VR Gaming

Get off the damn computer, and play with your TV, it misses you!

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VR Gaming

Post by Animalor »

Regardless of what it's coming to or how it's done, I really don't want this to become a thing.

I didn't want 3D glasses on my face, I definitely don't want a full fucking facemask either.
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Re: VR Gaming

Post by Aslanna »

I don't get the appeal myself. I know in the 90s this was a thing as well but eh... It was never my thing. Sony just announced theirs and supposedly Microsoft is now working on one too. Because they are copycatters like that.
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Re: VR Gaming

Post by Animalor »

..and Nintendo was again first to the party.. in 1995.. =)

Buy yeah.. The only time I may want to look like Daft Punk is at Halloween.
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Re: VR Gaming

Post by Winnow »

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Whats with the 4 (FOUR) blue LED lights? Sony can't help themselves. They put useless Blue LEDs lights on everything.

Microsoft and Sony have been working on VR for years. Neither are being copycats.

After watching the live blog presentation for Sony's "Morpheus" I have no clue if it's good or not. Really vague. The only thing I got is that it's 1080P which is nice. Also means it's probably not using MVIS PicoP tech, at least for now.
1080p display
90+ degree field of view
100hz tracking
3 meter working volume
Full 360 degrees
Supports forward prediction
Works if you wear glasses
Current iteration is wired
DualShock 4 and PS Move detection with same camera
Fully adjustable
It's name is not reference to The Matrix, but rather the Greek God of Dreams

Supports custom headphones and wireless headsets
Works if you wear glasses...so there you go!

You'll have to buy a camera for your PS4 to use it! At least I already bought that thing.

I'll wait to hear reports from those that have used Oculus Rift and try Morpheus tomorrow at GDC. I'm kind of more interested initially in a great personal 3D movie experience. If it can manage that, I'll be happy for now.

Interested to see what Microsoft comes up with. They have a solid R&D department that is constantly screwing around with tech as well so I hope they have something decent.

I really can't even form an opinion on this yet. VR is going to be a huge challenge to all companies that try to market it as you have no way at all of knowing what it's like unless you try it.
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Re: VR Gaming

Post by Aslanna »

Winnow wrote:Whats with the 4 (FOUR) blue LED lights? Sony can't help themselves. They put useless Blue LEDs lights on everything.
It's not like you'll see them or anything...

My guess is they are used for tracking in conjunction with the PlayStation Camera. So no they're probably not "useless". At least not all of them.
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Re: VR Gaming

Post by Winnow »

New Oculus Rift Developer Kit announced for $350 pre order.

http://www.engadget.com/2014/03/19/ocul ... _truncated

That's cheap enough I might get it possibly just to screw around with. Need to see the specs, etc.

Looks creepy though (bug eyes)

If Sony's VR turns out to get positive reviews today at GDC, I may wait for that.
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Re: VR Gaming

Post by Canelek »

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Re: VR Gaming

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Re: VR Gaming

Post by Aslanna »

Aslanna wrote:
Winnow wrote:Whats with the 4 (FOUR) blue LED lights? Sony can't help themselves. They put useless Blue LEDs lights on everything.
It's not like you'll see them or anything...

My guess is they are used for tracking in conjunction with the PlayStation Camera. So no they're probably not "useless". At least not all of them.
There are 6 LEDs (4 in front, 2 in back) and they are used for tracking as I suspected so... Not useless as you indicated!
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Re: VR Gaming

Post by Winnow »

I just ordered the Oculus Rift Developers Kit 2:

http://www.oculusvr.com/blog/announcing ... kit-2-dk2/

It's 350.00 so I figured why not. It ships in July. it's going to be a year in a half minimum before we see Sony's VR headset. Probably Holiday 2015 at the earliest date.

I figured I'd get my order in early to get the first batch shipped. I did order as "individual" instead of company. They might give preference to companies since it's a developer kit but we'll see.

I read up on glasses and optics for the OR. There are three sets of lenses that come with the kits:

Lens A for 20/20
Lens B for moderate near sighted
Lens C for more serious near sighted

I think I fall into the Lens B group if I don't wear my glasses. I'm thinking of getting Lasik anyway in a few months. Can always wear contacts and OR does work with glasses although it's not ideal.

Interestingly, if you are farsighted, using the Oculus Rift isn't an issue since your focal point is infinity and in distance (even though screen is two inches away)

Even at 960×1080, watching movies will be somewhat pixelated since you're so close to the screen. It's OLED and they've made strides in reducing nausea:
Like the Crystal Cove prototype, DK2 uses a low persistence OLED display to eliminate motion blur and judder, two of the biggest contributors to simulator sickness. Low persistence also makes the scene appear more visually stable, increasing the potential for presence. The high-definition 960×1080 per-eye display reduces the screen-door effect and improves clarity, color, and contrast.
I don't feel like waiting a year in a half for the final product of Sony or Oculus. I'll wait 3.5 to 4 months instead and have some fun.

I don't know if they can swing it but even higher res would be preferred on the final product. I read up on some people trying out 3D movies and normal movies using the old 480x640 Rifts and, besides the horrible resolution, they said it worked well. I want lay back and watch a movie on a huge floating screen and check out some 3D movies. There are multiple OR apps that support 3D movies.

Here's a good video from GDC 14 covering the new Dev Kit 2 and it's features:

http://www.gamespot.com/articles/we-tru ... 0-6418402/

I noticed they said first come first serve so at least I got my order in on day one. That should help although I'm sure there were a shit ton of orders placed this morning. I want to play couch knights! I'm out of luck if need two OR's though. Not going to buy a second one!
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Re: VR Gaming

Post by Winnow »

So immersed, in fact, that it's easy to forget that other people around you may be watching and, thanks to the separate box that feeds a non-distorted view of what you're seeing onto the television screen, witnessing your actions - something I wished I'd taken into account when I pulled both legs of the rag doll up and over my shoulders and proceeded to pull its crotch into my face. (Jetlag can make you do strange things on a trade show floor.)
Ha, that was part of someone's Morpheus review.

Looks like Oculus DK2 has a slight advantage, especially with motion blur which is important.

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2014- ... -to-oculus

Good to have competition.
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Re: VR Gaming

Post by Aslanna »

Not sure why everything has to be a competition!

They're not even going after the same market.
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Re: VR Gaming

Post by Winnow »

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Aslanna wrote:Not sure why everything has to be a competition!

They're not even going after the same market.
It's good for the consumer most of the time. The only concern I have with Morpheus is that it's tied to the PS4's hardware where Oculus can take advantage of PC performance improvements over the next 5+ years that this console generation exists. Oculus Rift has a strong community and Steam behind it. It also has John Carmack, who, after I read up his history, is a genius at 3D development so I think that's a big advantage they have.

I don't know what I'll end up liking better. Microsoft still has to show what it has. I'm getting Oculus Rift DK2 because it's the only (and best) option available right now and it's specs are now worthy enough to try out. It's also a good test to see if VR is for me. No way Sony or Microsoft release anything before the Holiday season in 2015 at the earliest. There's no software/games, etc to support a launch. On the other hand, Oculus Rift has had developers going at it for more than a year and can soft launch their consumer product without having to worry about millions of unit sales like the consoles do. Ubisoft said today they won't develop for VR until there are 1 million VR sales.

I'm not actually sure how I'll use it. All three of my video ports are taken up on my nVidia 670 with monitors. I'm going to need to get an HDMI switch to toggle between OR and third monitor until I can find a 4 video port card. a Switch may be good enough as it's not like I need any monitors at all when using the VR as I can't see them.

I'm hoping for a cool 3D desktop environment in the future. I'm also hoping Microsoft takes full advantage of Kinect2 with their VR offering. I want Microsoft, Sony and Oculus Rift going at each other, pushing development on VR. I want cool shit. I want the holodeck.
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Re: VR Gaming

Post by Canelek »

Lawnmower Man.
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Re: VR Gaming

Post by Winnow »

Some people are wondering where Microsoft it in this whole VR explosion of interest.

Check out what they were working on back in 2011:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rJ1p5SD3sOM

It's been three years since then. The stuff Microsoft is working on might appeal to those that don't want to put something on their head.

I really like the idea of a wall that is a window to whatever you want it to be. Be it right into your parents or kids living rooms (in 3D, not just a display), or a 3D scene of the beach, mountains, busy city street or peaceful forest. This will be awesome. And it's probably about 5 years away. Perspective is the challenge which you see Microsoft working on in the video.
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Re: VR Gaming

Post by Winnow »

Facebook Buys Oculus Rift For $2 Billion

Facebook has just announced that it's buying Oculus Rift for $2 billion. Seriously.12

"Mobile is the platform of today, and now we're also getting ready for the platforms of tomorrow," Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg says. "Oculus has the chance to create the most social platform ever, and change the way we work, play and communicate."3

Oculus are equally chuffed. "We are excited to work with Mark and the Facebook team to deliver the very best virtual reality platform in the world," Brendan Iribe, co-founder and CEO of Oculus VR says in a PR release. "We believe virtual reality will be heavily defined by social experiences that connect people in magical, new ways. It is a transformative and disruptive technology, that enables the world to experience the impossible, and it's only just the beginning."
http://www.veeshanvault.org/forums/post ... 41#preview

wtf? Not sure how I feel about that. Oculus people must be pumped! They Rich, including John Carmack.
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Re: VR Gaming

Post by Winnow »

We started Oculus VR with the vision of making virtual reality affordable and accessible, to allow everyone to experience the impossible. With the help of an incredible community, we’ve received orders for over 75,000 development kits from game developers, content creators, and artists around the world. When Facebook first approached us about partnering, I was skeptical. As I learned more about the company and its vision and spoke with Mark, the partnership not only made sense, but became the clear and obvious path to delivering virtual reality to everyone. Facebook was founded with the vision of making the world a more connected place. Virtual reality is a medium that allows us to share experiences with others in ways that were never before possible.

Facebook is run in an open way that’s aligned with Oculus’ culture. Over the last decade, Mark and Facebook have been champions of open software and hardware, pushing the envelope of innovation for the entire tech industry. As Facebook has grown, they’ve continued to invest in efforts like with the Open Compute Project, their initiative that aims to drive innovation and reduce the cost of computing infrastructure across the industry. This is a team that’s used to making bold bets on the future.

In the end, I kept coming back to a question we always ask ourselves every day at Oculus: what’s best for the future of virtual reality? Partnering with Mark and the Facebook team is a unique and powerful opportunity. The partnership accelerates our vision, allows us to execute on some of our most creative ideas and take risks that were otherwise impossible. Most importantly, it means a better Oculus Rift with fewer compromises even faster than we anticipated.

Very little changes day-to-day at Oculus, although we’ll have substantially more resources to build the right team. If you want to come work on these hard problems in computer vision, graphics, input, and audio, please apply!

This is a special moment for the gaming industry — Oculus’ somewhat unpredictable future just became crystal clear: virtual reality is coming, and it’s going to change the way we play games forever.

I’m obsessed with VR. I spend every day pushing further, and every night dreaming of where we are going. Even in my wildest dreams, I never imagined we’d come so far so fast.

I’m proud to be a member of this community — thank you all for carrying virtual reality and gaming forward and trusting in us to deliver. We won’t let you down.
Above quoted from Palmer on Reddit (head of OR)

My initial reaction is that this is bad. The people in the Oculus community are the geeks that want zero to do with Facebook. I hate Facebook and never used it except for a joke account where it was needed to sign up for a beta or something.

The Oculus forums have a 95% negative reaction to the news. It sucks. OR was an open platform where the most brilliant of nerds were creating VR demos and sharing ideas. Reactions range from disappointed to cancelling DK2 orders. Developers posting that won't develope anymore or will be looking for alternate VR systems is possible.

No one passes up 2 Billion but if Oculus gets screwed up by Facebook, all that leaves right now is a console specific project by Sony.
I'm sure Zuckerberg has dreams of creating the Oasis that is in the novel Ready Player One. It's a smart move on his part to acquire a great new product. Bad news for everyone else.

He paid 2 Billion for an outstanding VR company and 19 Billion for some lame phone app. Valuations are so screwed up in the market right now. Microvision has amazing technology and can barely keep it's market cap over 50 million. Craziness.

For the moment, I'm bummed out. I'm still looking forward to getting my DK2 but am less excited about its future now and hope another independent company creates a solid VR unit or Microsoft creates something worthwhile that you don't have to log into a Facebook Account to use. There's always a chance for a surprise but I really dislike Facebook.
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Re: VR Gaming

Post by Aslanna »

Boooo Facebook. Booooo.
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Re: VR Gaming

Post by Winnow »

That's one thing we can agree on at least!

While it may not turn out as bad as 99% including me thing it might, there's a pretty unified digusted reaction to this news. I've been reading the Oculus forums for about a week now and the enthusiasm over OR was really high. It's a huge slap in the face to the original people that contributed on kick starter to get Oculus Rift going. Facebook is a joke in general to those with more than casual knowledge of the internet, but with the Oculus Rift crowd, the hatred of Facebook is much higher as they are mostly independent developers and super tech geeks.

I'm looking forward to my DK2 because that will probably be the last version free of Facebook meddling. I have to hold out some sort of hope that the first few versions of Oculus Rift will be OK as there's no other option. I won't refuse to buy something because of my dislike of Facebook because it only hurts myself right now as I've been wanting a decent VR solution for a long time and am tired of waiting.

If someone had to buy OR, I would have rather it been Microsoft or Apple.

The immediate backlash among developers etc is pretty severe. When you think of Facebook you think of cheesy cheap ass online games, micro transactions and Ads. Getting VR into the mainstream faster is a good thing. This will open some eyes and maybe get Microsoft to devote more resources to their Virtual Reality projects as there's nothing more mainstream than Facebook jumping on the VR bandwagon. I've adapted in the past. Apple's iPhone and iPad were so far ahead of any other offering that it made no sense not to use them. You'd need a similar "jailbreak" community in the beginning if Facebook goes with the walled garden but eventually that wasn't needed anymore for iPhones/iPads and I haven't done it in many years.

Taken another way though, look at what Apple did for phones. It pushed Android phone makers to keep improving their phones and features to keep up. A large company like Facebook that creates division much like Apple vs PC does will only help the entire VR industry. Oculus Rift is the best solution out there and I'm sure there's a fair share of Facebook haters at Microsoft, Apple, Sony, etc. Everyone is crystal clear now about social networks playing a huge part in everything. Apple and Microsoft won't want to be playing catch up.

The biggest drawback to this is potentially losing the enthusiasts that are developing for OR. I want a device that can access multiple media sources including independent small developers. On my iPad, for example, I don't use iTunes to buy any music/movies/tv but I can still stream all of my media (comics, movies, music, etc) no matter what the format. I do buy apps in iTunes though and you do need to log into your Apple account. I'm OK with that but something about needing to log into a Facebook account bothers me. I have no desire to be part of the Facebook community and have activities plastered on a Facebook page. I've never used Facebook and I've never used Twitter. Facebook is for grandmothers and Twitter is for celebrities and people who want to see how big a following they can get.

I can think of worse things that could happen. Imagine if Xbox decided to switch their left joystick and d-pad, making the product worse because it might sell better due to visually looking better in Ads. Now that's a horror story to wake up in a cold sweat to. Lets keep things in perspective. As long as developers have the freedom to create what they want, it won't be as bad as it could be, even if it takes some of them a little while to get over the shock of Facebook. My main interest is in the quality of the hardware. Apple has their lame "Gamecenter" that no one uses. If Facebook has their own lame thing like that and that's it, no worries. I don't even know where my Gamecenter app icon is. It's buried in some folder I never see.

Facebook's new "Paper" app is pretty nice and they've managed not to meddle in Instagram after buying them so there is some hope. This initial backlash shouldn't go unnoticed by Zuckerberg who might make efforts to reconfirm the Oculus Rift team will be operating independently. I think he understands Facebook isn't a popular name and is working on rebranding and possibly staying away from the name to stay relevant.

Some positive points from Palmer (head of Oculus Rift)
We have not gotten into all the details yet, but a lot of the news is coming. The key points:
1) We can make custom hardware, not rely on the scraps of the mobile phone industry. That is insanely expensive, think hundreds of millions of dollars. More news soon.
2) We can afford to hire everyone we need, the best people that fit into our culture of excellence in all aspects.
3) We can make huge investments in content. More news soon.
Customized high resolution screens designed specifically for VR will be a big help.
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Re: VR Gaming

Post by Funkmasterr »

Your world view and opinions on technology are getting more fucking ridiculous as the days pass. Facebook isn't a popular name? Tell that to the over 1 billion daily users. I know plenty of tech savvy people that use it, it's a convenient way to keep in touch with distant friends and family. Not everyone uses it to plaster pictures of their meals and every waking thought they have (like I have to imagine spang does).

That being said, I don't see this as being a good thing for consumers of this tech. I absolutely agree that any and every game that has been on facebook has been a microtransaction filled abortion, and I can't think of any possible implication social media could have in VR that I would be even remotely interested in. I'd want this for games and video, period. No Facebook integration with their shit cluttering up the UI, etc. I guess we'll see, I had no plans on being an early adopter of this tech anyhow.
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Re: VR Gaming

Post by Animalor »

Frankly Facebook is starting to look less and less like a tech visionary and starting to act more like Yahoo! in it's hayday. Buying property after property and doing nothing with them to hedge their bets against the next big thing.

They're deathly afraid of being the next MySpace.
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Re: VR Gaming

Post by Winnow »

Funkmasterr wrote:Your world view and opinions on technology are getting more fucking ridiculous as the days pass.
And yet I'd still have more insight than you even if I was in a coma.

Facebook is a horrible name to be associated with a brand new Virtual Reality device. If you had more of a clue, you'd head over the Oculus Rift forums and see how upset people are about it.

Here's a good example of the reaction:

Image

Does that look like a good reaction to "Facebook"?

Don't know why I even try anymore.
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Re: VR Gaming

Post by Funkmasterr »

Tell yourself whatever you want. While some people will pull away from this, there are certainly plenty of developers that will want to tap the 1 billion people that actively use Facebook, and this won't end up being some catastrophic event that buries OR. Not to say that it won't change it for the worse for people that want to play something more involved than Farmville, but that's not the point you're trying to make.
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Re: VR Gaming

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Funkmasterr wrote: Facebook isn't a popular name? Tell that to the over 1 billion daily users.
While Facebook has over a billion registered accounts I question the statement that they are all daily users of the service. Maybe 50% logs in daily. At best!

Facebook sucks!
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Re: VR Gaming

Post by Funkmasterr »

Aslanna wrote:
Funkmasterr wrote: Facebook isn't a popular name? Tell that to the over 1 billion daily users.
While Facebook has over a billion registered accounts I question the statement that they are all daily users of the service. Maybe 50% logs in daily. At best!

Facebook sucks!
No, the 1 Billion isn't the number of accounts, it's the number that are active (monthly, not daily like I previously stated, but that changes absolutely nothing). See info here. Keep in mind since January when that info was aggregated the number of Facebook mobile users has damn near doubled. You guys don't need to like Facebook, but that doesn't change the fact that this is a smart business move on both ends.
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Re: VR Gaming

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Funkmasterr wrote:
Aslanna wrote:
Funkmasterr wrote: Facebook isn't a popular name? Tell that to the over 1 billion daily users.
While Facebook has over a billion registered accounts I question the statement that they are all daily users of the service. Maybe 50% logs in daily. At best!

Facebook sucks!
No, the 1 Billion isn't the number of accounts, it's the number that are active (monthly, not daily like I previously stated, but that changes absolutely nothing).
Well it does change something since that's specifically what I was addressing. If you wouldn't have said (and bolded) "daily" I wouldn't' have questioned it!

Facebook still sucks!
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Re: VR Gaming

Post by Funkmasterr »

It's still over a billion active customers that they have a direct line to market to, which is huge. A handful of smaller developers backing away due to Facebook's involvement isn't going to have any negative impact worth speaking about.
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Re: VR Gaming

Post by Winnow »

Funkmasterr wrote:It's still over a billion active customers that they have a direct line to market to, which is huge. A handful of smaller developers backing away due to Facebook's involvement isn't going to have any negative impact worth speaking about.
It won't? within an hour or so of the announcement you already had the cancellation of one of the most popular games in existence terminated for Oculus Rift specifically because of Facebook.
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Re: VR Gaming

Post by Aslanna »

The public face of both Oculus and Facebook is busy assuring people that the company will be left alone, to operate semi-independently. In calls to shareholders, however, Facebook is already making it very clear that it has the intent to “monetize” the device with all the greedy vigour that term implies. That means virtual “product” purchases and advertising galore.

The worst case scenario is probably a closed “app store” style system where game (or social experience, or whatever) creators give a cut of every sale to Facebook. You can be sure that in this system, data would be mined and harvested and beamed back to Facebook at every possible opportunity, in order to be turned into advertising revenue under the guise of “personalizing” your virtual “experience.”

Best case? They really do leave Oculus alone and the company uses its mad investment cash to implement all the bits and bobs crucial to a solid virtual reality experience Valve was talking about at Steam Dev Days. The Rift goes mainstream and hundreds of game developers clamor to contribute the next life-altering VR game. With Facebook’s history and dubious motives, I have serious doubts it will play out like this.
I lean towards worst case scenario!
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Re: VR Gaming

Post by Winnow »

- Oculus will continue to focus on gaming, though there will continue to be other applications for VR beyond that.

- You will not need a Facebook account to use or develop for the Rift.

- Ads won't be included in Oculus hardware, and in-game ads will remain a developer decision.

- The extra money will let Oculus make custom hardware, hire everyone they need, and make "huge investments in content." All good things, in theory.

- There will be "no specific Facebook tech tie-ins."
The above was said by Palmer Luckey, the head of Oculus. I hope it's all true. No Facebook (Facebook is for grandmas) log in required to use or develop for Rift and no Ads in hardware and software ads would be a developer decision both sound promising. I don't know what they mean by no Specific Facebook tech tie-ins but the more I see "no" and "Facebook" together the better.

I also read article today that said Facebook plans to rebrand Oculus Rift. I like the odd name. Hope they don't come up with something lame.

I'm really looking forward to my DK2. I have a feeling we won't see a commercial VR unit until at least xmas 2015, a full year and a half from now. Good news is that the commercial Oculus Rift will most likely have better hardware than it would have. Hoping for 1440 res panels. That would get rid of any remaining screen door. Besides the panels in the head unit, most of the performance comes from your PC/GPU so as long as the panels are good, you can increase performance yourself by upgrading your PC.

Hitler reacts to news of Facebook buying Oculus:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UbmZTANzKsE

I know I know. meme but still funny. "Palmer sold Oculus to Facebook. He is now Mark Zuckerberg's fuck monkey"
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Re: VR Gaming

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A new post by the developers of Project Cars says that their ridiculously detailed racing game will be supporting Sony's VR headset:

Virtual reality is a perfect fit for racing games since the game world literally comes rushing towards you from the distance and the increased sense of depth and speed that stereoscopic vision affords you makes this incredibly real and tangible. So when you're racing you get a much better perception of distances and position and you feel far more enveloped by that world rather than just looking through a window at it.

Project Morpheus also allows you to see detail you might have otherwise missed… Via our interior cameras not only can you look around the cockpit and see everything from a first-person perspective, but using head-tracking via the PlayStation®Camera you can also now move around the cockpit too – peer closer at some intricate detail or turn around and look out of the back window.
Score one for PS4!


Wait for it.....



....delayed!
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Re: VR Gaming

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Valve's Top VR Expert Jumps To Oculus

Valve's Michael Abrash, who was just giving a talk about the wonders of virtual reality at the company's Steam Dev Days in January and has seemingly led the company's VR research, has taken a job as chief scientist at red-hot VR company Oculus. In announcing his move, Abrash also explained why Facebook's controversial $2 billion purchase of Oculus is great news:

The final piece of the puzzle fell into place on Tuesday. A lot of what it will take to make VR great is well understood at this point, so it's engineering, not research; hard engineering, to be sure, but clearly within reach. For example, there are half a dozen things that could be done to display panels that would make them better for VR, none of them pie in the sky. However, it's expensive engineering. And, of course, there's also a huge amount of research to do once we reach the limits of current technology, and that's not only expensive, it also requires time and patience – fully tapping the potential of VR will take decades. That's why I've written before that VR wouldn't become truly great until some company stepped up and invested the considerable capital to build the right hardware – and that it wouldn't be clear that it made sense to spend that capital until VR was truly great. I was afraid that that Catch-22 would cause VR to fail to achieve liftoff.

That worry is now gone. Facebook's acquisition of Oculus means that VR is going to happen in all its glory. The resources and long-term commitment that Facebook brings gives Oculus the runway it needs to solve the hard problems of VR – and some of them are hard indeed. I now fully expect to spend the rest of my career pushing VR as far ahead as I can.
Valve is one of the more attractive companies to work, but Oculus has proven to be alluring as well, recruiting top talent from around the gaming industry. Their most notable get has been John Carmack, Abrash's former colleague at id Software and now Oculus' chief technology officer.

There's no doubt that Oculus' Facebook investment—which Oculus and Facebook both swear won't change Oculus from operating, as planned, to make VR first and foremost for games—will allow them to hire more big names in the future.
Nice to see Oculus/Facebook still being able to recruit top talent. Looks like 2nd generation Oculus Rifts will be really nice as they improve the display panels and customize them for VR. Guys like this dude and John Carmack will help give Oculus the edge over some of the other VR offerings in the beginning. Loss for Valve, gain for Oculus. It looks like they have the expertise to make good use of the extra money available to them for design now.

Zuckerberg understands that you first need to get VR into the hands of as many people as possible before aiming for profits off the software side of things so I anticipate high quality at as low a cost to the consumer as possible.

July can't come soon enough! There are a ton of demos already available I want to try out.
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Re: VR Gaming

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Report: Microsoft pays up to $150M for augmented reality hardware IP

by S. Prell Writer RSS on Mar 29th 2014 10:30AM

The rumors swirling around Microsoft's me-too attitude regarding virtual reality may be more than idle gossip, according to TechCrunch. Citing unnamed sources, the site reports that Microsoft has purchased augmented reality-related intellectual property of wearable tech company Osterhout Design Group for between $100 and $150 million.

The big thing to note here is that Microsoft's IP acquisition revolves around augmented reality, not virtual reality. Think Google Glass, which is augmented reality, vs. Oculus Rift, which is virtual reality - the former lets you see the world with more information and visual enhancements, while the latter completely replaces the world and what you see with an entirely separate one.

It's also not clear whether this acquisition will lead to anything resembling the Oculus Rift or Project Morpheus for the Xbox; wearable tech is gaining traction in the mobile markets, with devices such as the Galaxy Gear from Samsung now on their second design iteration. In other words, Microsoft's acquisition of ODG's intellectual property may lead to new products which attach to Windows Phone as opposed to Xbox.

Really, any guess is fair game at this point. We won't know for sure how Microsoft intends to penetrate the VR and/or AR tech space until they themselves announce what, if anything, they're working on.
I'm also very interested in Augmented Reality and this fits well with my previous post about Microsoft's "window into the world" research video I posted earlier in this thread.
Former Microsoft executive, dreamer and 22Cans founder Peter Molyneux described something similar in conversation with us at GDC last week, as he lamented the lack of VR inputs besides a gamepad. He wants complete body tracking. “The only problem with VR for me is that I want total immersion,” he said. And trust Molyneux to also offer an entirely new idea, a virtual reality alternative which sounds even more like science fiction than Morpheus or Oculus. “There’s a piece of tech which I’ve seen and experienced which fires a laser on the back of your retina and creates an image which is ‘in the world’ in a way that makes it feel way beyond 3D,” he told us. “I’m under several billion NDAs so I can’t say anything more, but it’s awesome.”
This second quote gets me personally excited because of the last two sentences. The only tech I know of that can fire a laser directly onto the back of a retina is Microsofts virtual retina display which I've been waiting since 1997 to materialize. I've described it in the past but the gist of it is that you don't need a display at all. think of something like a fiber optics cable near your eye that projects an image directly onto the back of your retina. No display needed as it's projected directly onto your retina. No worries about it being too bright outside. The image is not washed out and as with all Microvision's laser tech, never needs to be focused.

For anyone wanting a little more detail on how virtual retinal display's work:

Note: The article was written several years ago. The components are now available and cheap. Sony is projected to make several hundred million green laser diodes (the Achilles heal of VRD for years) by 2015. There are two other companies that are also producing cheap green laser diodes now.
[Show]

A virtual retinal display (VRD) is a head-mounted display system that projects an image directly onto the human retina with low-energy lasers or LCDs. VRDs can give the user the illusion of viewing a typical screen-sized display hovering in the air several feet away. In principle the technology can provide full-color, high-resolution dynamic displays, but in practice the components necessary to achieve the full potential of the technology are either highly expensive or simply not built yet. Although the technology was invented by the University of Washington in the Human Interface Technology Lab (HIT) in 1991, development did not begin until 1993; the technology still needs much refinement and has only been commercialized in specialized sectors of the display market such as automobile repair and some parts of the military.

A VRD unit consists of 4 modules; drive electronics to break down an incoming source image into an information stream, a light source made up of laser(s) or LED(s), a scanner bank made up of horizontal and vertical scanners, and a lens to expand the image that projects through the scanners. As in a television, the scanners rapidly oscillate left-to-right or down-to-up, selectively permitting colors through in precise configurations that produce a high-resolution 2mm x 2mm field of pixels. Then a lens acting as an expander boosts the size of the image to something like 18mm x 18mm, allowing for a larger and more natural image. The pixel field is then projected onto the eye, where the eye's lens focuses the image onto the retina. Aside from tapping into the optic nerve itself, there may be no more effective way to display an image.

The virtual retinal display is highly efficient with respect to power consumption, requiring far less power than the postage-stamp LCD screens used commonly in today's mobile devices. A VRD display uses about a microwatt of power. Since VRD displays project images directly onto the retina, they provide a sharp, clear image regardless of external lighting conditions. VRD displays require a fraction of the hardware of conventional display devices, allowing for lighter and more elegant mobile devices, in high demand for today's electronics market. VRD shows strong potential to replace LCD screens in cell phones, handheld computers, handheld gaming systems, and eventually even larger computers such as laptops.

VRD technology is being exclusively commercialized by the Seattle-based tech company MicroVision, Inc. Two products available so far include Nomad(tm), a head-mounted VRD system that displays a monochromatic overlay of relevant information to a task at hand, and Flic(tm), a laser bar code scanner. Nomad uses Windows CE and the 802.11b wireless protocol. As the components of VRD displays decrease in cost and the manufacturing processes used to create them improve, distribution of the product will surely expand to a very large market.
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Re: VR Gaming

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Image

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Here is Michael Abrash's 28 minute presentation on VR at Steam DEV Days just a short while ago:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G-2dQoeqVVo&hd=1

If you are interested in what VR is all about and what's required to make a good head mounted VR device, this is worth your time.

I found it interesting that one of the demos in the video shows Facebook's IPO. Coincidence I'm sure but still interesting. He talks about the Rift quite a bit but that's not surprising as Valve had shared VR info with Oculus.

Glad this guy and Carmack are with Oculus. Consumers will have a solid first generation VR device in 2015 and it looks like it's going to take quite an effort to unseat Oculus/Facebook. Abrash talks about the PC being the place for VR as the consoles (PS4 and Xbox One) can't handle the "flops" required for VR. He says 1080 is the bare minimum for "presence" and 100 times that would help but he says 1440 or 2K plus panels would work well. 1080P isn't that much when you consider that 1080P is stretched out over a 110 degree field of view. There's a chance Rift can get 1440's before it releases a consumer version.

Check out the video. It's a good lesson on what "presence" in VR is all about.
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Re: VR Gaming

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I've got to add Palmer Luckey's 22 minute discussion on porting games to Virtual Reality. He gave this presentation with after Abrash's on the tech side of things.

Abrash's presentation gives good info but you can see Palmer's enthusiasm when he speaks about VR. About ten minutes into his speech he's practically breathless as he talks about it the rest of the way. He's very straight forward on what will and won't work in VR. Also interesting that he very briefly mentions Facebook. hmmm!

Highly recommend this presentation along with the one in the my previous post to get a grasp on what's coming.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-YCBadIVro8&hd=1
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Re: VR Gaming

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More good news for Oculus and especially for what I want to use the Rift for:

JooHyung An has joined the Oculus Team:
Joohyung worked as 3D Architectural visualization designer and VR developer for a few years. He developed "VR Cinema" alone to test its function of virtual reality to provide fantastic experience to the audience. He is developing various VR applications for Oculus and trying to promote the possibility of VR in Korea.
He's responsible for VR Cinema which is a theater app.
VR Cinema is my favorite Rift theater app so far. No bullshit, just straight up movie theater just how I like it. Also love the dynamic lighting from the screen, something I hope to see improved on as it really finishes the feeling of a lifelike theater.

Man VR Cinema + CV1 = pretty much the ultimate in home theater setup imaginable. Shit you could even simulate the crazy theater speaker setup as separate channels and use binaural audio processing to output it to headphones. Amazing. I think I'm getting a technology hardon from thinking of this craziness.
I want to watch movies using the Rift. This app puts you in a movie theater environment. It's multi-user capable meaning you could watch movies with friends in a virtual theater. Easiest example would be a spouse that's in the military overseas watching the same movie, at the same time, while being able to chat with and at least see a virtual version of their spouse sitting next to them. It may not be something everyone would use, but it would be awesome for those that have friends, family, etc that don't live with them.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SgM6aSWdWVU&hd=1

Check out the above VR Cinema video. The problem with VR is it's impossible to demonstrate but, watching the above video, you can see how the guy can choose his seat in the theater, how you can look around, see the lighted steps, how it plays 2D or 3D movies, etc. So cool. Keep in mind that's a first attempt at virtual cinema. There's simply no way you can get a feel for what it's like without experiencing it yourself. Looks like a kick ass way to watch 3D movies.

The guy actually gets up and walks around the theater which is coooool. (eventually you'll have a full body avatar) Notice the dynamic lighting reflecting off the surfaces near the movie screen depending on what's being played.

ATM, I'm more excited for watching movie/tv shows than VR games.

A couple of other things I have imagined in my head that I want for VR: Virtual Audiobooks and Virtual Comics.

For comics (and books), imagine while reading or listening to the audiobook, your virtual environment changes in the background so that you are immersed in a forrest while reading a scene set in a forest or see the great northern wall while reading or listening to game of thrones. VR has the capability to give you "presence" even while listening to books, reading an ebook or even when reading graphic novels. It's going to happen eventually and it's going to be badass. I imagine being an a crowded airport on a cold and miserable day and escaping to a beach chair with a nice view of the ocean while reading or listening to book or even while surfing the net on a floating screen with the background of your choice. This VR shit is going to be awesome. Of course, when you're actually on a plane, you want to be anywhere but on that plane so VR taking you away to anywhere else will be very calming, much more so than watching a movie on a tablet or laptop.

I haven't read enough on the Oculus forums to see if this has been suggested yet, but I'd like to see a forward facing camera on the front of the Oculus Rift which would allow you to see without taking off your VR headset. The biggest issue with VR headsets is that it makes you blind to the outside world. With a simple cheap camera and an easy toggle option, you could switch to outside camera to access your keyboard, take a drink, take a piss, etc while not having to remove your headset. Also, and even better, would be the option to change th opacity where you could fade the outside world using the camera in and out.

I'm so ready to try this stuff out. I've got a tech hardon for the possibilities like that other guy I quoted.
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Re: VR Gaming

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Oculus VR picks up Valve's Aaron Nicholls

We like to imagine that there's some fantastical conveyance – a giant slide or a catapult, perhaps – that connects the Bellevue, Washington offices of Valve and Oculus VR. It might help explain the number of Valve employees that keep making the jump (launch?) to Oculus' camp.

The latest Valver to slide on over to Oculus is Aaron Nicholls who, according to his Linkedin profile (login required), researched virtual reality for two years with Valve. Specifically, said research included "a wide range of perceptual and physical considerations necessary for delivering presence in VR."

Nicholls will be working as a scientist alongside other former Valvers, including Michael Abrash, now Oculus VR's Chief Scientist, and Chief Architect, Atman Binstock.
Keep them coming! The Facebook acquisition certainly has helped with the ability to pay for talent. If the Rift team is left alone, which appears to be the plan, they are assembling a very nice VR team.
Epic Games is also investing time and effort in virtual reality technology, Sweeney said. At the Game Developers Conference earlier this month, Epic showed off a new virtual reality tech demo, "Couch Knights," running in Unreal Engine 4. It's not the first UE4 tech demo Epic built to show off Oculus VR's promise, and it's unlikely to be the last. Sweeney is very hopeful about VR's mass market appeal.

"We're doing a huge amount of research in VR, working with Oculus kits," he said. "We see this as a technology that will influence every game and every platform.

"It's technology that I think will completely change the world," he said. "I think it's going to be a bigger phenomenon than smartphones. You have to put it in perspective and realize we're in maybe the [first-generation] iPhone stage right now where you have this really cool device, but it has some real flaws that prevents it from being a pervasive device for everyone. There might be an audience for 10 million users of the current tech, but as it improves with each generation, the audience is going to keep growing until eventually you're going to reach a critical point where you can put on one of these devices and have an experience that is effectively indistinguishable from reality."
Epic Games is on board the VR train!

Here's a video presentation (from 2011! You've got 3 more years of research since then) showing the technology that Microsoft just purchased for 150 Million. Seems like a steal considering what companies are paying for some apps these days.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qrDgFjBSVuE&hd=1

This is way more compelling than Google Glasses and look better as well. I gotta say, it looks like Microvision Picop projectors driving the display again although he doesn't say it.

Enhancements like seeing through fog and smoke, night vision etc. Worth watching. Gets more interesting as you get deeper into the presentation. I like what Microsoft is doing with their virtual window research and now this new Augmented Reality tech.
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Re: VR Gaming

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Don't like scary movies and I'm not a fan of scary games...but for those who are, it looks like Oculus Rift and future VR headsets will scare the crap out of you. I've been reading comments on people trying out horror games on the Rift and pretty much they all seem to agree it works really well in VR:
Honestly man I have a DK1 and let me tell you. Seeing things in the Rift changes everything. I mean Turok the dinosaur hunter part 1 would be creepy, with that really short view distance and all that fog. Life sized Raptors just popping out of the fog about 20 feet away. The Rift becomes "extremely" scary. One of the reasons is that it gives you the feeling that the world is all around you. You know that feeling you get when you realize that something dangerous could be standing breathing distance right behind you. Or when you are in an unfamiliar dark place ( empty parking deck in crappy part of town ) it's the fear that your back is open so you instinctively move your head all around trying to see everything around you. Basically you start to spin in circles. Hoping to see the danger before it gets on top of you. Well that's what the rift does. On tv you never really feel like something is right there because you are watching it on a square on the wall. But in the Rift.. It can get so close to you it can kiss you. That's when you poop your pants.
I never feel scared or creeped out. Not by movies, videos games, or "haunted" houses. I was hoping that the Oculus would do it for me, and I was very excited to try it out. I ended up buying DK1, and I don't think I have ever been as creeped out by media as I was inside the Rift. I almost took it off during a few of the horror games.
Before buying the DK1 I always thought " tss...these scared little kiddies playing dreadhalls and making all that fuss and all that screaming...I am sure I will be able to actually enjoy that game and get some nice kicks out of it"

Then the DK1 arrived. I started up Dreadhalls. I was in awe how real it felt. Heard a incredibly creepy noise. Took of the Rift and never played Dreadhalls again.
Normal games: you watch the game.

Oculus Games: you're IN the game.

It's the idea of presence. You're not looking through the safety of a window. Your surroundings are all encompassing.

Yes! I literally can't explain how different it is! Even looking at a picture frame is mesmerizing in VR!

I'm the same way. Video games and movies aren't frightening because there is that separation between you and the creatures because of the screen. It's like you're looking outside, through a window, from the safety of your house. Strapping an Oculus Rift to your head, along with noise cancelling headphones. Trust me, it's an experience.
Consumer version should be a day one purchase for anyone that likes scary stuff. Fuck scary shit! ...but cool to see that it works well.
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Re: VR Gaming

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Cool Oculus/VR item of the day. 360 movies!

http://gizmodo.com/meet-the-crazy-camer ... 1557318674
Gamers love Oculus Rift; the virtual reality system offers a mind-blowingly immersive way to experience digital worlds. Jaunt, a new tech company, brings the platform into live-action, cinematic territory. I saw their stuff. It was incredible. And it's a Pretty Big Deal for movies and media.

Jaunt is an all-inclusive toolkit for directors and videographers to record real-life footage in 360-degree, 3D video and audio, which is then viewable on a VR platform like Oculus or Sony's Morpheus. Or in other words, it's a badass 3D camera.

This is not CG. It is not some average panorama photo stitchery, where a single lens sweeps around and records what it sees. Here, the camera acts as a proxy for you, and allows you to experience video via VR goggles as if you are part of the scene.
I imagine this will become really badass and replace iMax as the high end movie experience. I can picture movies that allow you to move around a little. Fully immerse you in a 360 movie and then let you walk around in a little boxed area while the movie is taking place around you.

Cool stuff. I'm betting VR explodes in popularity in just a couple years. Mark this post! Before even the first commercial VR headset is available, I bet it will be talked about everywhere by 2016. At least as fast as the first iPad made tablets common day devices in a few short years.

More on Jaunt:
Inside Look: Jaunt Pulls in $6.8 Million in Venture Funding for Virtual Reality Cinema Toolset
http://www.roadtovr.com/jaunt-vr-virtua ... n-funding/

VR is going to be one of those things that has to be experienced to full comprehend it's awesomeness. There will be some that just don't get it and never try, or wait years to try it because it's impossible to show what it's like except for actually wearing a VR headset. Easiest way to tell it's significance is reading the Oculus Forums and comments from anyone that's gotten a demo. It's extremely positive. They have a clear understanding of how to improve presence and reduce motion sickness. They have already figured out a lot of how to adapt games to VR and what to eliminate to prevent nausea.

Game of Thrones demo is a good example of what's coming:
For the second year in a row, HBO will be hosting a traveling Game of Thrones exhibition, and the first preview of the multi-city nerd extravaganza is happening right now in New York. Inside, there's a prototype of one of the most thrilling Oculus Rift experiences I've ever had.

Called "Ascend the Wall," the virtual reality scenario places you in the carriage of a lift that's scaling the 700 foot wall of ice in Game of Thrones.

The overall experience is super immersive, even if there's not a lot you can really do. I stepped into a cage-shaped booth and strapped on the original Oculus Rift 720p development kit—rather than the new 1080p prototype. An exhibit staffer set a pair of over ear headphones on my head, and almost immediately I was transported to the icy northern border of the seven kingdoms. The gate to the lift carriage slammed shut and a rickety sounding winch started hauling me to the top of the fortification, as howling winds whizzed by.

I was swaying back and forth trying to keep my balance because in virtual reality, I could practically feel the creaky lift swaying back and forth. At several points during the roughly two-minute ride, I couldn't help but reach out and grab the bars of the cage for security. You can look around in every direction, and as the lift gets further and further off the ground, my fear of heights kicked in, and I had to stop looking down. It felt that real.

When you get to the top of the lift you hear the three horns, which signify that White Walkers are coming. The winch starts to go in reverse, and you go down a lot faster than you came up, and I was suddenly afraid that despite the urgency, we were going too fast, and that the winch would lose its hold and send me plummeting to my death. A nightmare come true.

It was intense.

After stepping foot in that cage, it's easy to see how the Oculus won't just be for games, it could be used for entire cinematic experiences. What if you could watch an entire episode of GoT in a 3D experience like this. You could look around, but not interact with what was happening, a bit like the long cut scenes in RPGs. It'd be resource intensive to make, but it would work.
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Re: VR Gaming

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Good example of how there's no way to show on a regular monitor what VR is like:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lDJUM7ltc6I&hd=1

It doesn't look scary in the slightest but you can tell by the reaction it has a powerful affect.
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Re: VR Gaming

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One thing that concerns me about Sony's VR offering, "Morpheus" is that the target specs for the Oculus Rift Consumer Model is 1440P at 95 FPS. That's what's required to get rid of screen door and allow for low persistence which is what prevents motion sickness.

Sony's Morpheus demo was good in most areas except motion blur. The biggest challenge for VR is not making the viewer sick. I don't think the PS4 is going to have the power to do it (neither would the Xbox One of course). I'm pulling for VR no matter what platform/shape it takes so I hope it turns out to be something good.

Even the highest end PCs/GPUs won't be able to handle it, or barely handle it at less than max settings at 95 fps.

Going with a 1440P display is a good move, even if you can't max settings. Here's a good perspective on it from Reddit:
[Show]
Some of you may have heard this story before.

Back in 2007 a game was released called Crysis. It introduced graphics to the likes of which the PC had never seen before. On the highest settings it was difficult to tell if it was a screen shot was from an island paradise or the game engine.

People like me with the latest good hardware installed Crysis. We were used to just running the slider up to "MAX" on any game we threw at it. When we tried this with Crysis we ended up with an unplayable 8 FPS average. How could this be? Didn't we have a top of the line computer?

We optimized our systems, bought a new video card, and got things up to 10 or 12 FPS and the question was raised. What would it take to make this game run at Ultra settings and at least be playable at 30FPS?

The answer quickly became evident, nothing from the current generation of hardware could actually run the game. There were rumors of a system that used several super overclocked video cards using super chilled mineral spirits as coolant that could make it playable, but this was way outside of the realms of the means of me and almost all PC gamers.

So what did we do? We went to the dreaded setting menu that we would usually just max out and ignore and started turning things down. Textures when from fantastic to merely great. Crisp realistic shadows were replaced with a decent equivalent. My HD4550 that I bought to play Crysis could handle a mixture of medium and low settings to bring me up to a playable 25 FPS.

At that time, the game may not have been maxed out, but it still looked really really good! Every time I purchased a new video card, I'd use Crysis as my benchmark to see how good it really was. It was only last month, 7 years after the game was released, that my new GTX 760 could actually play through the benchmark on ultra settings and stay above 30 FPS.

OK, why does this matter?

People are looking at the possibility of the rift having a 1440P screen and saying "there is no way anyone can run that at 95+ FPS!" The hardware doesn't exist yet, or is way outside of the budget of the average gamer that can push that many pixels that fast. I'm seeing this everywhere on this board as people grapple with the idea that they're going to need more hardware than exists to do VR at 1440P.

Once again, we've fallen into the mindset that just because the setting exists means that we actually need to push the settings to that edge. Odds are pretty good that we're not going to be able to run the consumer rift at full resolution on even remotely high end games and maintain their outrageous frame rate requirements. Even with the next round of hardware, even with directX 12, it's just not going to happen.

So why are we getting a 1440P Screen if we're not going to be able to take full advantage of its capabilities? For the same reason that Crysis had an ultra setting in 2007. They're ready for the future. This isn't going to be a device that you buy an incrementally new one every year. It could potentially be another 3 or 4 years, or more, before the average PC gamer can take full advantage of the consumer rift.

There are, however, advantages that we can get immediately. At that resolution, screen door should become almost non existent. Simple applications that don't require an intense amount of processing power like virtual desktops, and cinema type programs will be able to use the whole screen immediately. The outcry for better video cards will ensure that Nvidia and ATI have a reason to push the envelope on hardware for us.

TL:DR Expect to turn it down, expect less awesome graphics, and run at a lower resolution for several years. Eventually everyone else's technology will catch up with our expectations.
8 minute video where Cliffy B and others discuss VR at Game Developers Conference:

http://www.gametrailers.com/full-episod ... -of-gaming

I'm impressed with the realistic expectations developers have for VR. This panel has a mix of people. One guy is old school and kinda feels like he really isn't sold on VR. Cliffy B is more enthusiastic, maybe partially because he was about to hit a huge payday a few days later with the Facebook purchase.

I know people tire of my comments on things I'm passionate about. Here's someone else's comments on non gaming uses for VR:
[Show]
I'm not a gamer. Not anymore at least. Back when I was a little younger, I fantasized about playing games for a living. This was the time of Age of Empires 2 and Warcraft III. I spent nearly all my time playing games or reading about playing games. Things changed; maintaining a competitive rig became too expensive and I could never really get into console gaming. I developed new interests - mainly reading - and the only thing that interested me about gaming were the technical aspects - graphics, hardware, better controllers, etc.

So when I say VR is much, much bigger than gaming, please understand the background I come from. According to me, VR is going to change our world drastically. Some of the uses I can think of from the top of my head:

Movies - An obvious use. Most people here who've tried watching a movie on the Rift have been blown away by the experience. With 1080p screens, it'll only get better.

"Live" Concerts - Imagine a realistic 3D version of your favorite band performing your favorite songs "live" in the setting of your choice - a stadium, a tiny pub, or heck, your living room.

Metaverse - Think of a much, much better version of Second Life

Learning Experiences - This is what gets me really excited about VR. Imagine developing a history learning experience where you get instructions from a virtual avatar of Aristotle, or you get to witness the Battle of Gettysburg unfold right before you. Or perhaps you can go back to 2000BC and witness the pyramids being constructed.

On a duller note, how about lectures on Physics delivered by Albet Einstein, or lying down in Freud's office to listen to lessons on psychology?

"Tourism" - There are about 100 places on my 'to-visit' list. No way I'm going to visit all of them in this life. How about trekking through a photo-realistic grand canyon while wearing your Rift, or watching the Angel Falls from a glider.

Therapy: Scared of public speaking? How about practicing your speech before a virtual crowd. Or getting over your fear of swimming. Or learning how to approach women in a club. There's a post here by a Redditor talking about how using the Rift made him aware of how he used to shirk from making direct eye contact with others. Maybe we'll see more therapeutic uses for VR in the next few years.

Communication - This is what Zuckerberg was hinting at. "VR conferencing" would be like video conferencing today, except 10x better.

Porn - Obviously. But I also see it being used for sex therapy

It's a brave new world folks. Gaming is fun, but the above gets me so much more excited for the future of VR. I think we just might witness a brand new revolution in the next half a decade.
With all the possibilities including gaming, it's movies that get me the most excited initially for VR. I can't fucking wait for a good 3D movie solution, and even a great 2D movie experience. After that I'm looking forward to native VR movies.

That and I want to listen to an audio book while sitting on the beach, floating in space orbiting the earth, etc, as the book topic dictates. Immersion like that I think will really help put you in a state of mind for the topic at hand, be it fiction or non fiction. Daydreaming/Meditation/Stress relief is also something I have high hopes for.

Comments like this give me hope that VR will explode on the scene, at least as fast as tablets did:
[Show]
[–]spaceman2121 3 points 3 hours ago

The thing about VR is that it will attract the mainstream very easily once they've had a chance to play with it. I live in India. The level of awareness about VR here is practically 0.0001%. But I'm certain that if I set up a little booth in the local mall and offer people a chance to try out, say, Red Frame, I'll get 5/10 people interested.

You can't say the same for gaming. Most ordinary consumers easily dismiss traditional gaming as something difficult to approach, difficult to understand, or more often than not, something childish. When I got a new PC for work, I loaded up Crysis 3 on it and showed it to my girlfriend. She said "it's pretty" and walked away - she has no interested in the actual game. The visuals are striking, but it isn't something that's good enough to draw her into the world.

But VR as an experience itself is so unique, so powerful that ordinary people like my gf will be drawn in. She would love to just walk around the Crysis world without worrying about shooting at people.

Which is to say: converting non-gamers to VR experiences will be much, much easier than converting non-gamers to traditional games.

[–]djabor 3 points 3 hours ago

I know a lot of people who enjoyed the experience on my dk1, at my office of 300+ people, i had them standing in line with people who missed out still nagging me to bring it along for another chance. Yet most of them won't dish out the $300 / $350 now. For them to jump on board, the price will need to drop (the $200 target) and it will have to run on their current hardware. Remember that the masses are the people who went from pc's to notebooks to netbooks to ipads over a short period of time. I believe the mass market will arise once the cv2 hits and people will start picking up the cv1 at bottom prices OR the cv2 will have some internal platform to enable using it without additional hardware OR gpus will have some embedded technology to enable the stereoscopic view to be rendered separately from the game engine render jobs. In any case, i agree 100% that the oculus is far larger than gaming, i think gaming will be an equal part of it as gaming is to the internet nowadays. But i don't think the cv1 will penetrate much of the casual market until the cv2.

[–]spaceman2121 1 point 3 hours ago

Either way, I've never been more excited about a technology than VR. Heck, I'm learning how to code because I want to be a part of this revolution.

[–]djabor 1 point 3 hours ago

Same here :)
VR faces a tough road because unlike most things, you can sell it using a commercial on TV. See a cool car...want that cool car....see two circular shaped videos, wonder wtf the big deal is.

There are three things that are challenges to get the general consumer to buy into VR.

1. Get them to try it
2. Make it affordable
3. Not require high end PC to use

1 will happen fast enough. The more that are in circulation, the more people will have a chance to try it. I plan to bring mine at Xmas so my relatives, etc can try it out. 2 isn't really that far away. $350.00 is reasonable unless 99% of the people that experience VR are lying about their impressions of it. 3 should solve itself in a couple years. If PS4 ends up with decent VR with what would now be considered average PC specs, then a stand alone VR system can't be more than a couple years away.

The Facebook purchase, the more I look at it, also gives me hope. Nvidia, Microsoft, other tech companies should at least be pressed to take note of VR, and maybe increase efforts with Facebook making such a public move in that area.


Cool short 2 min video on where we might be heading!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xnz_Uc5sWOI&hd=1
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Re: VR Gaming

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This Oculus Rift demo is called "Experience Japan". Some guy walked around Japan with a 360 camera.

First half of this video shows how it works. Of course, as with all VR stuff, it's 2D and not impressive when viewed that way but you can probably use your imagination to get an idea of what some travel type uses for VR would be like.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XyYy-q6Bprk&hd=1
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Re: VR Gaming

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Palmer Luckey talking at Pax East having not slept for 20 hours:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uBkSOia_oWc

He looks exhausted but still manages to have a good chat with a random group of people.

Here's a presentation from a few days ago at the University of Maryland that goest over the origins of Oculus Rift and the Facebook acquisition.

http://youtu.be/DMcBzZmJPKw?t=16m20s

I bookmarked the video at the start of the Oculus stuff. The Oculus coverage runs about 10-12 mins. Worth watching if you have interest in Oculus and the tech. It begins where John Carmack sent Luckey a message expressing interest in his project on a forum. In just a couple months they put together a demo and won best new product at E3.

Palmer Luckey is only 21 years old. He started this Oculus Rift project when he was 19. I watched another video where he was on a panel and he mentioned his age due to references about products before his time and the other panelist just kind of stopped and paused in amazement at his age. Yes, you can have an idea when you're a teenager with no money and become a mega millionaire in less than two years.

Without having experienced the Oculus Rift in person, A few things are worth noting. Oculus Rift went from the idea of a 19 year old to being bought for 2 billion in less than 2 years based on impressions from people using it. That tells me this is no gimmick. As 100 % of the people on this forum have never tried it, all you can do is observe and try to determine if this is legit based on other experiences. If this was a game on metacritic, I'd bet it have a score of 98 with the 2 points knocked off for motion sickness that is being improved drastically in DK2 and with the developers having clear knowledge of what it will take to further improve that in the consumer model. I'm a hands on consumer for the most part, but I already know I'll be buying every new version released, day one, starting with the 2nd developer's kit I already ordered the day it was available to pre-order, four months before its release. I've never seen this kind of positive experience and enthusiasm from a developer community. Ideas to improve the hardware and the all the new ideas of how to use it is seems endless.
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Re: VR Gaming

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Do you ever get the feeling you're talking to yourself?
Have You Hugged An Iksar Today?

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Re: VR Gaming

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Aslanna wrote:Do you ever get the feeling you're talking to yourself?
There's like five people on this entire bulletin board. Who cares? Why worry about what I post? At least it's content and not someone just bitching about someone posting content which seems rather ridiculous considering the few posts that are made on this forum. Stick to the other post or two made during the week by other people. I post about what interests me. I don't care if anyone ever replies to my posts. I've started some of the largest threads on this board and most not flame threads. I post assloads about tech on the computer forums and in this case here. It's not like all of my threads are silent. What the fuck is your issue? The only wasted posts on this thread is the one you just made and one I wasted time replying to it.

What's wrong with this thread besides you having issues with me making posts in it? Am I off topic? VR info not interesting on a VR thread? No one owns a VR device here yet and it's an extreme niche interest. So what if I'm interested enough to post about it? I don't really expect responses. Go post about another weekly discount and thrill the crowds.
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Re: VR Gaming

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Do you ever get the feeling you're talking to yourself?
Have You Hugged An Iksar Today?

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Re: VR Gaming

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Wow. Thanks for the insight on how pathetic your life is.
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Re: VR Gaming

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Winnow wrote:Wow. Thanks for the insight on how pathetic your life is.
Ha.

I've provided a summary for you.
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Re: VR Gaming

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Xbox controllers are used during Oculus Rift Demos.

http://mashable.com/2014/04/10/8k-tv/

8K TV demonstrated even before 4K gets rolling. I think with the increasing speed of tech advances, head-mounted displays will be the quickest way to take advantage. 8K must create insane file sizes so that's got to be years down the road.

Oculus Rift roadmap:

DK1 = 800P
DK2 = 2K display (1080P is a 2K screen)
CV1 = 2.5K screen (1440P)
CV2 = 4K screen (2160P)

Screen size for the CV1 hasn't been announced but there are strong indications that is will be 1440P. 5.7 inch 1440P OLED screens are already out.

Oculus hired the guy that was working on VR Cinema awhile back. DK1 is only 640×800 per eye and the VR Cinema was already making a positive impression. 1080P will be a little better but CV1's 1440P should be well worth watching and 4k (3840×2160) I imagine will be mind blowing as a virtual theater 2D/3D experience. A little over 2 year timeline for that to happen and 4 years total from conception if it turns out to be a yearly product refresh.
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Re: VR Gaming

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Something like this would be an intense VR experience:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Bt-NqV4Gq8&hd=1


Below are ultra realistic scans of male and females:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7bytIGCeGxo&hd=1

This is pretty creepy, mostly because the guy giving the demo is a little creepy, but the models look real. Changing the environment is also cool with the little sphere controls in the demo.

There's another company working on scanning entire real people so, for example, you could have yourself, or a celebrity as an avatar in the VR world.

I think it would have been cool to scan myself in my 20's, or even scan yourself every 5 or 10 years and then have versions of yourself available for any age. It would make for interesting family VR photos or high school reunions where people get back together but use there scanned body from their HS days instead of the old fart bodies everyone is in for their 25+ reunions. It might be fun to play as yourself in a VR game or movie but I'd have preferred a younger version of myself!

Instead of thinking creepy, think of the possibilities. Some cool stuff. This could be great for old folks homes. A bunch of 80+ year olds running around in 20 something bodies having fun in a realistic virtual world. Seems like all the senior citizen homes are pretty depressing. Of course, just like in Second Life, this will also be great for the disabled.

In the future, it would be cool to be able to walk up to a fully scanned version of your great grandfather or grandmother, maybe in a 3D VR version of the home they lived in. Awesome historical possibilities. It won't be that hard to at least do a quick pass through of your home or place you like with a 360 camera in the near future. I'd love to be able to walk around some of the houses I grew up in in Germany, Italy, Switzerland, etc. Besides just being cool, it would probably work as a great aid to help you remember things from your past.

Games may be the first thing that gets VR introduced, but I really see lots of cool shit not too many years away that people will be doing in VR environments.
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