Masters of Doom Book - Romero/Carmack and VR Headsets

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Winnow
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Masters of Doom Book - Romero/Carmack and VR Headsets

Post by Winnow »

I listened to the Audiobook, "Masters of Doom" over the past few days. It deals with the early history of John Carmack and John Romero who created ID Software and the Doom/Quake Games.

I'm remarking on it here instead of the book section because it has some current gaming implications.

First, after listening to the history, it's clear to see John Carmack is a genius and John Romero not so much. While Romero was mostly known for level design, it was John Carmack that is responsible for the beginning and advancement of the engines that powered the early FPS games. Game after game, the rest of ID waited for Carmack to finish the engines and then they just threw on the textures and designed levels.

I don't really recommend the book. It covers a lot of bickering and issues they had. Lots of personality conflicts. Their actual accomplishments can be better summarized elsewhere.

In brief, Romero's been a complete failure (IMO) after leaving ID.

On the other hand, I've gained a lot of respect for John Carmack and am excited that he left ID to join the Oculus Rift project. The guy is brilliant and while I won't go into all of his accomplishments, he had a ton of them.

From this Youtube interview, it appears that he's working on the SDK or engine that will help programers develop games for the Oculus Rift:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AkasIFGpSHI&hd=1

It looks like they are working on addressing the motion sickness issues. I get sick playing some FPS games so it's a big concern of mine. I'd play Duke Nuk'e, 3D until I was close to puking and then have to rest my eyes for 30 mins before I could continue. More recent games have less affect on me except for the ones where the developers choose to make the camera bounce while you walk. As with shaky cam in movies, that "feature" sucks ass.

Sony will be presenting a competing VR headset for the PS4 next month. My concern is if they will be able to handle the head tracking and engine to make it as capable as the Oculus Rift. Sony has Microvision's Picop technology so, if not in the first gen of the VR headset, I know they will have the tech to present clear high def images in small spaces but all is for naught if you get sick using it. Microvision's tech isn't exclusive to Sony though so it's possible Oculus and other head mounted displays will use it, providing extremely light HD headsets. Maybe at some point they'll use their original virtual retinal display technology where you don't need a screen at all as the image is scanned directly onto your retina.

I'm ready for a VR headset. It's time has come so one of these systems needs to deliver.

Check out some of there reactions to first time using Oculus Rift:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=INDKNA7kXoo&=hd1

pretty funny stuff. I think you're going to need to secure yourself so you don't hurt yourself or break things while using these! While that was a roller coaster ride for the most part, they appear to work well when it comes to immersion. I tend to imagine using them used more for relaxation by heading off to a beach or whatever other environment makes you feel good and chill out for a few minutes at work, etc.
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Re: Masters of Doom Book - Romero/Carmack and VR Headsets

Post by Winnow »

Recent 2.5 hour interview of John Carmack on the Joe Rogan podcast:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=udlMSe5-zP8

Sort of an interview. Thankfully Carmack speaks 95% of the time. Very clear speaker. He's not as technical in this interview since it's Rogan.
Joe: Explain this to me like I'm a dummy
John: So, if you draw out a probability density function
He tries to explain a bit of quantum mechanics to Joe. lol

Absolute genius. Every time he speaks, I find out more amazing things he's done. I didn't know he was into rocketry. If he wasn't working on Virtual Reality at Facebook, he'd have a instant job over at Space X where he's visited and Elon Musk also showed him the mind control tech he's working on.

Carmack is the nerdiest of nerds but he can also choke you out! Found out he has some history with Jujitsu in this interview.

Carmack's keynote at last year's Oculus Connect Developer conference. May give a better sense of why Oculus/Facebook is lucky to have him.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VW6tgBcN_fA&t
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