do make an update, the floating screen will be replaced with a TV (if I decide to keep it there). But in a perfect world it would definitely go inside the theatre ^^

Wow, this is the best environment I have seen in SteamVR. I have made this my home environment. You rock creator person! It is so much fun reading the backs of the VHS covers. This is how I want a metaverse to look. I strongly suggest everyone try this!

Such an enjoyable environment. Usually in these Steam VR environments I'll spend like a minute, see what it has to offer, go "that's cool" and then move on. For you to get me to stay in there for quite a while checking out so many little details and tape covers, etc, of which I still haven't fully explored is impressive.

I have one small suggestion though that I feel would send this over the top. The music one, which I prefer as I love the atmosphere it gives, one thing that would make it way better, is instead of just having a flat floating window suspended in air, if you could add a CRT television, perferably one mounted to the upper part of the environment/ceiling angled slightly downward like video stores, at least blockbuster and whatnot had, that played the music videos. That would be far more immersive.

Regardless fantastic work!

best environment i've seen. you would be great at making virtual pinball tables/rooms!

kudos.

BEST !!!!

Thanks for watching, yeah he did a great job with atmosphere, but you got that interactivity going on whereas i think he ran out of memory or faced serious performance dips so you can't pick movies up. Looking at the box front and back is really nice!

I had a lot of those VHS tapes lol. I noticed Lesley in the back, keeping the place secure! So that's good lol. Thanks for recommending that app, checking into it now.

@ EQOAnostalgia I love that video, they were able to do so much more than what I was able to achieve! The Blockbuster store felt really well put together, nice attention to detail with the layout, the candy & promo items. The arcade seems insanely cool too.
I never used VR chat myself, thanks for sharing that vid :)

There is a similar app here on steam called 'New Retro Arcade: Neon' that allows you to play the games inside the vr arcade (if you have the roms availlable).
The game itself is abandonned I think but it's worth looking into if you like this type of thing, it's fuly functional &. highly customisable. it allows you to chose which cabinets you put in the arcade , change the cabinet art and the posters on the walls.
Some things don't work as they should but worth every penny still.

Don't worry regarding the pron. Frank Drebin will keep the area clear, nothing to worry about! ;-)

Please don't add pron lol, we all remember the creepy curtain area, let's leave that out of the childhood nostalgia? Friggin degenerates man lol.

ANNNNNYWAYS, this is awesome, thanks for this! To my nostalgic 80's and 90's people's, check out the 77077 Arcade & Bar in VRchat because it's also amazing/nostalgia overload.

https://youtu.be/dt3f00-_Y9c

@Dr.Shadows - Very happy you liked it!
There are 2 versions of the store; one has the videoplayer with the songs, the 'no music' version just has the montage shown in the theatre and has no music. Maybe you tried the 'no music' version first.
The tracklist for the songs can be found on top of the small tv on the counter - you can pick up the slate to read it up close ;-)

Did you add that video player that hanging recently? I like that video as it playing great songs.

@nacuden

I feel honored you made an exception in posting your feedback for my environment! :0
I'm aware I made a very niche thing within an already niche community so it makes me happy it does find its way to people who get a kick out of it!

I do plan to expand upon it, over time, with more cases, some lighting fixes , more stuff you can interact with etc. A lot on this project has been trial and error, it took pretty long to get to a result that was decent enough to share. The pinball and arcade section is a super great idea. I actually got the vhs store idea after experiencing the New Retro Arcade: Neon game.
Regarding the porn section, I'll leave it to your imagination for now ;)

I never leave comments on any game or vr experience, BUT this! Man its bring back some good memories! I really hope you´r keep updating this store. Make it bigger and more titles. Why not a pinball or arcade aka super mario bros in the room. And what about the porn section? :P

@ ¡ byteframe

Awesome to read it brings some joy into the world. It's all I could hope. ^____^
I'm very glad it's finding an audience, and could indeed also work as a hangout place.
A useful tip shared by IchiYamamoto allows you to use the theatre as a screening room.
I added a new promo image to illustrate this (as I just learned this was possible ^^;)

@IchiYamamoto
I just tried it, it works remarkable well!
Also added a new promo image to illustrate this feature,
thank you for your golden tip!

@Dr.Shadowds
Stoked it brought you some happiness!! Thanks for the feedback!

This sparks so much instant joy. You really went for it. A VR book/video store where every object has a differant picture, and you can pick them up and throw them around. It's perfect. This is an excellent VR social experience (unless nobody has seen any of the movies) you can just talk about movies and throw them around. Ugg, I'm so impressed. Bravo.

This is awesome throw back vhs store, I love it.

Any time, happy to help. I use the built in desktop panels and stretch them to size. Got another environment or two that I do this in with shelves/tvs placed as such. Hope you enjoy it!

@IchiYamamoto
That ... is a very clever approach. It never occured to me to try that! :O

Did you use Virtual Desktop or the build-in desktop panels (apparently there are build-in ones, did a quick search online)
I do need to give to give this a try regardless, very neat, thank you for suggesting this idea!