OS Neutral Oculus Rift

[0098386]

Has anyone else been playing with them?

I got mine a week ago. The first time I played it I felt motion sick for the rest of the day (nothing shifted it!). TF2 works good with it but I'm surprised that most of the demos we've seen have been for FPS games. That's mostly what I play on my PC but it's not a good showcase for this technology, compared to racing games. But as the creator chap said - the best Rift games will be the ones built for it.

It's amazing tech and I'll definitely be picking up the retail version too (the dev one is noticeably low-res) and I can't wait to see where this takes us.

 

[MGregory666]

Any idea on the cost of a unit yet?

 

[WordMasterRice]

I've had mine for a little over a month. I haven't used it too much though, I don't really like TF2 and the demos are just demos. I'm really waiting for the Hawken support to roll out.

All that said, it is a pretty amazing experience despite the lack of resolution.

 

[0098386]

I don't really like TF2

Ah see I love TF2 and was stoked to hear it would support the Rift so early on, but it doesn't work well in gameplay. It's nice to walk around in.

Have you tried the UE3 Roller Coaster demo? I think that's the best demo piece so far.

I'm hoping that GRID gets Rift support even if it's just hacked in. I think a Rift+Racing wheel combo would be an excellent experience.

 

[Huntn]

Thread revival...

Oculus.com- Next generation first quarter 2016. Better? I've always heard about the issues with virtual reality, eyes seeing movement, but other senses disagreeing, frequently resulting in nauseating results. Of course looking at a monitor is not as immersive, as VR but no puking involved.

 

[Huntn]

No comments? Amazing.

 

[Starfia]

Hi, I'm here – I've been following Oculus news forever, and I'd love to dive in and develop for it. Mac support has existed but not prioritized. I've tried a DK2, providing a healthy dose of reality to combat the hype. Nausea is something they've put a great deal of work into understanding and combatting.

And until then, there's Cardboard and the like. ^ _ ^

 

[Huntn]

Hi, I'm here – I've been following Oculus news forever, and I'd love to dive in and develop for it. Mac support has existed but not prioritized. I've tried a DK2, providing a healthy dose of reality to combat the hype. Nausea is something they've put a great deal of work into understanding and combatting.

And until then, there's Cardboard and the like. ^ _ ^

Of note, I've had extensive experience with flight simulators and the vast majority of people have no problem in those environments. Part of the reason I believe is because you are looking at a screen, surrounded by a flight deck that is stable. With goggles, your eyes only see the virtual scene. This must be enough to put many of over the edge into nausea, although I've never tried them. I'd have to give them a test run before I'd consider a purchase.

Interesting articles especially the wired article:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virtual_reality_sickness

http://www.wired.com/2015/04/reduce-vr-sickness-just-add-virtual-nose/

 

[Starfia]

Huntn,

Yeah, I'd assumed the nausea factor was intrinsic to having a VR headset on, and even then, people I've known to be working with an Oculus dev kit have said there's an acclimation period.

I once had the opportunity to try a flight simulator too – in this case with a mobile flight deck; I don't remember getting anything like false air sickness or anything.

 

[Huntn]

Does it work with any game, or must the game be written to accept it?

 

[Starfia]

I haven't read any technical documents or anything – I'm pretty sure I noticed that the dev kits essentially acted like secondary or mirrored displays, though. When mirrored, the input to the Rift was duplicated on the primary monitor as well. That input resembles a 3D image projected onto "stereo binoculars" – so, yes, that definitely implies custom implementation for the Rift. You can find some examples of this on YouTube.

In case it wasn't clear, Oculus has been supporting all of this hardware development with its own parallel developer community and software developer libraries.

 

[mw360]

Does it work with any game, or must the game be written to accept it?

The game must be written to support it. It's not technically difficult to add support, but not all game genres really work with VR, and others need to be redesigned to make sure the 360 degree 3D view makes sense. FPS games don't work as well as you might think (the player movement is very disorientating and nausea-inducing). Cockpit-based games work very well - the cockpit surrounding your pov helps neutralise motion sickness - but the developers need to add a 360 degree view of the cockpit (and the pilot) which they might not normally have to bother with. The RTS samples that I have seen work well too, but existing games might need a fair bit of redesigning to accomodate the 360 degree view, and the fact a screen based mouse pointer doesn't work the same way in 3D space.

 

[Huntn]

The game must be written to support it. It's not technically difficult to add support, but not all game genres really work with VR, and others need to be redesigned to make sure the 360 degree 3D view makes sense. FPS games don't work as well as you might think (the player movement is very disorientating and nausea-inducing). Cockpit-based games work very well - the cockpit surrounding your pov helps neutralise motion sickness - but the developers need to add a 360 degree view of the cockpit (and the pilot) which they might not normally have to bother with. The RTS samples that I have seen work well too, but existing games might need a fair bit of redesigning to accomodate the 360 degree view, and the fact a screen based mouse pointer doesn't work the same way in 3D space.

Back in the good ole flight sim days, the best setup was a joystick with an eight way hat switch. You had a front view, click up for 45° up, click up for 90° up, click right for 45° right, etc, with a single button which would bring you back to forward view. The other virtual cockpit scheme allowed you to use a hat switch to pan the view, sometimes inside the cockpit. I preferred the click, click, click, method because when I was dog fighting it was very fluid to shift the view in this way. With the panning, sometimes I'd get muddled up.

The other question I've had about VR goggles is how to interact with the interface. With the goggles on, you can't see your keyboard, although I suppose if using a joystick, you would eventually memorize all your buttons, but while learning it would be a bitch. In the past, I've kept a cheat sheet next to me to remind me what button does what until I had memorized them.

 

[Ursadorable]

Honestly, until they can jack the information right into my brain, VR is going to be a waste of time. They need to be able to fool all your senses for a truly VR experience. The current Video and Audio implementation is no different than back in the 90's when VR made an attempt in the arcades, it's going to be a niche product that offers a half-baked immersive experience prone to nausea.

https://killscreen.com/articles/failure-launch/

Now Augmented Reality on the other hand, I can see being useful, for things like HUDS etc. Microsoft seems to be going in the right direction with Hololens.

 

[prowlmedia]

Honestly, until they can jack the information right into my brain, VR is going to be a waste of time. They need to be able to fool all your senses for a truly VR experience. The current Video and Audio implementation is no different than back in the 90's when VR made an attempt in the arcades, it's going to be a niche product that offers a half-baked immersive experience prone to nausea.

https://killscreen.com/articles/failure-launch/

Now Augmented Reality on the other hand, I can see being useful, for things like HUDS etc. Microsoft seems to be going in the right direction with Hololens.

Er... No. it's nothing like the 90s version - High framerate, low latency, and most importantly high Field of view. I've tried the incoming Vive latest release and Rift Retail and it's incredibly good. The first ten will sell 10s of millions - In 2-3 years it's going to be selling in the 100s of millions - when mobile CPUs and GPUs catch up and it can lose the wire completely.

AR of course will be more mainstream - Hololens is good - but the FOV is terrible - like looking in a tunnel. Magic leap is where my money is though. Direct light field optics rather than a screen will be fantastic for AR and VR.

 

[Huntn]

I just got an OR, reports forth coming.