It's not a games device, it's just a display. You plug it into your PC, which runs the games. You use a keyboard/mouse/gamepad as usual.Who cares about about PCs and Games consoles when you can program games for something like this. How are they meant to do movement with this thing. I guess it comes with a controller or something?
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Oculus Rift: Kickstarter
Started by Hodgman, Aug 02 2012 12:20 AM
38 replies to this topic
#21 Moderators - Reputation: 13602
Posted 07 August 2012 - 10:23 PM
Sponsor:
#22 Members - Reputation: 633
Posted 07 August 2012 - 10:30 PM
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?
They've done stuff with kinect, move, and wii-motes to track arms in correspondance with head mounted displays.
The reason this is cool is because it's cheap and assumingly good quality, not because it is new.
#23 Members - Reputation: 435
Posted 08 August 2012 - 09:13 PM
It's not a games device, it's just a display. You plug it into your PC, which runs the games. You use a keyboard/mouse/gamepad as usual.
Who cares about about PCs and Games consoles when you can program games for something like this. How are they meant to do movement with this thing. I guess it comes with a controller or something?
What about the head tracking?
#24 Moderators - Reputation: 13602
Posted 08 August 2012 - 10:07 PM
Sorry, fixed my quote.What about the head tracking?It's not a games device, it's just a display and a head-tracker. You plug it into your PC, which runs the games. You use a keyboard/mouse/gamepad as usual, and the head-tracker for added parallax.
#25 Members - Reputation: 220
Posted 09 August 2012 - 10:55 AM
donations are a limited pool. That limited pool should be directed to those projects that need it the most. If carmack beleives in it, join the project, fund it himself and take a cut of the profits.I didn't realise that Kickstarter had a limited amount of space?I think they are encroaching on people who actually need funding.
#26 Members - Reputation: 633
Posted 09 August 2012 - 12:06 PM
They are limited by the amount of money in the world, but that's an upper limit that will never be reached on kickstarter. Carmack has given them money as well iirc from his E3 interview.donations are a limited pool. That limited pool should be directed to those projects that need it the most. If carmack beleives in it, join the project, fund it himself and take a cut of the profits.
Giving money to this wouldn't stop me from giving money to other projects; other projects being not worth my money would stop me from giving money to them.
#27 Members - Reputation: 200
Posted 09 August 2012 - 03:45 PM
It looks impressive. I just signed up for the Dev Kit. This should be very fun.
I have an interesting experience with virtual reality. I once did an experiment (I'm not sure if it was a psychology, or an engineering experiment) a few years ago while an undergrad where I was supposed to calculate distances while wearing a VR display. They had a spot on the ground, first I walked towards it and and then stopped when I thought I was on top of the spot without anything blocking my vision other then wearing something preventing me from looking down (easy), then I did it blindfolded (I stopped about 2/3rd of the distance), then I did it with a VR display (also not allowed to look down), and I stopped about 3/4th of the total distance. It turned out that I was pretty typical test case.
They were trying to find out why people stop early, and also why people got sick when wearing it for too long. The current theory was that the viewing angle was too small and that the latency was too high. I'm assuming things have gotten better since then.
I have an interesting experience with virtual reality. I once did an experiment (I'm not sure if it was a psychology, or an engineering experiment) a few years ago while an undergrad where I was supposed to calculate distances while wearing a VR display. They had a spot on the ground, first I walked towards it and and then stopped when I thought I was on top of the spot without anything blocking my vision other then wearing something preventing me from looking down (easy), then I did it blindfolded (I stopped about 2/3rd of the distance), then I did it with a VR display (also not allowed to look down), and I stopped about 3/4th of the total distance. It turned out that I was pretty typical test case.
They were trying to find out why people stop early, and also why people got sick when wearing it for too long. The current theory was that the viewing angle was too small and that the latency was too high. I'm assuming things have gotten better since then.
The sentence below is true.The sentence above is false.And by the way, this sentence only exists when you are reading it.
#28 Crossbones+ - Reputation: 744
Posted 10 August 2012 - 11:16 PM
I don't think I would rake out 300 and also rewrite the majority of the rendering functions in my programs just to accommodate a fancy pair of glasses that are somehow better than those things that popped up at arcades in the 90's. Not to be a pessimist, but they really do seem a long way off from having a chance at becoming remotely mainstream. But, it would be cool to use them, even if you had to use a mouse and couldn't control it with your head (which I am under the impression that you CAN control it with your head). I would hate to tackle the problems that would arise from different eye angles on different people, though.
"The only thing stopping you from what you want in the future is what you want right now." - Zig Ziglar
#29 Moderators - Reputation: 13602
Posted 11 August 2012 - 06:02 AM
A head-tracker is just another input device (with 6 DOF, equiv to 2 thumbsticks, or a gyro+accelerometer, etc). It's up to each individual game how they make use of input devices, or which ones they support.I am under the impression that you CAN control it with your head
All of the games I've played so far that support head-trackers have used them to adjust your in-game head/neck's viewpoint naturally, around the default orientation of your body/vehicle as controlled by your mouse/thumb-stick.
That's not really true. The project you linked to wants pledges from gamers that want an awesome sword fighting game (and it does look awesome), this project is aimed at developers who want to fund a first production-run dev-kit of a new HMD. That's two (mostly) different pools. I'm in both pools and have backed devices like this and the Ouya, as well as a lot of games... And I've never said to myself "I'd love to back that game, but I've already given out my kickstarter quota, I wish I didn't order a copy of that less deserving game!"donations are a limited pool. That limited pool should be directed to those projects that need it the most.
Also, the project you linked is also marketed with a bunch of expensive videos and backed by a very successful novelist, so it doesnt seem to coming from a very different place financially.
#32 Members - Reputation: 537
Posted 20 August 2012 - 10:57 AM
7,269 people signed up for the developer version alone. And from all the videos of game reviewers / media personalities, I would say it's most likely going mainstream. If you watch the videos they are clearly better than anything in the 90's, as backed up by one of the biggest tech guys John Carmack...I don't think I would rake out 300 and also rewrite the majority of the rendering functions in my programs just to accommodate a fancy pair of glasses that are somehow better than those things that popped up at arcades in the 90's. Not to be a pessimist, but they really do seem a long way off from having a chance at becoming remotely mainstream.
Why exactly would you re-write rendering functions.......do you know how programming works? It is a display. Do you re-write code for Asus vs Dell monitors? All you have to do is probably spend a few hours to get the interface working.
#34 Crossbones+ - Reputation: 744
Posted 20 August 2012 - 04:50 PM
Why oh why did I waste my money on the Ouya, which is NOT going mainstream, and most likely will fail? Now I won't spend any more money on Kickstarter, but ORift would definitely have been a better choice. I regret buying an Ouya kit, I should have just got an Orift kit. That is going to be far more successful.
"The only thing stopping you from what you want in the future is what you want right now." - Zig Ziglar
#35 Members - Reputation: 537
Posted 20 August 2012 - 05:01 PM
Same.I would have signed up, but I want to wait for the consumer version and don't want to buy it twice :/
Ouya could go mainstream. From reading about Fez and they had to pay 10,000 some dollars to get their game certified, Ouya won't need this. So it could be very very good for indie games. I didn't support that one because it is too early on what will be supported. Whether it is mainstream or not, as long as it has some good games it is valuable.Why oh why did I waste my money on the Ouya, which is NOT going mainstream
#36 Members - Reputation: 633
Posted 20 August 2012 - 07:09 PM
Fez didn't pay that much to get the game certified (at least where you get the number I believe is wrong). They would have had to pay more money for re-certification to patch in bug fixes and they'd already used their one free patch, which caused the game breaking bug. I believe that 10s of thousands number is based off the number of downloaded copies when the patch goes in also.Ouya could go mainstream. From reading about Fez and they had to pay 10,000 some dollars to get their game certified, Ouya won't need this. So it could be very very good for indie games. I didn't support that one because it is too early on what will be supported. Whether it is mainstream or not, as long as it has some good games it is valuable.
To my knowledge the reason you don't get infinite patches, aside from MS not wanting to host a crapload of patches, is because XBLA games should be complete on release, and any unforseen problems that arise outside of testing should be solved with your free patch.
#37 Members - Reputation: 537
Posted 20 August 2012 - 10:21 PM
Well I believe I heard someone at a job I worked mentioned that number. Either way I will bet that certifying your game costs quite a lot of money. The console companies aren't going to pay people for free for weeks to certify you. It's gotta be up there for costs.
#38 Members - Reputation: 633
Posted 20 August 2012 - 11:04 PM
Well I believe I heard someone at a job I worked mentioned that number. Either way I will bet that certifying your game costs quite a lot of money. The console companies aren't going to pay people for free for weeks to certify you. It's gotta be up there for costs.
I would imagine they didn't charge them outright (MS was also one of their publishers). More likely they would recoup the costs off future royalties. In the case of their original certification, MS probably covered it because they 1. were their publisher and 2. split a hefty chunk of the revenue (30-40% most likely) off of the games sales.
That said, an open market does not always mean higher profits. If you want a low barrier market just look at Apple, Android, and WP7/8. The best games on those markets outpace the best games on XBLA, but I'd bet the average game on XBLA makes more money than the average game on any of those platforms. I don't know the average for an XBLA game, but to my knowledge the average iPhone game makes around $2000.
It could be argued that XBLA games are forced to be higher quality because of certification/development costs, but I'd wager XBLA games are making more than the median earning games of the top 50% of best selling iPhone apps, though the gap would be closer. It would most definitely be higher than the median earning (by revenue) games of the top 50% of iphone games by development cost.
#39 Moderators - Reputation: 13602
Posted 20 August 2012 - 11:44 PM
Yes, console certification costs between ~$10,000 to ~$40,000, same with certified patches. N.B. if you fail certification, then you lose this money. You've got to cough up a 2nd time after you've fixed the problems found by the first attempt!Ouya could go mainstream. From reading about Fez and they had to pay 10,000 some dollars to get their game certified, Ouya won't need this. So it could be very very good for indie games.
I believe I heard someone at a job I worked mentioned that number. Either way I will bet that certifying your game costs quite a lot of money. The console companies aren't going to pay people for free for weeks to certify you. It's gotta be up there for costs.
Doesn't matter who you are or what your game is, the same costs apply to everyone. Because of this, I've seen a common trend of companies saving money by certifying their builds one at a time (e.g. ps3 first, then 360) in case the certification process turns up a bug (which would likely result in failing both, resulting in another several tens of thousands spent on the 2nd attempt at certification).
On top of that, it's almost impossible to get a game on to XBLA -- only publishers can make submissions, and MS has a capped quota of accepted games per quarter that they never exceed.
It would almost be impossible for Ouya to be that indie-unfriendly!
Edited by Hodgman, 20 August 2012 - 11:46 PM.
