ashecitism
Member
I'm not sure if this has been brought up, but what about various post-processing effects and filters? How do they affect immersion?
EDGE: Sonys VR tech will be revealed at GDC
- Thread starter stryke
- Start date
There's already "virtual cinemas" for the RIft, even with (optional) seats and everything. And Valve has a legacy mode in the Steam VR client to play traditional games on a virtual screen.
It's entirely viable, as I said before the only issue is a loss of effective resolution. Especially with a 1080p display -- to get a real HD movie experience you'd need at least 4k. I'm sure it will be there by CV2
crazygambit
Member
You don't need a full game to showcase how awesome VR could be.
A ton of little demos or little encapsulated "experiences" would be more effective than just 1 game IMO.
Lots of small stuff like a sky diving demo or a rollercoaster demo is enough to get people excited enough to buy the thing (at least the hardcore), while they wait for third party support.
It's also great for demo booths to get people excited quickly. Usually those throwaway demos are pretty useless, but just being in VR would make them pretty compelling IMO.
I think their best bet is to have a lot of those ready for launch alongside their main stuff like Driveclub.
LegendofDragoonLives
Member
Nice picture, shame they couldn't yesterday...And here's one reason why I think it may be tough to compete with Sony:
You gotta consider the consumer profile and the brand... Valve is nowhere near this level of brand awareness right now, and especially not with Steam Machines.
Not really, no. 1080p OLED displays aren't that expensive anymore. I think it's the bare minimum you can expect.
Generally, you don't want post-processing filters designed to simulate camera behaviour for a VR game. (You'rre looking at the world, not at a film someone made of it)
Maninthemirror
Banned
One difference. Move came in more than half way through the end of the life cycle. This might work if it comes early in the cycle
BloodMoney
Banned
I don't want gimped, cheap VR. I want pimp VR, and am willing to pay $400 buck for fidelity.
it'd be great going by how fun War Thunder is even with the OR devkit.
That list was great though. Now I'm imagining a golf game, taking a shot and then jumping in my golf cart or walking gently through the lush landscape..
There were plenty of Move games. It wasn't appealing enough to be supported in every game by every Sony developer - and particularly some high profile ones - sure, but I think it's quite fine for Sony to let ideas/tools live and die on their own merits rather than forcing devs to use them.
As for the viability of peripherals in general, VR will be a more expensive one, but on the flipside vs Move:
- it may be a lot more compelling to both users and developers
- it is coming much sooner in the parent platform's lifecycle than Move did. Longer projected market life = higher ultimate userbase and greater dev confidence
- it will probably be seen as a much fresher thing than Move was (arriving at the start of the new VR wave vs the perception of Move arriving years 'late' to counter Wii)
- it will have at least one high profile peer on another platform carrying relevant software, and thus greater porting opportunities. Dev interest in Wii was already waning when Move arrived, and the markets were viewed as quite dissimilar. So while there was some porting from Wii to Move, it was limited, and Wii's dev support was petering out, which limited ongoing crossover
- VR may offer utility/value to games that don't explicitly support VR
Maninthemirror
Banned
I wonder if this will have its own processing modules in the headset to offset some processing from the ps4 itself
TimFL
Member
I always cringe when I read demo it. It's impossible to demo it properly without giving the audience the device to try it out themselves. That's also a big problem with selling the device. How do you convince the general mass of buying it without them trying it out? I mean retailers (the big ones here) barely have any game demos you can try (some still lacking PS4/X1 units to try them out), I highly doubt they'll get VR units for demoing.
Saberus
Member
Well, it won't most likely work with current ps4 software, only new VR software..so I would expect typical AAA ps4 games for VR to look a little less in quality, I mean the Oculus software has not been exciting visually but the effect VR has been awesome.
justsomeguy
Member
You say "Shame", I think "LOL"
Come on you Spurs!
Extremely unlikely as the bus that the headset will inevitably use will be too slow to be any use in this regard.
family_guy
Member
Then PS4 VR is not for you. Go PC.
TheKastorian
Member
I understand that but how many are willing to spend that much? Along with a console purchase that would be a $800 investment! The average gamer would not be able to afford this and the tech would -no doubt- eventually flop.
Oppo
Member
Well, this is what's fascinating about how these things evolve.
Often you will see these dead-end branches or false starts that sort of revolve around a brilliant core idea, but the tech isn't ready when the idea happens, or there are other forces that work against it.
When you consider the work done around "3D" (the glasses kind): this resulted in a lot of new software and thinking around splitting the image stereoscopically.
When you consider the work done around "Move": this resulted in a lot of new software and thinking around an accurate 3D pointing device.
Both of these things, by themselves, have relative levels of novelty in and of themselves. But if they are paired together in a VR solution, they suddenly seem to become incredibly relevant again. That's the part that is most interesting to me. We've had many of the "pieces" of VR for some time, but the stars have to align just so.
I watched gravity a couple of days ago on my passive 3D TV, so effectively half 1080p res (but appears higher due to stuff). Was very impressive. I think at least for 3D movies, the stereoscopy might help overcome lack of resolution. Especially if you simulate a very large screen, so you're at least using a large portion of the screen
ashecitism
Member
As someone who prefers clean visuals, this is good to hear. Hopefully devs won't go bonkers with them in VR. At least there could be one place, where CA isn't present
The Move sold fifteen million units, what do you think Sony's projections for it were? If they budged the R&D for being the profit from fifty million units or whatever, then yeah, but they would have never done that.
Likewise for VR, what expectations Sony have for VR within this generation is the baseline for guessing the R&D budget. Although VR is a little different, because it could be a pivotal aspect of PS5 too.
This isn't going to sell fifty million units. Maybe it'll do fifteen, twenty over the course of the eight years, but it's not some huge expenditure. Sony declared their HMD to be surprisingly successful, and it sold really nothing at all. It's a hit for the HMD market, but nothing compared to what VR is going to do.
It just doesn't cost that much to make this stuff. Valve apparently have a better unit than Oculus, and their R&D department is very small.
I don't think this will be happening in any early HMDs, but if the idea of time warping and continuous time warping cottoned on and became somewhat standard in VR titles, it might not be difficult to imagine a dedicated image post-processor in a HMD taking a signal from the computer/console and warping it on the HMD at the very last possible stage of the pipe before display.
But if same technique can be done as effectively without such hardware - and it sounds like it probably can - then I'm not sure if there'd be much benefit to that, certainly vs cost.
You'd need to throw some money at the Minecraft developers, but it should be relatively straightforward to do. The work already done on 'Minecrift', the mod for the Oculus Rift is already fantastic so they could borrow a lot of their techniques.
and Minecraft in VR is stupidly good, but quite different
plagiarize
Banned
If IQ and framerate are good, graphical fidelity need not be. I've completed Doom 3 and Half Life 2 on the Rift, and both were great experiences aside from the terrible image quality. Doom 3's dated graphics suddenly were fresh, exciting and atmospheric. HL2 suffered more from the poor IQ as it eats more into texture detail than geometry detail, and Doom 3 has way more geometric detail.
But so long as the graphics are of consistent quality, it won't matter if we're far from Killzone levels of effects and detail.
Not so much with VR in my experience. 3D 720p definitely has more detail in it than 2D 720p, and passive 1080p 3DTV sets definitely look closer to 1080p than you might expect since that each eye is only seeing half the resolution, but when it comes to VR the fact that things seem to be 1:1 and yet you can't focus on detail on objects just a couple of meters away is a wholly different experience. Something like Minecraft that doesn't have much texture or environmental detail suffers less, but when your eyes and brain are trying to bring someone's face into focus when they're only a short distance away, it's frustrating and breaks the suspension of disbelief in that environment.
It's not about more detail vs less detail... it's about being able to suspend your disbelief in the world, and what the minimum standard for that is. A split 1080p panel is likely 'good enough', but only if what you're seeing is native.
Reprojection is probably going to be the preferred way to 'cheat' in extra detail, but not having seen that in vr... even those techniques may fall short.
But so long as the graphics are of consistent quality, it won't matter if we're far from Killzone levels of effects and detail.
Not so much with VR in my experience. 3D 720p definitely has more detail in it than 2D 720p, and passive 1080p 3DTV sets definitely look closer to 1080p than you might expect since that each eye is only seeing half the resolution, but when it comes to VR the fact that things seem to be 1:1 and yet you can't focus on detail on objects just a couple of meters away is a wholly different experience. Something like Minecraft that doesn't have much texture or environmental detail suffers less, but when your eyes and brain are trying to bring someone's face into focus when they're only a short distance away, it's frustrating and breaks the suspension of disbelief in that environment.
It's not about more detail vs less detail... it's about being able to suspend your disbelief in the world, and what the minimum standard for that is. A split 1080p panel is likely 'good enough', but only if what you're seeing is native.
Reprojection is probably going to be the preferred way to 'cheat' in extra detail, but not having seen that in vr... even those techniques may fall short.
I have a feeling we are waaaaay too early in the gen for them to do this.
"You just bought a PS4? May I interest you in this headset, the finest VR 2014 tech can offer?".
Unless they are willing to announce that they will iterate as soon as the tech gets better, they will be locking clients into an early product just to be the first out of the gate. The next 5 years in VR progress will advance at a breakneck pace, leaving anything coming out this year outdated very quickly.
Still, I bought an Occulus devkit and I want VR everything. Can't wait to see what Sony can offer!
"You just bought a PS4? May I interest you in this headset, the finest VR 2014 tech can offer?".
Unless they are willing to announce that they will iterate as soon as the tech gets better, they will be locking clients into an early product just to be the first out of the gate. The next 5 years in VR progress will advance at a breakneck pace, leaving anything coming out this year outdated very quickly.
Still, I bought an Occulus devkit and I want VR everything. Can't wait to see what Sony can offer!
BloodMoney
Banned
I agree with you that a good price point is going to be the key to success. But if the unit is cheap to the point of having poor performance, that could end up biting Sony in the ass. IMO, it needs to be at least as good as Crystal Cove. I've used gen 1 Oculus, and it's not something I wanted to keep on my head for a long period of time... ie, excellent screens are necessary... but they come at a cost.
Oppo
Member
Yeah. There is a really significant stumbling block in the interface department; I think it's going to be a lot tougher than many realize to adapt older 2D menus and such into 3D space. There's actually a lot of problems to solve there, resolution not being the least of them. I do UI work so I've been thinking about this specific thing a lot lately, it's an interesting challenge. Our VR interfaces might end up looking a lot like Dead Space's at the beginning
I'm hoping this stuff gets solved at a low level, supported in OpenGL etc and then translates to a device driver in the case of moving to Rift or SonyVR or WhateverVR, rather than some crazy bespoke custom headache for each...
Ohh absoloutely I want the full 9 yards eventually, VR headset with camera tracking and "power gloves". I just don't want to buy into another false start as you put it.
I think the way for something like this to truly work is to be an integral part of the platforms inception. If this is the case for the PS4 then I am all for it, but I just temper my expectations based on what we have seen from a power/performance standpoint.
Why the heck is there so much negativity here? Let's wait before trying to shit on Sony.
Seriously, some people here seem like they're threatened by Sony having their own VR solution.
VR needs to spread, it needs a console manufacturer behind it to really take hold. Let's stop only giving Oculus a chance and give other companies a chance.
More companies supporting VR is never a bad thing.
Seriously, some people here seem like they're threatened by Sony having their own VR solution.
VR needs to spread, it needs a console manufacturer behind it to really take hold. Let's stop only giving Oculus a chance and give other companies a chance.
More companies supporting VR is never a bad thing.
That's the opposite.
The beauty of Sony's position is their fixed platform. They can announce early, because unlike the Rift, things aren't going to be much better if they wait.
Oculus could launch this year, but they won't, they claim they'll met or better Valve's unit, which Valve said could be made about two years from now, so let's say Oculus are targeting calendar Q4'15, then they'll be nearing QHD panel viability.
The Rift is going to be a while, because they always have advantages by delaying, and most importantly, PCs will always get more powerful as they do. Sony are locked into the PS4, delaying might get them a nicer pixel array or whatnot, but it's nothing like the benefits of delaying on PC.
They're committed to that target spec, and it'll allow them to launch far sooner.
plagiarize
Banned
I'd add software support to that too.
There are games I would happily spend up to $500 on hardware to play, but there are not many (I have zero regrets about spending $300 to play Doom 3 and HL2 in VR... both were watershed defining gaming experiences for me). If this thing comes in at HMZ pricing (circa $1000) it's going to need a LOT of software supporting it to make me bite off on it.
I spent $900 for my HMZ-T1 knowing that it would work on any 3D equipment. I've played multiple games on PC, PS3 and Xbox 360 using it. It's a cool (although uncomfortable) piece of tech that I'm glad I still own, but if it had only worked with the PS3 I wouldn't have come close to getting my money's worth.
crazygambit
Member
I think getting demo kiosks out to retailers is an absolute must for this to succeed. Like you said it's very hard to advertise otherwise (though I'm sure it can work if they take some artistic licenses). That's way many different small, but compelling demos are needed IMO.
Betta Lines
Member
Perhaps they're just going to show a prototype with some basic demos, confirm that many developers are 'hard at work' on VR projects, and offer a potential release date of '2015', and then stay quiet about it? They could just be wanting to put a name out there, acknowledge its existence, etc before people get too hyped about any rival products. They are probably closely following what Valve and Oculus are doing and may even be looking to collaborate on some level? After all, the fundamental stuff in VR has got to be solved, it would be better if everyone just worked together, sharing information at the beginning. Then they can all go off individually and compete again by making unique games.
plagiarize
Banned
This thing having PC support would be helpful to everyone I think. So long as not much needs to be done to program and configure the game to use both Sony and Oculus headsets, this could help drive software support on PC, which would only help Oculus.
Metallix87
Member
Why is supply such an issue?
I fully agree with this. Will be a huge priority inversion for many console developers though.
jhmtehgamr20xx
Banned
I think people just want something more next-gen for these consoles, and VR is that answer. I'm sure some jokers are positing it exactly as you claim, but they're in the minority. Most of us just want a more next-gen experience from consoles and prettier graphics ain't it.
That's how I feel about it anyway.
Maybe not, the reason people push graphics so much is because it attracts people, it looks good in magazines and on TV ads.
VR is going to be marketed very differently. You can't convey what it looks like in traditional mediums. The only way to experience it is to experience it. Maybe it'll be liberating for developers.
As beautiful as Journey is, can you imagine what that'd look like in VR? You'll have grown men balling their eyes out in GameStops throughout America.
Metallix87
Member
A unified device would be nice, but it won't happen.
plagiarize
Banned
People keep talking about Driveclub being the showpiece, but The Witness seems like a perfect fit, artsyle and performance wise. It's no surprise that rumours peg it is one of the supported titles.
Listening to the Valve/Occulus Porting games to VR presentation now.
Commanche Raisin Toast
Member
I'm with Stuburns and gofreak.
Sony is in a good position to take advantage of VR without directly competing with a likely higher quality product that will come later on.
Sony is in a good position to take advantage of VR without directly competing with a likely higher quality product that will come later on.
All PlayStation accessories seem to be in short supply at the moment, much like the console itself.
Perhaps Sony has a second-generation camera coming with tweaks for better VR support? If so, why would you ramp up production of the first revision? Of course it's even more likely they were just focused on the PS4 ramp with all available manufacturing.
Most likely they ordered too little from their manufacturing plants to cover launch period. And there is no need for second gen, PS4 Camera is more then enough to track headset. 240fps mode will track it with latency of just 4ms.
plagiarize
Banned
It doesn't need to be standardized or unified. All you need are drivers, and then games that recognize the individual needs of each headset. As long as the work involved as a developer to add support for a second headset is relatively small (and I don't see why it wouldn't be, given that you'll have already figured out the major VR challenges in supporting one headset), and as long as the gamer can just pick their headset when the game loads, there's no reason why developers couldn't support both.
your engine is already going to be using stereoscopically aware pixel shaders. you're already going to have built the world to the appropriate scale and level of detail. we're likely just talking about plugging a few different parameters into FOV and screen warping effects, and handling (possibly) a different set of inputs.
I don't know that Sony would do the driver work they'd need to, for a playstation camera to hand off the appropriate headset co-ordinates to the game, but personally if I was at Sony I'd push for it, because it'd be relatively easy to piggyback off Oculus development in terms of support.
Who knows, maybe this thing is going to come in under $500 and they'll get enough support on just the PS4, but programming drivers and writing a few libraries for developers is probably worth it to add to the value of the thing.
My vote goes to WipeOut. Sony always uses that IP to demo new stuff and I think it would be just perfect. Drive and Witness will be too graphically intensive I reckon.
What matters right now is which company is the first to actually stand on a big stage and lay out a concrete plan for their respective device, an actual release date, software line up, price etc. Patrick Klepek of Giant Bomb wanted to give Oculus Rift "best tech of 2013" i believe, or it was best new trend or something, but Gerstmann immediately shot him down, simply because the tech, while impressive and all, is not commercially available and so little is known for when it is coming out.
If Sony are serious about succeeding with this, then they need a concrete plan that targets the millions of people out there, and not just the device and vaguely hint at its release "sometime in the future"
If VR really is going to be this hot thing of the future, then the first company that gets some tangible information out there and manages to actually release something will be the one that reaps most of the benefits. Regardless of what enthusiast on forums think "came first".
If Sony are serious about succeeding with this, then they need a concrete plan that targets the millions of people out there, and not just the device and vaguely hint at its release "sometime in the future"
If VR really is going to be this hot thing of the future, then the first company that gets some tangible information out there and manages to actually release something will be the one that reaps most of the benefits. Regardless of what enthusiast on forums think "came first".
There's been reports of DC being demoed with it, The Witness is harder to know, but Blow hopes to hit 60 on PS4 when it launches, if it's 60/1080p, there's enough of a foundation to push to VR.
I'm surprised everyone is so down on VR in here.
All my friends ever talk about now is the Occulus Rift, so I can definitely see a quality Sony VR headset taking off in a big way. Yes, it will probably only be 720p. But at the same time, I'd expect the MSRP to be a more manageable $199 USD.
All my friends ever talk about now is the Occulus Rift, so I can definitely see a quality Sony VR headset taking off in a big way. Yes, it will probably only be 720p. But at the same time, I'd expect the MSRP to be a more manageable $199 USD.