38 replies to this topic

[Hodgman]

For those interested in VR head mounted displays, you might want to check this out -- a new company, backed by industry names like John Carmack, is selling prototype dev-kit versions of a VR HMD for $300 on kickstarter.

http://www.kickstart...p-into-the-game

I'm a complete sucker for good crowd-funded projects, and I love my TrackIR5 + triple-monitor gaming, so I've jumped straight on the bandwagon. Looking forward to adding Oculus Rift support to my engine in ~December ;)

Thoughts?

Edited by Hodgman, 02 August 2012 - 12:22 AM.

[Bacterius]

Just a random question (which is probably stupid but I feel it's relevant to ask), how does it work for us people with vision handicaps, can we adjust the focal distance to prevent blur, or do we have to keep our contacts/glasses on while using it? (looks like glasses would get crushed though)

[Hodgman]

They've added a FAQ in the above link -- sounds like dev-kits won't be very glasses friendly, but the final consumer version might.

This really depends on the shape and size of the glasses. The developer kit is designed to sit as close to your eyes as possible which makes it a bit unfriendly for glasses. That said, we'll do everything we can to make it as comfortable as possible for the developer kit and we have a lot of great ideas for supporting glasses in the consumer version (especially since huge portion of the Oculus team wears glasses everyday!).

[Bacterius]

Ah neat I didn't see the FAQ at the bottom, thanks. I can see myself buying this as consumer later, once games start to support it, which is looking good as apparently there are automatic integration plugins for a few major engines. I've always wanted one of those VR headsets but could never be tempted enough to actually go out of my way and purchase one

[phantom]

While it looks intresting given my own visual issues (most of my vision is biased to my right eye) the description of 'as close to the eyes as possible' makes me think it probably wont work for me which is a shame....

[Madhed]

I was just about to buy the 300$ option when I realized I have to own a credit card to pay via amazon... and I don't have one.
Maybe I will get a prepaid CC tomorrow because that thing sounds really good and I'm a sucker for geeky hardware hacks.

[RivieraKid]

personally this doesnt excite me at all. I would much rather have augmented reality head gear so I can walk about my own house (or perhaps a football pitch) and shoot baddies hiding behind my couch. With a head device that can process 3d environment in real time this seams possible. Of course if the processing power cant fit inside head gear you could off load it to a server or pre compute alot of stuff.

I think this is just a quite whim to make a bit of extra dosh to fund it and also to promote it. Carmack doesnt even need to use a platform like this and I think they are encroaching on people who actually need funding.

CLANG is a much better choice if you are going to support an indie kickstarter http://www.kickstart...260688528/clang

Edited by RivieraKid, 03 August 2012 - 12:20 PM.

[way2lazy2care]

personally this doesnt excite me at all.

I think this is just a quite whim to make a bit of extra dosh to fund it and also to promote it. Carmack doesnt even need to use a platform like this and I think they are encroaching on people who actually need funding.

The reason Carmack and others are supporting it is because what's required for a good head mounted VR display is pretty simple, but nobody is doing it. If you watch the GDC video of Carmack/Doom BFG; it talks about a lot of the problems he has with current VR displays, and he has some interesting points.

I would much rather have augmented reality head gear so I can walk about my own house (or perhaps a football pitch) and shoot baddies hiding behind my couch... With a head device that can process 3d environment in real time this seams possible. Of course if the processing power cant fit inside head gear you could off load it to a server or pre compute alot of stuff.

CLANG is a much better choice if you are going to support an indie kickstarter http://www.kickstart...260688528/clang

The former of these two is totally non-trivial. People have been working on this for years. It's not like nobody is trying to make things like that. I'm not entirely sure they fit quite the same niche either.

On the latter, it's a cool project, but it isn't functional yet as far as I can tell. That's my biggest problem with CLANG atm (OUYA too). Either way I don't see why both projects can't be funded.

[dpadam450]

This looks pretty sweet. If I had a stable job I'd probably hop on board.

I posted the Battlefield 3 simulator not too long ago here if people are interested look it up on youtube.

[japro]

Carmack doesnt even need to use a platform like this and I think they are encroaching on people who actually need funding.

It's not Carmacks project, he essentially just "endorses" it.

CLANG is a much better choice if you are going to support an indie kickstarter http://www.kickstart...260688528/clang

Was anyone else disappointed that that KS isn't about the compiler?

[Hodgman]

I think they are encroaching on people who actually need funding.

I didn't realise that Kickstarter had a limited amount of space?

[Madhed]

Regarding the display resolution.
They say they are using a 1920x800 display. That makes 960x800 per eye.
I've been thinking about the effective pixel size that one would perceive. Because the image appears like a HUGE screen in front of you, wouldn't that mean the graphics will be blocky as hell? Or would our brain somehow combine all the extra information (depth) and make it seem like a very detailed image.

If I put my head very close to my monitor so it spans my entire field of view I can see all the seperate pixels. I'm wondering if there would be a similar effect with the oculus.

A similar thought: Would it be possible to somehow render a 2d view where the image is offset a pixel for each eye so the combined effective resolution is the full 1920x800?

[Hodgman]

The kickstarter page says 1280x800 (640x800 per eye) for the dev-kit, and "higher than that" for the final consumer version. Yeah, it's going to be interesting to see how blocky that looks up close. If I put my head close enough to my desktop monitor so that it almost fills my entire field of vision, it is definitely a problem.

A similar thought: Would it be possible to somehow render a 2d view where the image is offset a pixel for each eye so the combined effective resolution is the full 1920x800?

Interesting idea, I wonder what that would do for your brain's acceptance of stereo vision.
Then again, I guess in regular stereoscopic vision, each eye does always see a slightly different image and your brain patches up the differences.

[Madhed]

The kickstarter page says 1280x800 (640x800 per eye) for the dev-kit

Oh snap! I need to read more carefully.

Doesn't matter. I can only imagine what cool stuff I will be doing with this thing.

[Hodgman]

I had a thought last night about how this will work -- Your vision is broken into 3 zones:

\  B  /
A\   /C
__\_/__

Only the left eye can see zone A, both eyes see zone B (the stereo zone), and only the right eye can see zone C.

Regular stereoscopic monitors/screens are usually at such a distance that they appear entirely in zone B, so when you render the left-eye/right-eye images, they're almost the same, with only a small offset/rotation differing between them.

However, if this thing is supposed to almost fill your entire visual field, then it would be wasteful for the left-eye image to render anything in zone C and for the right-eye image to render anything in zone A. Ideally, the left-eye screen would be positioned (via a lens) to fill A+B, and the right-eye screen would be positioned to fill B+C. If this was the case, then a certain percent of your pixels would be overlapping, but the rest would be unique to each eye, which would increase the apparent resolution much past 640 pixels...

I wonder if this is the case, or whether the device will only fill zone B? Or whether it will wastefully fill A+B+C for both eyes?

Edited by Hodgman, 04 August 2012 - 07:49 PM.

[Karl G]

For those interested in VR head mounted displays, you might want to check this out -- a new company, backed by industry names like John Carmack, is selling prototype dev-kit versions of a VR HMD for $300 on kickstarter.

http://www.kickstart...p-into-the-game

I'm a complete sucker for good crowd-funded projects, and I love my TrackIR5 + triple-monitor gaming, so I've jumped straight on the bandwagon. Looking forward to adding Oculus Rift support to my engine in ~December ;)

Thoughts?

My friends and I jumped on this the morning the Oculus came available...and there were already hundreds before us

Still, we can't wait until December to get started, so we set up a community to talk about Oculus development and brainstorm what we're building. We're getting some great discussion going, and have engaged at least one guy who helped Palmer Luckey get started back in '09. Come check it out!

http://www.oculushub.com/

Edited by Karl G, 06 August 2012 - 07:25 PM.

[shurcool]

CLANG is a much better choice if you are going to support an indie kickstarter http://www.kickstart...260688528/clang

After watching their video, all I can say is that type of "revolution" is precisely what I was hoping for to come out of the PS3 Move controller.

Too bad it hasn't really happened yet.

[ChaosEngine]

While I think this is a cool idea, wouldn't playing an FPS with this really mess up your neck?

Looking around a virtual environment is one thing, aiming is another,

[Hodgman]

While I think this is a cool idea, wouldn't playing an FPS with this really mess up your neck?
Looking around a virtual environment is one thing, aiming is another,

I already play some FPS games with a head-tracker (shown in the first post). Usually the head-tracking only affects your view, and doesn't control aiming at all (the mouse still aims as usual). e.g. If I turn my head right, the crosshair is now on the left side of the screen.
Check out the video linked in the first post - when it's disabled, the 1st person gun model stays in the the centre of the screen (except when sprinting, it disappears), and when enabled, it moves around the screen as the view is rotated. Make sure you've got annotations turned on so you can see the enabled/disabled box up the top left.

Edited by Hodgman, 07 August 2012 - 08:28 PM.

[CryoGenesis]

Shame Oculus Rift kickstarter ends before christmas. Who cares about about PCs and Games consoles when you can program games for something like this.
Would be even cooler if it tracked arm movements. I guess it wouldn't be to hard to build a metal sleeve that can give analog output based on bends of the arm. Just a bunch of variable resistors connected each connection of the bones.
How are they meant to do movement with this thing. I guess it comes with a controller or something?